Spend a little less time attending to your thoughts today. Spend a little more time today breathing consciously. Do this now. Do this whenever it occurs to you–and it will occur to you.
Eric Schiffman
If you’re like most people, you don’t pay much attention to breathing. You don’t need to, for it happens automatically and unconsciously most of the time. But when you do begin to pay attention to your breathing–and thereby commence practicing breathwork–you will begin noticing how it changes from one moment to the next according to the situation. Breathing is like weather, constantly shifting and changing through repetitive yet never identical patterns. No two breaths are the same!
Breath is my touchstone. Returning over and over to my breathing, one half-breath at a time, is how I get out of my head and return to my body.
Benefits
- Befriend your own body, breath, and mind
- Distinguish first-order, direct perception from second-hand knowledge
- Establish a baseline for future reference
- Begin to develop the distinctions and vocabulary of breathwork:
- Time measures (breath rate, or br/min)
- Volume measures (shallow vs deep)
- Rhythm (flowing, staccato, chaotic, lyrical, quiescent)
- Texture (silky, ragged, dense)
- Discover your personal breathing ‘signature’
You cannot control something you cannot measure. Before you can measure breath, you have to observe it. Before attempting to control your breathing, you need to observe it, feel it, experience it, and measure it. Later on you’ll learn how to modify and control your breathing in specific ways, but for now, during the breath inquiry, you’re not to change or control or manage breathing whatsoever.
More than anything else, I want you to start enjoying breathing a little more. While you’re reading this book, and especially as you’re doing the exercises and inquiries, allow yourself to simply do what you’re doing in the moment. Be present. For that time span, those moments you spend focused on your breathing, indulge yourself in the simple pleasure of rhythm. The simple act of turning one’s attention to the cyclical pattern of breathing can be profoundly calming. It takes no more than two or three cycles for a feeling of pleasure to arise, for:
Rhythm is one of the most powerful of pleasures, and when we feel a pleasurable rhythm we hope it will continue. When it does, it grows sweeter. When it becomes reliable, we are in a kind of body-heaven.
Mary Oliver
