Rhythmic Breathing: How Much Do You Trust Your Next Breath?

In yoga, you learn to tune into your breath and allow your body to connect to the rhythm of your breathing. One of the only ways to ensure a healthy lifestyle is to allow your breathing to be steady, consistent, and natural. If you hold the breath in, you cut yourself off from life’s source energy which is why it’s important to practice rhythmic breathing.

You probably have recognized the value of inhalation when it comes to providing yourself with oxygen and energy, but how often do you honor the value of the exhalation?

There is a good chance that you strive for the awakening, but the unexpected turns throughout your life tend to disorient you, which can cause you to lose track of your rhythmic breathing and the energy that surrounds you. When you go experience a spiritual awakening, you begin to feel open, clear, and expansive. This often causes you to believe that this feeling will never come to an end.

Everything in life has a rhythm, from the seasons, to the tides, to the phases of the moon. Everything that expands also contracts, except the Universe, as the planets continue to create more space between themselves. If you transcend and no longer become subject to the expanding and contracting that goes along with the things that surround you, you might no longer feel that you have a purpose.

This is why it’s important to recognize that if you are present. It’s only the resistance that causes you to suffer or lose yourself in life’s difficult moments. If you can accept the things that go on around you and allow joy to fill your life, then you can experience true peace. When you learn to recognize your feelings, accept them, and breathe into the experience, you create the formula for emotional intelligence.

In the book Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach suggests that when joy, gratitude, and love arise–they become easy to embrace. However, the true gift is when you can accept anger, sadness, and fear. This idea is very similar to Tich Nat Han’s belief that if you injure your hand you are not supposed to push it away and deny its pain. Instead, you take it in close; you tend to it, care for it, and nurture it back to health. Your anger is similar to a wounded hand. Only embracing it and loving it will allow you to heal. You cannot be a light being if you deny any aspect of yourself; it all must be acknowledged and loved.

The true lesson in learning to recognize, accept, and allow the energy of all emotions to move through you, without getting stuck is to practice rhythmic breathing. I often encourage my students to tune into the place where the urge to breathe begins, then notice how it feels to allow it to escape and come back in again. It’s in this moment that you begin to feel free yourself stop resisting and accept. By allowing this happen, you become humble enough to learn the lesson you have been given with gratitude.