As you are reading these words, take a moment to feel the chair you are sitting on, the ground under your feet, the table you rest your elbow on, the pad you rest your wrist on -or are you holding all this from your shoulder?-, feel the mouse or touchpad under your finger, the way your eyes receive the image on the screen….. Feel the way you use your body to relate to these things of the material world. Let your attention slide down your shoulders and spine and notice the way you shape yourself in relationship to the space below and around you as well as to the implements you use.
Notice the motions of your breath and how they change the shape of your body and the way it touches the things of the material world you are in contact with. Air has a weight and a volume. As you inhale, it expands you in all dimensions and it adds its weight to the weight of your body. When you exhale, you rest into yourself and towards the ground. Allow these movements without forcing anything. Observe the sensations that appear with the movement of expansion which is characteristic of breathing in, and those you feel while you rest inside and towards the ground in breathing out. After letting out all the air that goes easily, there is a moment of rest because really you do not need to take a breath right away. Give yourself permission to take this rest. You can have it thousands of times every day of your life. Resting into the very depth of your being, as you let out used up air, and allowing a breath of new air into this depth will help you navigate even the most troubled waters of life without losing your course. It helps you enjoy the mere fact of being alive, even if nothing particular is going on.
If you pay attention to what the pressure of your body against the surfaces it comes into contact with feels like, curiously, as much while you breathe in as while you breathe out, you will notice an increase in pressure. Nonetheless, there is a difference. Even though the weight of the air adds on to your own, and so, while you breathe in, you weigh more and the pressure of your body against the surface is higher, it feels like you are bumping off the surface. The space you occupy with your body gets wider and you move towards the space that surrounds you.When you breathe out, the extra weight goes away, all muscles relax and everything drops towards the ground, thus it feels like there is more pressure. But now it is as if the body is resting into the surface it is in touch with, chair, ground, sofa.. .
As you inhale, you may find something restricting the movement of expansion which is characteristic of inspiration. Similarly, as you exhale, something may get in the way of you resting into the depth of your being, as fully as you are entitled to for having been born in this world.
Just feel the space you take up with your body, with your breath. Allow breath to happen. Give yourself the time you need to let the inhale expand your body until you feel the tension that sets a limit to the movement of expansion. Give yourself the time you need to let the air out that will go easily, just resting into yourself. The weight of your bones and flesh is enough to make that happen. When you notice something you cannot just let go, that is the tension that sets a limit to the movement of resting into the depth of your being and into the ground. Get to know these limits. Explore them. Get a feel for them.
While you pay attention to your breath and explore the sensations that appear around the tensions which limit the characteristic movements of breathing in and out, you may start to feel breathless and even get a sense of asphyxiation. Although you are probably allowing more air in than usually, this sensation reflects something which is true. There is a part of you being asphyxiated, a part which you hold still, when you breathe the way you usually do. While it remains still, it is outside your awareness. When it starts to move you begin to be able to feel it. See if you can make some slight changes in the relationship between your body and the chair, the ground, the computer… shifting the way different parts of you body relate to each other and find a way that makes the flow of your breath easier.
Let the air nourish you. Let it nourish particularly this part of yourself that you tend to hold still, away from the flow of life. Allow it to participate in the fullness of you. Listen to the stories it can tell you about the past, the present and the future, about the feelings you harbor in this part.
With all of yourself at your disposal, explore what is true and what isn’t in these stories. What is really happening in this moment, now, as you let life move the part of you which tends to remain still unless you deliberately allow it to participate in the fluctuations of expansion and rest? Let the movements of your breath clarify the shape of the beliefs and concepts you hold onto. Often they are based on nothing but a singular experience which you had when you were a little child and did not have the means and wherewithal to be able to understand the complexity of what was going on.
Allow your breath to let go of the tension which holds those beliefs and concepts in place. Feel the richness and depth of life as it flows through the space you occupy with your body and moves you the same way the first unicellular being that was alive on this planet moved: expanding out and resting into yourself. You’ve come a long way since then.
Let your breath teach you how to be supported by the ground under you and the space around you. Let your breath teach you about time and its rhythms so it can carry you through good times and hard times. Learn to distinguish sensations which require you to take action from those which keep you acting out a pattern which was created long ago, maybe even before you were born.
If there is a place that you cannot just let go of, even if you find optimal support for it in gravity, use your inhale as if it was a thread which you string through where the tightness is tightest. Allow it to expand from within, ever so slightly. Don’t force it. Don’t go over it. Ever so slightly allow the inhale to expand the tightness from within. Then, rest into it. Give yourself permission to rest into the tightness. Give the tightness permission to rest. Then again, thread your inhale through its very center and let it expand ever so slightly from within. Feel the tightness. Get to know it. Try to understand what it does. It is good for something. Discover what that is. Appreciate it for doing that. Find out what it needs in order to be able to rest and expand and move along with the flow of life.
All you are ever going to be is already there in your body. Let your breath give it space and time to develop.
Have a good day!
May, 2008