Breathwork is a powerful tool to pull out for a multitude of reasons. It can help you find your patience in times of irritation, allowing you to respond rather than react to a situation. It can help you get through some of the most painful and transformative moments in your life. Used regularly, it can help you to learn how to regulate your nervous system, calming anxiety and getting your stress levels under control.
There are a multitude of difference breathwork practices. There are both well established practices and those that are constantly being invented by individuals exploring what their own bodies are capable of. It doesn’t have to be complicated though. If you like the structured direction available under the guidance of popular methods, here are some simple options:
- Box Breathing: Inhale for a count of four, hold for four, exhale for four, and hold again for four. Repeat this cycle for several minutes.
- 4-7-8 Breathing: Inhale for four counts, hold for seven counts, and exhale completely for eight counts. This technique can promote feelings of deep relaxation.
- Alternate Nostril Breathing (Nadi Shodhana): Close one nostril and inhale through the other, then switch sides and exhale through the previously closed nostril. This practice can help balance the nervous system and improve focus.
Whereas these are great and withhold the test of volume, practicing breathwork in order to gain the benefits doesn’t have to be structured or complicated in the least. We can get just as much out of the simple skill of noticing one’s breath.
Mindful breathing, awareness of one’s inhalation and exhalations, whatever you’d like to label it as, is simply paying attention to what your lungs are doing. It takes no time, no tools and is available to anyone breathing at just a moment’s thought. It can be done all around the clock, no matter what’s going on and last as little or as long as you can hold the momentum of the awareness. Benefits are gained no matter the duration or method.
Remember, consistency is key. By incorporating intentional breathwork into your daily life, you can effectively recalibrate your nervous system, cultivate inner peace, and navigate the challenges of life with greater resilience. So any time you think about it, take a deep breath and empower yourself to find calm amidst the chaos. There is no greater power that we have at our disposal.
Beginning –
A pause to just exist and recollect ourselves. There’s nothing more under rated than the pause. Giving yourself ample space to exist counters the constrictions we’re so often feeling.
Breathwork is one of the most valuable tools for emotional regulation and it’s accessible to everyone, provided you’re alive and breathing.
We take breathing for granted. We’ve all experienced a stuffy nose or something else that makes breathing difficult. In those moments, we’re quick to notice our breathing and wish it were easier. We need to also notice the moments when it’s easy so that we can be appreciative that it is.
The magick is in the mundane. We don’t pay any attention to those things though, generally. We don’t want to think it can be as easy as simply appreciating the simple things present in front of you. There are no grand secrets hiding up in the mountains with the monks.
The “yang” culture we’ve been conditioned to keeps us busy and distracted from the peaceful joy of the yin. We’re all too busy and think we don’t have time for the slowing and resting aspects of life. Learning how to incorporate these slower energies though only takes 30 seconds at a time. Weaving them into our day to day routines with only a thought and intention to do so. This is how we create balance.
Shallow chest breathing is a stress response we become accustomed to. If you watch a baby sleeping, their bellies are what’s going up and down, not their chests. That’s because they’re still utilizing their diaphragm to pump the air in and out.
Deep belly breathing fills the lungs fully, bottom to top, calming the nervous system in the process. When you first start trying to consciously do this, it may feel as though you’re having a hard time catching your breath. Give it a bit of continuous practice and you’ll begin to notice your muscles relaxing as soon as you switch to deep belly breathing.
It’s just that you’ve spent most of your life probably at this point shallow chest breathing and switching that over is a bit of a process. Kind of like learning posture or increasing your strength to be able to hold your planks longer.
10:50 –
The rhythm of your breathing is a window into how you’re feeling. Our society does everything they can to avoid feelings and emotions. Usually in the form of addictions and distractions. Only when we allow ourselves to feel them, though, do we begin to metabolize them. This processing allows them to be released from the body rather than becoming stuck in the body. If they aren’t processed and released, and do instead become stuck, they may very well cause problems in our health, wellbeing and quality of life. Radiating out from us to touch everything and everyone we interact with.
If you want to hold onto an emotion forever, suppressing it is exactly how you do that. If you don’t want the emotion you’re feeling, you have to create space around it to exist for the amount of time this particular feeling needs. It may only need a few minutes, or it may need a few months. It will be uncomfortable but it will get better until it finally dissipates.
Sometimes things can feel so powerful that the breath is all you have. For example, we’ve all had some sort of sickness we thought was for sure trying to take us out or an injury that came with blinding pain. Be it the flu, mono, covid or something else like an excruciatingly broken bone. In these intense moments, sometimes all we can do is exist and breathe.
“Breathe” is the first and foremost direction that medical professionals give to us in these moments. Laboring mothers are told to focus here. It’s not because they have no other advice for helping with the situation but because this IS how you get through the situation. Focus on your breathing. This is much easier accomplished when you’ve had some practice during times of no urgency and distress but when you find yourself in these moments it does become something your body says yes to. Because in these moments it really is all you have. The rest is just patience attached to the knowing that the moment of intensity will eventually end.
16:30 –
*GUIDED BREATHWORK MEDITATION*
We feel as though we need to label and describe the feelings that arise when we create space like this to listen to them. We don’t have to understand where they’re coming from though, in order to process them. We only need to notice, sit with and create space for them to exist as long as they want to until they slowly let go and move on.
If you want to label them you can, but don’t get too hung up on “is this this or is this that.” Simply decide whatever you want to decide it is and allow it to be that. Only you can define your experiences and you may do that however you see fit. Or you can choose not to define them and allow them to just be whatever they are. This latter route is the one I personally take because it feels broader, more encompassing and free with no constrictions or doubt. It’s more expansive where as labeling and defining can be more constrictive.
The chakra system helps us to understand what’s going on in our own bodies and where we need to focus on things. It helps give us words and a framework to the formless energy flowing within and around us so that we may communicate with our own minds and others on how to work through what we have. Understanding makes things easier on us even though we don’t have to understand it for it to work. Kinda like a computer printer: you don’t need to understand the functionings to simply push the buttons and have it do what you need it to do, but a little background knowledge on how it works can help you trouble shoot any “why isn’t this working!?” that may arise.
- Find the feeling within your body and where it’s located
- Sit with your attention on it
- Notice how it feels
- Allow it to process out
The next thing you know, that thing that happened 18 years ago, that has routinely popped in your head again and again ever since, causing cringe, ceases to pop up anymore. That’s what true healing is. When you no longer think about the thing anymore or when you do, it’s rare and has no problematic emotions accompanying it.
It’s hard for us to find time and space to sit with ourselves in order to do this practice only because we would rather avoid it. We come up with all sorts of reasons why we can’t or don’t have time but it’s usually just forms of avoidance.
“Escapism” is the word I couldn’t find in the episode. Where we won’t give ourselves an hour to sit with this practice but we’ll spend 6 hours on Netflix or Xbox.
37:20 –
The most sustainable form of activism is that if you allow yourself to shine as your best you, you give others permission to do the same. You’re not going to burn out from being yourself. Grand activism in the traditional sense is great but if it’s unsustainable for you, it isn’t the best way for you to go about things.
For the first time in history, we have the knowledge of what is and what could be and the opportunity to choose a path that benefits all involved. This isn’t accomplished by grand gestures but by breaking the patterns that came before us. Day by day, with each small choice we make. Changing the world is often seen as something too big for one average person, but by living our lives as an example of what the world should be rather than “what it is”, we inspire others to do the same. This creates a compounding effect with waves bigger than you could imagine. The biggest effects seen with children.
We think we need to go spend a month living in the mountains amongst the months to find out who we are when really we just need to learn how to sit quietly with ourselves. Our culture has a thinking we need to always be doing more but the answers to everything are within the doing less. Instead of trying to find the boxes we fit into in order to understand ourselves, we need only to allow ourselves to be whoever and whatever we are in each moment. It’s fluid like anything else and changes all of the time. Figuring out who we are is an “allowing” rather than a “finding”.
If you don’t know where to start:
- Sit with yourself in the now
- Focus on your breathing
- Relax your muscles
- Maybe check in with your senses
- Just be hyper-present.
We spend most of our time in the past or the present but all we actually have is right now.
Lots of space created in this episode.
About Our Guest:
Benedict Beaumont’s journey to becoming a breathwork facilitator began with transformative travels in India and Nepal, which led him to a pivotal experience in Bali. This experience inspired him to leave his teaching career and, along with his wife Jennifer, start Breathing Space, an international center for breathwork education. Their school is a nurturing place for those seeking personal transformation, offering a supportive and inclusive environment. Benedict is committed to making breathwork widely accessible, focusing on meeting people where they are and providing the space and support needed for personal growth. His passion for breathwork shines through in his commitment to fostering empowering and safe spaces for all. He champions the idea that personal transformation doesn’t require anything but the willingness to breathe.
Other Articles You May Enjoy:
- How to Navigate The Stigma of Neurodivergences and Learning Disabilities
- How to Find Energy Patterns that Alcohol is Masking so You Can Find Purpose & Fulfillment
- How Past Life Regression Can Help You Understand, Heal & Create Your Own Reality
- How to Trust Your Intuition & Give Yourself Permission to Grow & Manifest Abundance
- How to Ease the Grief Process by Normalizing Death in Our Society & Culture
About the Host
S.S.Blake; Spiritual Life Coach, Yoga + Meditation Teacher and Founder of Earth and Water
LET’S BE FRIENDS!
Explore working with me to find your voice and share your message with the world.
