Place your left hand on the center of your upper chest, and press your right hand down on top of it.

Softly close your mouth and take a deep breath in and out though your nose.
As you breathe in, follow the energy of the breath down through your body, as you breathe out, follow the breath up and out.
Notice the feeling of your breath flowing in and out.
Focus on the air just outside of your nostrils; on that space right in front of you.
Focus on the place where the air is waiting to become your breath.

Feel yourself take that outside air in.
Feel the outside air as it moves inside.
Feel the external molecules beginning to move through your body.
Feel the air from the outside world that is now a part of you—feel the energy of the air as it flows through your entire body and becomes a part of you.
Feel the elements moving through you—the nitrogen and the oxygen.
Feel the energy. Feel the force of the air.
This is the force of life, the life-force, the prana.
The breath.
Feel the breath that gives you life.

Press your hands down on your chest as you feel the breath moving through you.
Feel the energy of your breath as it lifts and lowers your chest.
Feel the energy as your lungs rise and fall.
Feel the energy swirling inside your ribcage, and surrounding your heart. Feel your heart filling with the energy.
Feel your heart energized by the oxygen in your blood stream.
Allow your heart to fill with this energy.
Allow your heart to fill with gratitude for this life force. Feel your heart as it fills with gratitude for the breath that flows to it.
Feel your heart fill with gratitude for the air that flows in to your heart.

Release your hands down and relax.
Continue to breathe deeply.

Inhale deeply, hold your breath for one second, then release it.
Inhale deeply, hold your breath for one second, then release it.

As you do this, bring your attention to the inside of your nose. Focus on the air that you’re holding in just before you exhale.
Focus on that energy, that life force, those elements that have been inside you, that are now a part of you.
This part of you will now go out into the air around you.
Focus on that moment just before the air is expelled.
A part of you is about to be being released into the universe.
Return to that feeling of gratitude. This time expressing gratitude for your role in bringing energy to the outside world with your breath.
You are releasing nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide into the world.
You are releasing energy into the world, breathing life back out to the world.

You are sending something that was inside of you,
a part of your self,
out into the air, out into the world to be shared,
to be breathed in by the people around you,
to become a part of the universal energy.

The molecules that were once a part of you will swirl around with the outside molecules.
These molecules that were once your breath will make their way into someone else,
your breath will flow through someone else’s lungs,
it will energize someone else’s heart.

One breath at a time,
one person at a time,
the elements, the energy, the life force.
The breath, that we all share.

As you inhale be aware of the energy you are taking in.
Allow that energy to turn into gratitude when it finds your heart.
Release that positively charged life force back out into the world,
for someone else to use.

We breathe the life force in,
and we breathe the life force out.

Be grateful for the breath that gives you life.
Be grateful for the breath that binds us all together.

~

Author: Kim Stevens-Redstone

Editor: Katarina Tavčar & Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: Swan Song/Pixoto