Tag Archives: breath

Chuck’s Place: An Opening

Our ancient reactions are like old walls of defense, but they can be taken down… one breath at a time… -Photo by Jan Ketchel
Our ancient reactions are like old walls of defense,
but they can be taken down…
one breath at a time…
-Photo by Jan Ketchel

When we are met with a smile, a nod, or a gentle welcoming gesture, we are programmed to soften, feel safe, relax our defenses and breathe freely. This innate archetypal bodily response to accepting supportive validating gestures may be inhibited by a history of traumatic interruptions that threatened safety; however, these bruises in human interactions can heal and, over time, allow us to relax into our innate capacity for love. We never lose our innate capacity to give and receive love.

The journey to freeing our innate capacity to receive the world, and express our full presence in it, is multilayered but largely physical. The bruises of trauma generate archetypal bodily defenses far more ancient than the archetypes of human interaction.

Failures in human interaction trigger an intrinsic self-driven defense system that functions independently of the behavior of others. If others cannot be trusted then the self alone becomes the source of safety.

The body turns on its own vigilant guard to protect the boundaries of the self. Sleep may be light or infrequent as a result of such vigilance. Muscles remain taut, shoulders tight, breathing shallow. All bodily systems, in fact, stay on heightened alert to possible danger, cautiously anticipating, planning, and avoiding potential trouble. This completely self-reliant defense system is ancient and highly useful in times of real danger. In our evolutionary history there was a time when it alone insured survival. Though less necessary in the modern world, it can be activated in a heartbeat should we be confronted with serious danger.

A major challenge in healing from trauma is turning off this ancient defense system when it has been activated unnecessarily. Here the human ability to reflect and choose a new action is particularly useful.

We can employ the mind, with its ability to observe and reason, to assess whether we are indeed really, in the here and now, in danger. The realization that we are not in danger in no way lessens the grip of this ancient defense that protects us through its control of our body, but it does give us a point of awareness, within our body, that alerts us to where the true work lies.

Reason alone has little to no impact upon the body’s defenses. We can, however, intentionally direct our awareness to our body and notice the state of our muscles and organs—heart, stomach, throat, etc.—as well as our breathing. We can, with awareness and intention, begin to direct our breath to various parts of our body that we notice to be clenched or shut down. We can, for instance, progressively soften and loosen our solar plexus or heart as we gently direct our breath into it. Similarly, we can begin to release tension in our shoulders and legs, or wherever we find tension in the body, by intending ourselves to do so. The body quite obediently listens and responds to our intentions.

As we consciously release the grip of vigilance in our body, our brain receives different messages from our body self that lies separate, beneath the head of reason. If our muscles and organs are relaxed, our brain concludes that we must be safe. The brain is then freed to stop its own vigilant story making that had given definition to the worrisome messages that it had been receiving from a tense, defended body.

Every time we release the tension of a clenched part of our body we change the message to the brain and the brain, in turn, changes its message back to the body. Over time, the brain can send the message that it’s okay to relax; we are safe. With safety comes receptivity, and our inherent archetypal ability to engage in deeper human connection opens. Smiles, nods, and warmth are able to be more safely received and expressed. We open.

This process of opening is indeed multifaceted and includes the journey of recapitulation, but it can be supported and enhanced, at any time—even in this moment—with one gentle directed breath.

Breathing away,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: Breathe!

Drum life’s breath…

The mind and the breath are inseparable. Control the breath; control the mind.

Slow, full breath creates calm. The fullness of deep, calm breathing releases the staleness and constriction of anger and fear. Racing thoughts dissolve as attention shifts to the breath.

Breathe! Breathe with awareness. Begin by simply directing consciousness to the breath. Notice the breath. No pressure, no expectation, no judgment, just awareness placed on breathing naturally, as it happens.

Next, decide to accompany the breath on drums—that is, count out the beats of an in-breath, as well as its accompanying out-breath. Bring the beats into equality; same count in as out. Always count along.

Ask the breath to deepen into the abdomen. If the body isn’t ready to go there that’s fine. However far it goes is enough. After some time the body may invite a deeper breath, naturally, as it relaxes and opens to more.

Perhaps as the breath goes even deeper, filling and fully relaxing the abdominal region, it moves higher into the chest and upper chest, filling the body to a count of eight. Holding the breath for a few counts before slowly releasing to exhalation, from the abdomen up to the chest on a count of eight beats, allows for deepening relaxation and calm. Perhaps the breath might repeat this process several times, always with awareness of inhaling and counting and exhaling and counting slowly, maintaining a sense of the filling and emptying of the belly and lungs. Notice the calming of the mind as it is led by the calmness of the breath flowing in the body.

Frequent repetitions of conscious breathing sink into the unconscious, creating a reformulated program for deeper breathing, uprooting old habits of vigilance, fear, or anger, habituated in the body in younger years under other circumstances.

Conscious breathing, accompanied by counting of each beat, sinks into the subconscious as a new habit of calm, naturally canceling out unsolicited thoughts that reactively register unwanted feeling states in the body.

Breathe in life!

Conscious breathing changes the mind and the body by grounding us in the present in calm. From calm we are strengthened in our ability to weather the true storms from within and without. From calm we dispel the illusions that have held our body and mind in check. From calm we resume our interrupted journey, returning back to nature, flowing in the calm river of infinity.

Just breathing,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: The Main Attraction: NOW

The energetic wisdom of now...

We are overwhelmed with instructions. We hunger to do it right even when we are addicted to doing it wrong. Hard not to appreciate and value ancient traditions that have honed techniques over generations. How can our knowing and growing compete with that knowledge when we’ve only this one brief moment to live? At least as far as our rationality informs us, that is.

I do value ancient knowledge. Yoga, meditation, magical passes, martial arts—those traditions are indeed imbued with the intent of generations of living beings. To partake in those traditions is to tap into a river of energy that flows into deeper knowing of self. This is not a cognitive truth, this is a living truth, available to anyone willing to step into that river of energy through persistent disciplined practice.

On the other hand, we are the beings alive at this time. We are center stage. It’s our moment to be in this world and to discover life through our own direct experience of being alive, in our bodies, NOW.

I thank everyone who came before. I thank everyone who has remained behind to teach. But it’s my responsibility to discover what it means to be alive in this life, at this time.

This is our opportunity for direct experience with living. This is our opportunity to encounter the unique energetic configuration of Now. How do I greet it? How do I be with it? Where do I go with it? I am responsible for evolution.

Can I experience this energetic configuration?

Energy wants to go where it has never been. Energy seeks new life. Energy abhors boredom. We are on the cutting edge of new possibility in this world, in this life, in the bodies we are in, right Now.

This simple truth packs a powerful wallop. It grips us with fear. How could it be otherwise? To allow ourselves to flow freely into the unknown—into the never-known—is truly awesome. How natural to fall back into self-doubt, into judgment, into the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Ones who have gone before.

We counter our fears with socialized structures, giant monuments of the past to house our souls. We forget, however, that those structures are not immortal. They are relics, wisdom of other times, of other energetic configurations. They can only take us so far in our encounters with the unique energetic configurations of Now.

The more we attach to the solutions of other times, the more we distance ourselves from our own direct experience of Now and the unique energetic configuration of our time. We miss the show and then, before we know it, it’s lights out!

Can I flow with the breath of now?

Ancient wisdom has informed us of the value of the breath. I say, thanks for that hint! Now I must ask myself: What is my relationship to my own breath, right now, in this energetic moment that I live in? Can I turn my awareness to the house of fear deep within the abdomen, for instance? Forgetting all the rules, all the systems, all the instructions in breathing and mindfulness practices, can I simply be in my body in this moment, acknowledging that fear? Can I loosen its grip, expand its horizons with ever-deepening breath? Can I do this with no rules, no set-aside time, no goals, no objectives other than simply being present, deeply in my body, at the main attraction—NOW?

Present NOW,

Chuck