Call IT in With Dar Greatest Hits. Welcome back to this celebration. Bringing back the good old days. Have you ever listened to America's greatest hits on the radio? A countdown of your top 10 favorite songs? Perhaps you're more familiar with how Netflix now rates their most popular shows. Anyway, we're going to continue with our countdown on this Two Years Celebration of weekly podcasts. Today we are on number three, a personal favorite of mine, because I feel that the benefits are so plentiful. And what's that topic? Breath work. Can't wait to get started on our Call IT with Dar greatest hits. Hit number three!
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What is the first thing that you do when you're born? And the last thing that you do when you die? Breathe right? Sometimes I think that we take that for granted. Today's episode is about breath work as a mindset technique to declutter the busy mind, as well as to release stress, worry and overwhelm. Your breath is a true companion, a best friend. That means that it's there for you 24/7 and it's one of the few functions in the human body that is both acting consciously and unconsciously. Although breathwork is an ancient practice, it didn't become widespread as a technique for healing until the 1970s. To date there are over a dozen trademarked practices, some of which can become dangerous, because they have you holding your breath for a long period of time. So, these need to be supervised or coached. Of course, those aren't the ones we're going to use today. We'll be covering ones that you can practice alone without danger and ones that will be an excellent addition to any mindset practice.
Like beginning any mindset technique, the first step is to set a clear intention. Overall breathwork can help you create a drug free altered state of consciousness, to relax your nervous system, reduce stress, decrease anxiety, enhance overall mental health and improve self-acceptance. It can be a benefit to the immune functions, reduce inflammation, alkalize blood, enhance mental clarity, increase focus, plus boost energy and vitality. Those are just a few ideas of the benefits so that it can help you set a clear intention before we begin. Setting this intention will help you to analyze the benefits and the changes that are brought on by the breath work activities. So that's another reason for setting an intention. I am going to set just a general intention to bring in more energy and vitality into my life, perhaps more happiness and healthiness... to put it simply.
Let's begin with the most common four count relaxing breath method. This is just breathing in through the nose for the count of four, holding the breath for the count of four and releasing it through the mouth. So, if you want to join in, let's breathe in through the nose 2-3-4 holding the breath 2-3-4 and releasing it through the mouth 2-3-4. Then on the “in breath'', a variation would be that we actually visualize and feel life force oxygen coming in through the nose 2-3-4 feel the oxygen lighting up every cell in your body 2-3-4 and then release the breath with an O shaped mouth, visualizing all toxins, debris and negativity being pushed out of your body 2-3-4. So, let's try that a couple times. In 2-3-4, then hold 2-3-4 and breathe out 2-3-4. Breathe in through your nose, visualize the life force oxygen 2-3-4 as you hold and light up your whole body with oxygen 2-3-4 and then breathe out anything that is no longer needed, any toxins, debris, negativity, just let that all come out of your body, 2-3-4. And in 2-3-4 hold and charge up your whole body 2-3-4
then out 2-3-4 ...simple right? And I would do these about, let's say 13 times, a baker's dozen, and you'll be able to reap the benefits as soon as you make it part of your daily life. So, if you can pair it up with something, first thing in the morning or last thing at night, make it a habit, that would be the most important thing.
Let's do another variation and that would be to add an affirmation, reinforcing the intention that you previously set. So, think back to what benefit you wanted from breath work. Did you want to reduce stress and anxiety? Did you want to enhance your mental health, your self-acceptance? Maybe enhance your clarity and focus? Did you want to energize your blood or your immunity, boost your immune functions, or improve your energy or vitality, or as I mentioned, just be happier, be healthier? What was your intention? So this variation just involves using the intention, breathing in that intention and for me ...I'm going to breathe in happiness and healthiness 2-3-4, I'm going to charge up my entire body kind of feel like it's being washed from scalp, to the soles of my feet with happiness and healthiness 2-3-4 and then breathing out through the mouth and I mentioned a previous O shaped mouth and we can think about breathing out, overwhelm with that o shaped mouth, or we can breathe out illness, we can breathe out sadness, we can breathe out grief, regret, whatever it is that you desire to let go of. So that your intention can be more fully developed in the technique, let it fall to the earth and just visualize it being recycled by Mother Earth into something big and beautiful, something new maybe see flowers popping out of the ground where you're breathing out. So, breathe in your intent, happiness, healthiness 2-3-4, light up your entire body with that intent, feel it tingle in every cell, across your scalp and your forehead, your eyes, your cheeks all the way down to your ears and your mouth and your neck and your shoulders. Feel it washing and covering your entire body down to your feet, and then release with the out breath...anything that you desire to get rid of, declutter, make room for blessings and abundance, getting rid of sadness, getting rid of illness, whatever that might be. So, again in 2-3-4, hold and light up your body 2-3-4 and out with an O breath 2-3-4 letting it go into the earth.
What is really powerful about the four-count relaxing breathing technique is that you can personalize it to meet your individual needs and your specific intention. If you wish to reduce pain, you can recognize where in your body the pain is residing, recognize that space whether it be, you know, center, back, hip, knee, your feet, one of your feet, in your neck, tension, maybe headache. So, kind of recognize and acknowledge where the pain is on the in breath 2-3-4 and let your breath go to that spot. Let it kind of wash around and rinse and swirl throughout that pain and then lift and cleanse and clear away on that in breath. And then this time when you breathe out, we want to disperse the pain, get that all out. And then we want loving kindness to come over you and wrap you in a blanket of compassion. So, breathe into the area of pain acknowledging it, not criticizing it, not judging it 2-3-4, washing around and through and in and out of the pain. Don't be afraid to put your hand on the area of the pain to kind of boost the air going to that spot. And then breathing out 2-3-4 feeling the pain reducing on the out breath and then imagining a blanket of compassion enveloping around you.
The visualizations with this breath work are pretty much endless. You can breathe in light and breathe out darkness. You can breathe in as we were doing pain relief then breathe out illness. You can breathe in a favorite smell...If you're a coffee drinker, or the smell of hot chocolate or the smell of fresh baked cookies, you can inhale favorable smell and then exhale stress, worry, anger, toxins, negativity, grief, illness, whatever word you want to put to your outbreath you can breathe that out. You can visualize the air traveling throughout your respiratory system and just feel that it's adding health and vitality in its tracks. Or you could do that with sunshine, you can visualize breathing in sunshine entering your body, and lighting up every tiny little electrical light cell throughout. Decide what resonates with you and create a practice out of it. Because besides setting a clear intention, the next most important thing is to make breathwork a part of your daily life, a daily habit. And according to research, it takes 30 days to form a habit. So, I would recommend taking out a calendar and starting to chart your breath work, and it just takes minutes, it doesn't take long at all. And speaking of minutes, I'll be back in a minute or so with a few more tips and techniques.
Before we continue on with some more breathwork techniques, I wanted to let everyone know that my signature program “Heal Your Fear”, a 30-day experience, explores breath work in depth, as well as over a dozen variations and energy techniques that anyone can easily do in their daily life. So, the link is in the show notes, if you're at all interested in that.
We can take the simple four count breath and we can add the benefits of grounding and centering to it very easily. So, it can go something like this...we can breathe in 2-3-4... we can feel the breath traveling all the way down the center of the body, all the way down to your toes 2-3-4 and we can visualize the breath going out of the soles of your feet, like tree roots, down, down deep into the earth 2-3-4. So breathing in and your breath is going all the way down your body, all the way down, down, down into your feet, and then down into the ground, like tree roots and in your imagination, you can visualize the tree roots going deeper and deeper and deeper down into the earth and feel yourself being centered and connected to Mother Earth. Breathing in 2-3-4, holding the breath as it's traveling throughout your body from top to bottom 2-3-4 and going out just like you could breathe out the bottom of your feet 2-3-4 into firm life force anchoring roots.
Another way to ground and center is visualizing a shape being created with your breath. For instance, a triangle is very common. So, you breathe in and you see like the one side of the triangle form and you hold and see the other side of the triangle form and then as you breathe out the bottom of the triangle is formed. This process uses your mental mind in a sequential way, drawing out the triangle. So up one side 2-3-4 holding down the other side 2-3-4 and anchoring across the bottom 2-3-4. This is also done in a square and believe it or not, they're called “triangular breathing” and “breathing in a square”. That's their names. This breathing is where you visualize the breath going around the square, you could probably do a circular one too, but circular breathing is more like a panting breath. So, we're going to do that in just a minute. So, breathing in and watching a square form in your brain as you hold, form the other sides and the outbreath form the bottom. So up one side, see the other two form and down across the bottom, up one side, see the other two form down across the bottom. You could hear my breath, breathing in on the up, wall, holding on the top and the side and breathing out across the bottom, forming a square.
So next, the panting like breath needs to be approached really gently and mindfully, but it can also be done in seclusion safely. It's used in several healing modalities to help alter the consciousness. With this technique, we breathe in and then breathe out without the hold breath in between. We can also do this starting with the count of four, and then breathing...you know working our way up to perhaps nine and then working our way up to thirteen. Know that you might become lightheaded that's very common as you work your way up. So, try not to push it. So, this is the circle breathing that I was talking about and you'll really notice results. If your intention is to reach a drug free altered state, you'll notice with this breathing, you will reach that faster. Realize that you might be off balance or a little bit dizzy. Sometimes this type of breathing is done to real primal sounding music and that adds another layer of rhythm or a pattern to the count. Toltec healing... Toltec means the “one who knows the count and the measure of the universe”, just kind of an informal meaning. Often Toltec healing uses the breathing and quite a few of its patterns. So, for starters, let's just do it with the four count, so you're just breathing in again 2-3-4 and out 2-3-4 and in 2-3-4, and out 2-3-4 and in and out and in and out. So, you can see how that forms a pattern and would easily go along with music. The last techniques we're going to discuss today is mouth breathing. A lot of us don't mouth breathe, you know unless we have a cold or stuffed up sinuses but mouth breathing is actually desirable.
Because the advantage is that you can bring in a larger capacity of air when you breathe in through your mouth. So, try it a minute and breathe in through your nose first and see how that fills up your body and then breathe out comfortably. And then breathe in through your mouth and notice how much more breath your mouth can bring in. So, we have a larger capacity for air. So, open your mouth wide and have a nice relaxed mouth and we're going to breathe in through the mouth this time 2-3-4... we're going to still use the four counts and then we're just going to kind of feel that sweet breath of life, that nectar of life, that sweet essence of life, whichever term resonates with you. We're just going to breathe in that life force through the mouth, and then we're going to feel it travel down throat, like a sweet nectar of life, on down feel it go down behind your lungs, feel it go down behind the rib cage, feel it go down into your stomach and feel it turn around in your stomach, front, back, left right down into your hips down into your legs. And then breathe out through your nose for the count of four... again, you can breathe out toxins.
You can breathe out debris, you can breathe out things that no longer serve you. You can breathe out blocks, obstacles, outdated beliefs, anger, stress, or an argument. Whatever you feel the need to breathe out of your body. You can breathe that out through your nose. As in our previous visualization we can also breathe out things to go into the earth to be recycled and made brand new and beautiful to blossom into a beautiful flower garden or lovely landscape in front of us. So, let's breath for a minute. Breathe in through the mouth, feel it traveling throughout your entire body, relaxing and filling every cell, front, back, left, right, all over your body. And then on the out breath through your nose, release whatever you personally feel. You need to release. breathing in through your mouth. The sweet life force energy, the sweet essence of life, the sweet nectar of life...perhaps it feels like thick, rich honey going down your throat and throughout your body, warming and lighting it up physically. The only limitation in these breathing techniques is your imagination.
So as previously mentioned, there are many trademark breathwork techniques for you to explore if that's an area that interests you. Today we mainly covered some variations of a four count. And breath work is an ancient technique that can easily be used to positively alter the body, mind, heart and spirit with daily practice, and it can provide therapeutic benefits and transformation by making it a habit in your day. So, I hope you can “Call It In”, Call in breathwork into your life!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai