”Be the breath that birthed you, the love that created you.”

Are you aware that your breath is the very thing that can bring about a carefree, higher sense of pleasure?

Your own breath can free up past traumas, shock and stuck emotions.

Subtle breath is a work of intimacy. Journeying inward takes courage, but by breathing subtly into past stories we release them, fast forward our evolution and free ourselves. The person is able to shift through a process of release by cultivating and infusing the energy of love.

This transformative, heartfelt healing does not begin and end with the individual but goes beyond personality, reconnecting with Self. It is an ongoing process of moving through entire fields of humanity—evolving through boundless space time—as souls on a path of evolution in one life.

Your breath—a process of detoxification and purification—influences the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level. Since the play of the breath gives great balance and strength to the nervous system, consequently, this interrelation co-ordinates our actions, reactions, and responses to stress—internally and externally.

Subtle breath work helps our relationships too—we can resolve and change as a result, often erasing the need to talk over what was previously an issue. As the breath unfolds, the heart opens, fears and traumas are released and total clarity arises.

By greatly influencing relationship between body and mind, we improve functionality and creativity. The psyche simply chooses to no longer hang on to negativity but see beyond limitations for soul to emanate its shiny self.

At the very survival level the breath distributes oxygen and keeps us alive. Becoming conscious of breath at first may seem like a lot of effort, but during this time one merges with the finer qualities of subtle breath or prana—the very sustenance of aliveness.

Prana, life force or vital energy breathed in, absorbed, seems abstract since it has no physical form. Breath is not the only way of ingesting prana—it can be done through nature, sun, food, water and so on. What is alive has prana. One of the easier ways to absorb prana is through the breath and the awareness of it.

Subtle breathwork aims for the individual to break free from functioning on the level of fear-based decisions and actions. For instance by holding onto our breath unconsciously during, and as a reaction to, trauma and shock (past, present or future projection) we hold onto the experience itself.

The energy of fear gets stuck and ingrains itself deep in the psyche, reinforcing the survival instinct (fight of flight). Fear that gets hold of us becomes a reoccurring, reactive pattern than can’t help its insidious self. Fear also affects stress, pressures and emotional triggers which can deplete the optimum levels of absorption of prana. Over time this can create illness and disease. Unless released this push and pull expressed in the body, mind, and emotions continues to circle, forming habitual behavioural patterns—affecting how we move, things we do and say, ultimately how we live our lives. We see its formation in psychosomatics. For example, fear written on a person’s face with worry drawn around the eyes and so on. Nonetheless, fear is a powerful and useful tool once we know how to transcend it positively, becoming fuel for freedom.

As we pass through life collecting surplus emotions that make-up our identities, we continue to build layer upon layer, preventing us from experiencing our true self. These layers of identity and personality not only constitute from memories, past influences, our parent’s psychodramas, and other lifetime experiences held within—information held on a soul level—it is what we know as karma.

Starting with the individual enhances inner for outer peace.

Pranayama is the expansion of life force and so breathwork becomes the bridge of transcending matter to spirit, where personal domains of so-called bad emotions, thoughts and feelings transfer into higher, more refined ones. Increased awareness of breath itself or “conscious breathing” amplifies absorption of prana. Once a large amount is absorbed one becomes saturated in prana. This presents an abundance of healing qualities, charged with vitality and the realisation of different levels of consciousness for evolving. All the person has to do is to lay down, rest with the eyes closed and breathe softly until the body completely relaxes. Awareness of circular breathing is gently introduced by the breathwork facilitator.

As subtle breathwork dissolves behavioural patterns and addictions, it increases our potential to love and enjoy the life we have. Once physiological and psychological issues clear, then we can re-condition and re-program—training to live intentionally by making conscious choices and decisions. Live being free-to-act instead of reacting to events and people. Once cleared, this authentic breathwork draws understanding and awareness of how ego is presented, creating space for awakening to arise. Soul becomes addicted to the luminous self (because it is the luminous self) and as a consequence longs to be with spirit, the pathway of love.

To realise the self and your truth is all your soul wants to experience.

It is only the body and personality that projects out into the world that seemingly appears to separate us from the self. We simply return back “home” finding deep contentment where we recognise the omnipresent self within the linear matrix born out of conditioning, into an all-expanding encompassing Oneness. Here, we journey to the path of consciousness. Experiencing sensations are eventually something not to become identified with as reality, but rather to help realise we can go beyond any limits of existence as we know it.

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Relephant Favorite:

Finding a Meditative State through Breath Work.

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Author: Niamh Kavanagh

Editor: Katarina Tavčar & Travis May

Photo: Flickr/Pratik Kadam