Monthly Archives: August 2012

The Power Of Breath – Guide Part 3

Posted on by kgoodman

The power of breath

Breathing is often taken for granted in our culture. The breath is a gift that is so often forgotten, because it is so fundamental to our being. The bodies use of the breath to revitalize itself and then expel toxins is critical to life as we know it.

In this day of smog filled air and high pollen counts it’s even more amazing that we simply keep breathing. Our bodies operate automatically on a subconscious level and it will not allow us to forget to breath.

This autopilot mode is an important piece to understanding the breath. When we become stressed and overwhelmed our breathing becomes rapid and shallow, our pulse rate increases, and our whole physiology changes to accommodate the signals coming from the brain. The mind is telling the body that we are in crisis and we must be vigilant and ready to respond to the attack that may come at any moment. But the attack never comes… Instead we sit in that state of high alertness and our body suffers from the minimized breathing activities as we continue to be ‘ready’.

The good news is that our nervous system is a two way street. Just as the mind can tell the body how to respond, the body can inform the mind. So shifting into a state of mindfulness and adjusting your rate of breathing and the fullness of your breath can in fact shift your mental state. Slowing your breath and deepening your inhale and exhale will cause your heart rate to stabilize and slow down and can reduce feelings of anxiety and agitation. As with all states of mind, the first and most crucial step is becoming aware.

So this leads to the first meditation process, simple breath awareness. This can be a very short process with the goal of observation or it can be part of a longer meditation. Find a comfortable position in which you can meditate for a short period, as stated you can do this for a minute or, as you become more advanced, much longer:

  • Shift your awareness to your breathing.
  • It can help to focus on a single point in your inhale and exhale.
    • Either visualize the air as it passes in and out through your nostrils.
    • Or monitor the expansion and contraction of the lungs.
  • And simply observe
    • Notice the air as it passes through your nostrils, into your body
    • Notice the air as it leaves through your nostrils, out of your body

That’s the whole technique. Simple Breath awareness. You are performing two activities here:

  1. You are increasing awareness of your breath and thus awareness of your mental state
  2. You are giving your mind something to focus on other that it’s endless chatter Chitta Vritti (Sanskrit for fluctuations of the mind, or mind chatter)

This simple process of becoming the observer and shifting the focal point of your mind can create a change in your breath and mental state that is beneficial to you.

This technique can then be augmented with breath control. In breath control exercises you are actually informing your physiology and your mind that we are no longer in crisis. By controlling the breath and gently bringing yourself into a calm state through breathing the body is informing the mind that everything is okay.

This can be accomplished through alternate nostril breathing, as highlighted in part 1 of the meditation guide.

Another technique is simple deep breathing.

  • Shift your awareness to your breathing.
  • It can help to focus on a single point in your inhale and exhale.
  • Begin by fully exhaling and pressing the air out of your lungs.
  • Now begin slowly breathing in through your nostrils to the count of 5
  • Fully inhale and then pause for a count of 2
  • Next begin to slowly exhale through your nostrils to the count of 5
  • Now pause at the bottom of the exhale for a count of 2
  • Repeat for 3 or 4 full rounds
  • Then release and allow your body to resume breathing normally
  • Become the observer and watch your breath as it passed in and out of your nostrils

As you can imagine this technique can be easily customized to suit your personal meditation needs.

I look forward to receiving feedback on your personal experience with these techniques.

Namaste,

Kevin

 

 

Meditation Guide – Part 2 – Eating Mindfully

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In this installment of the meditation guide I’d like to discuss eating, specifically mindful eating.

If you step back for a moment and consider how much of our time is spent eating, thinking about eating, or searching for food, it’s a pretty big chunk of time. When you step back even further, you can think about how blessed we are that we don’t spend even more time. Frequently our food is grown for us, prepped for us and presented to us. Whether you’re talking about highly processed food like a granola bar, or very basic food like a head of lettuce, a lot of work has gone into getting the food to you.

Let’s quickly follow a head of lettuce from start to finish. At some point seeds need to be gathered. These seeds then need to be planted, watered, nurtured for months. The plants need to be protected from bugs, especially lettuce which looks particularly tasty to a passing snail. Then when the lettuce head is ready it is cut from the garden. If you’re lucky enough to grow it yourself, it’s almost on your plate. Otherwise it is carefully boxed, stacked, and carried from the field. Delivered to the market as delicately as possible. Then someone has to put it out for display so you can find it. You procure the lettuce from the market, bring it home and wash it up for a nice salad.

Processed food like a granola bar goes through even more steps which I won’t go into here. But think about all the different ingredients that go into it. All the different steps, cooks, processes, quality controls (hopefully), and all the other steps involved in readying the food for your consumption.

Which now brings us to you.

Did you know that chewing is a vital activity for the health of your digestive tract? It’s true, good nutrition getting into your body actually starts with you being aware and taking the time to chew your food. It’s the first step in a chain of processes that involves breaking food down into it’s individual nutrients so your body can use and benefit from those nutrients.

So in this hurried world of too much to do and too little time. It’s critically important to stop, reflect, and be mindful, while you’re eating.

There are several activities that can help you mindfully engage in eating. The most basic is simply to be aware as you’re eating. Focus your attention on the action of chewing and be aware of the food in your mouth. If you need to, put your fork down between mouthfuls and focus on chewing what you have in your mouth. You will notice that simply being aware of what is in your mouth and focusing on chewing it well before swallowing helps prevent you from rushing through your meal and swallowing whole chunks of food.

Another very important approach to mindfulness eating is gratitude. If you think back to the above illustration of the food being grown. There are so many hands involved in bringing food to your plate. Sometimes these hands are from people around you that you know. And sometimes these hands are with people that you will never even meet. But sending out gratitude and appreciation while you consume your food benefits the universe at large and can help you as well. Take time to appreciate everything that went into bringing the food to you. For some this can take the form of thinking through the steps involved in the foods growth and the people involved. For others it can be a simple as glowing with gratitude over the abundance of eating a meal. How blessed are we simply to have food? It is truly amazing when you stop and think about it.

A third approach that can be helpful when eating is visualization. You can step through the digestion process in your mind and visualize the steps as your body breaks down the food into the nutrients that are needed to keep you alive. In this process you can express gratitude, or even wonder (whatever moves you), regarding that bodies ability to process the food and utilize that food for energy and vital processes. If you are interested in learning more about the processes involved in eating and a healthy body, I recommend this book that I am currently reading Accidentally Overweight By Dr Libby Weaver. There is an excellent introduction on the digestion process and it addresses an individuals health and weight in a very approachable and educated way.

Making each meal a moment of reflection and appreciation can do wonders for your stress levels and increase your appreciation of the world around you. I encourage you to try these mindfulness techniques. I would love to hear back from you on your experiences and insights gained from this process.

Namaste,

Kevin

 

 

Beginner’s Guide to Meditation – Part 1

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Meditation has many goals, there are various processes and results that can come from meditation. Meditation is simply a tool and a tool can have many uses. The goal of the information I am providing is meditation for mindfulness and awareness. This mindfulness and awareness leads to stress reduction and a new prospective on life.

One of the primary benefits of awareness is the ability to see the truth of a situation. When involved in stressful or intense situations it is easy to get pulled into the emotion of the moment and incorrectly interpret a single event to be the deciding factor in our survival. Fundamentally we are creatures of instinct. And those instincts have taught us to handle stressful situations with responses of our nervous system.

Typical responses include fight or flight. Either of these responses will cause adrenaline to course through our systems preparing us for battle or for a high speed run. But in our daily lives it’s frowned upon to battle everyone. Additionally if we left every business meeting 5 minutes in by running out of the room, we’d start to develop a less than favorable reputation around the office.

I will cover more on stress and responses in later installments. But this gives a general feel for the type of situations meditation is intended to assist in. When we have prospective on these situations we can see clearly that our in most situations our survival isn’t at stake. Better yet, when we don’t jump into survival mode, we are better able to handle each situation calmly and appropriately.

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Finding your purpose in Sandcastles

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Sand-Castle-On-Beach

This week I was listening to dust in the wind By Kansas. It is amazing how timeless concepts age very well in music. Check out the lyrics if you’ve never heard the song or want to refresh your memory. I’m sure I’ve heard the song a hundred times or more. But this time a new piece of the lyric caught my ear:

Now don't hang on
Nothin' last forever but the earth and sky

As I listened, I was reminded that all the effort we do, everything we put our hands to, will eventually pass away. It may pass 5 minutes after we are gone, or 500 years, but it all passes into shadow. There is nothing that we can do in the physical world that will last beyond a few moments.

With this in mind I was thinking about the underlying value of our tasks, the spiritual growth. Each time a task is performed, the task doesn’t change, but we do. It’s this growth, and the growth of those around us that I believe has lasting value beyond our ‘dust in the wind’.

There are many times that we perform things that we perceive as tedious or menial. And often that impact of our actions is lost to us in the demands of the moment. If we take the time to step out of the emotion of the moment and view the larger picture, that we can see our true value and impact.

So when our activities feel like building sandcastles, remember the ultimate benefit. The physical and tangible results of our efforts are only the tip of the spiritual iceberg.

Namaste,

Kevin

Sand castle destroyed by the surf. Black Sea coast. Space for text.

Sand castle destroyed by the surf. Black Sea coast. Space for text.

Building Yourself Up Is More Than An Ego Trip

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building yourself up trim

We live in a world that is constantly telling us we don’t measure up. This can be obvious as the person honking at you because you didn’t see the green light soon enough. Or as subtle as an advertisement showing someone eating an order of French fries surrounded by beautiful people.

We are surrounded by messages of lack, inferiority and want.

Worse yet, the messages are often so subtle, or so persistent, that we become numb and lose awareness of these negative messages. We know we are uneasy. We can’t place why we feel out of place. Sometimes the answer is as simple as identifying the connection to this subliminal nagging.

When you are provided with this constant input, it can be challenging to stay in tune with reality. In reality, You are amazing! You are abundant! And you are loved! But sometimes it’s easy to forget how much you rock.

So when you consider self improvement, you may feel it’s selfish or inappropriate to spend time yourself. Is not self improvement, by definition self importance, a vain task?

But the truth of the matter is you can be more effective and valuable to the world if you realize, and I mean really believe, how effective and valuable you are. Everything you touch can be positively impacted if you simply believe in yourself and have a real connection to your value.

It’s often said that pride comes before a fall. I also believe that pride must arrive before success. If you don’t really believe you’re working on something of value, if you aren’t really proud of what you do, why do you bother doing it?

So why don’t we spend more time on ourselves?

Possibly because of another message the imbalanced world bombards us with, “Don’t be selfish”. “Don’t focus on yourself”. There are starving children in (insert country X here), you should focus your energy on helping them.

While I agree we should help starving children in country X, I also believe we should consider where we are coming from when we help others. The energy we put into something is impacted dramatically and directly by our own personal pride, confidence, beliefs and motivations.

If you try to help someone else from a place of imbalance, you are really offering them imbalance.

If we come from a place of abundance and balance, we offer them that same abundance and balance.

I was reading this week in my copy of Moving into Stillness, by Erich Schiffman, about balance. I’ve always thought of balance as calm, stillness, or inaction. However, after reading Erich’s description I think I’ve had it wrong. He describes balance as a top spinning at very high speed. When we are unbalance we are actually in a lower state of energy (picture a top spinning too slowly, about to fall over and crash). When we are in our higher states of energy, read that as confident, self assured and balanced, we are actually metaphorically spinning faster. The result can be stillness and balance.

With this in mind take the time to focus inward. Find your peace, find your purpose, and change the world in the best way that you can, by being Yourself!

Namaste,

Kevin

To aid in this task here a few tips:
-Find a mantra, saying or slogan that empowers you, and repeat it to yourself.
-Take time to meditate and focus inward to allow your body to express needs and take the time to address those needs.
Chakra Chime is a iphone and android app available to help you time meditation and set the meditative mood with soothing chimes. available here

-Allow yourself the freedom to be you. Accept who you are, what you are, how you are, exactly as you are and love yourself. You are the only You there is.