Bear's Blog

The pandemic is officially over but we’re still living with all the unresolved consequences. It’s a work in progress. Everything is ramping up, but the speed we considered normal is being re-evaluated. Between working from home, doing more than ever online and being deluged with information and opportunities, are we really ready for more?

Change requires extra effort; we need to integrate before moving on. Yet in another sense, we are ready to be challenged, in a good way.

Let’s take a breath…

and make slow moves in that direction. We can bring our attention to the breath and move forward in whole-some ways, getting unstuck but not over-stimulated. We want to continue our personal evolution, but in a way that is not stressful.

There’s a reason why “breathwork” is so popular right now. It’s because breathing is normally automatic - it happens without thinking about it. The unique opportunity we have is that we can also override the autonomic nervous system and consciously control our breathing - and directly influence our physiology.

It's the breath that inspires us, and upon our last breath we expire. It literally moves us from one moment to the next, and that’s just the beginning! Responding to our thoughts, emotions and other internal and external stimuli it can accelerate or slow down. We can hold it and then catch it when we become “short of breath.” It affects heart rate, digestion, and all our bodily processes. When erratic, held, labored or otherwise not flowing easily, we are in a state of disequilibrium.

So it’s helpful to investigate your unconscious breathing patterns, and practice small shifts that can have big effects. It can fuel your life force; because breath is life, and life is movement. As our lungs expand outward, our diaphragm moves down and massages our internal organs. A deep breath goes all the down into our low back. With movement, all our physiological processes are engaged, from the delivery of oxygen and nutrients and eliminating waste. Without movement, we are in a state of disintegration and entropy.

I encourage you to explore some of the breathing modalities (there are many) that will support you as you integrate what has changed in you, and the world. More importantly, it is a step toward embodying that transformation we are longing for underneath all the busyness.

Distractions keep us on the surface of life, like a shallow, unsatisfying breath; it only takes the next breath to shift back to ease.

Peace, love and healing -

Bear

PS. - I was inspired by Robert Litman to write about breath, and to congratulate him on his new book, “The Breathable Body”. He taught Continuum Movement, anatomy and physiology in my earlier Advanced classes, but his specialty was always the breath. He was a practitioner and is now also a teacher of the Buteyko Method; it addresses breathing disorders and restrictions, but can also enhance athletic performance. Kudos to you, Robert!