Into the within

Exercise 1: The Stimulating Breath (also called the Bellows Breath) The Stimulating Breath is adapted from a yogic breathing technique. Its aim is to raise vital energy and increase alertness.  Inhale and exhale rapidly through your nose, keeping your mouth closed but relaxed. Your breaths in and out should be equal in duration, but as short as possible. This is a noisy breathing exercise.  Try for three in-and-out breath cycles per second. This produces a quick movement of the diaphragm, suggesting a bellows. Breathe normally after each cycle.  Do not do for more than 15 seconds on your first try. Each time you practice the Stimulating Breath, you can increase your time by five seconds or so, until you reach a full minute. If done properly, you may feel invigorated, comparable to the heightened awareness you feel after a good workout. You should feel the effort at the back of the neck, the diaphragm, the chest and the abdomen. Try this breathing exercise the next time you need an e...

DEEP BREATHING EXERCISES Breathing Awareness and Deep Breathing 1. Lie down or sit in a comfortable chair, maintaining good posture. Your body should be as relaxed as possible. Close your eyes. Scan your body for tension. 2. Pay attention to your breathing. Place one hand on the part of your chest or abdomen that seems to rise and fall the most with each breath. If this spot is in your chest you are not utilizing the lower part of your lungs. 3. Place both hands on your abdomen and follow your breathing, noticing how your abdomen rises and falls. 4. Breathe through your nose. 5. Notice if your chest is moving in harmony with your abdomen. 6. Now place one hand on your abdomen and one on your chest. 7. Inhale deeply and slowly through your nose into your abdomen. You should feel your abdomen rise with this inhalation and your chest should move only a little. 8. Exhale through your mouth, keeping your mouth, tongue, and jaw relaxed. 9. Relax as you focus on the sound and feeling of...

Each of these exercises offered here is to help you relax. You may very well feel more comfortable physically as anxiety and tension decrease. (The guided imagery exercises presented in another section may also increase your comfort directly through suggestions.) Practice brings the best results! There are several ways to use these exercises: • read through the exercise and then do it from memory – it doesn’t have to be done exactly as I’ve written here • record the exercise and play it back for yourself to do • have someone read the exercise to you If you record the exercise or have someone read it to you, also try to eventually be able to do it on your own. This lets you do it anytime and anywhere – a great skill to have in your back pocket! Breathing Exercise 1 Several breathing exercises are presented, all focusing on breathing patterns and on imagining that healing is occurring with breathing. These can be practiced at any time, with your eyes open or shut, for a short or longe...

Breathing as a bridge It is thought by many cultures that the process of breathing is the essence of being. A rhythmic process of expansion and contraction, breathing is one example of the consistent polarity we see in nature such as night and day, wake and sleep, seasonal growth and decay and ultimately life and death. In yoga, the breath is known as prana or a universal energy that can be used to find a balance between the body-mind, the conscoius-unconscoius, and the sympathetic-parasympathetic nervous system. Unlike other bodily functions, the breath is easily used to communicate between these systems, which gives us an excellent tool to help facilitate positive change. It is the only bodily function that we do both voluntarily and involuntarily. We can consciously use breathing to influence the involuntary (sympathetic nervous system) that regulates blood pressure, heart rate, circulation, digestion and many other bodily functions. Pranayama is a yoga practice that literally means...

Decide you are good looking as you are, and you are. Decide you are more good looking than others, and you are not. Acceptance awakens your beauty. Comparison corrupts it.

There will come a point in your life when suddenly everything makes sense, and there are only tears of gratitude. It will come sooner if you invite it. It can be today if you intend it. It can be now if you see your life through the eyes of Source.

Write a letter of gratitude to every person with whom you had an intimate relationship at any point in your life. It could even just be a few lines each and you don't necessarily have to give it to them. It will deeply heal your inner being.