It’s time for a moment of radical self-care with breathwork.
You’ve been busy this year. Like… REALLY busy. From caring for others to speaking out and having your voice heard to handling 2020 in general (enough said). All of this outpouring of energy can take a huge toll on your mind, body, and soul if you aren’t taking the appropriate time to practice radical self-care.
There’s no denying that there is a link between life and breath. But the crazy thing is that most of us aren’t breathing right. Many of us are unconscious to our breath, which could be interchanged with the word life. It’s insane that we rarely think about the thing that actually keeps us alive. That’s why radical self-care with breathwork is so important, especially right now.
Radical self-care with breathwork
When you were a child, you naturally took part in the circulation and connecting rhythm of breathing. Essentially, you were practicing radical self-care with breathwork from the very beginning. But what changed? Well, as you grew older, things started to shift. As you experienced trauma, introduced bad habits into your life, slowly let your posture get worse, and let’s face it… as the environment got worse, your respiratory system weakened. As it weakened, this created tension in your body and colored your overall health and wellbeing. This isn’t to forget how stress, fear, and other emotions you experience daily impact your breath and body.
Every emotion that you feel is connected to a very specific breath pattern. So, when you shift the way you’re breathing, you are simultaneously shifting the way you’re feeling. When you’re feeling anxious, your breathing becomes shallow and irregular. When you’re feeling relaxed, your breathing becomes slow and deep. With every intentional breath, you are making the decision about how you want to feel. This is the path to radical self-care with breathwork.
Holding patterns
We all have what is called holding patterns within our bodies. These are places where we hold parts of our emotional experience. When you are feeling overwhelmed, there is a part of your body that is holding onto that emotion more so than other parts of your body. It’s the same when you’re feeling anxiety or any other emotion. Your body is holding onto each of the emotions that you experience until you intentionally let it go.
Take a second to locate where in your body you’re feeling anything. Maybe it’s your belly where you are feeling the most anxiety (or any other emotion that you would like to let go of). Or maybe you feel it more in your chest. Just feel your body. Once you locate it, take your hand and place it on the part of your body that you are experiencing anxiety and breathe into it with the intention of breathing the anxiety out of the body. This is practicing radical self-care with breathwork in the making.
When you find where the emotion is living in your body and set the intention of releasing it, it allows you to feel a felt sense of comfort. You feel at home in your body. While also breathing out the energy that doesn’t serve.
As you intentionally breathe into that place, notice the lightness and release with each breath.
The truth is that your body knows exactly how to recalibrate to a place of balance. You just need to let it. The point of radical self-care with breathwork is so you can let go to make space for supportive frequencies that elevate. As you create more space for these supportive vibrations, you release yourself from past stresses and know exactly how to release those stresses when you experience them again (because that will happen, we’re all human after all).
If you want some guidance on building your own breathwork practice, I recorded a free breathwork session that you can snag for free with the link below.
