Showing posts with label deep breathing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deep breathing. Show all posts

Friday, September 19, 2008

Descending to Your Spirit Guide's Temple


Sit comfortably in a private place. Close your eyes and make sure your back is straight. Now draw your attention to your breath...
Notice the rising and falling of your rib cage. Feel any tension or anxiety leaving your body with each exhale....
Pull your breath deeper into your stomach area. Let yourself relax, starting at your toes and working your way upward, until you reach the top of your head and your entire body is relaxed... In your mind's eye, imagine yourself standing at the top of a staircase. You can see a radiant, white light shining out from below...
Visualize yourself descending the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs you find yourself inside a beautiful, sacred temple. Sitting in the center of the room is a dazzling being of light. This being invites you to sit down...
This can be any ascended master that you identify with; Jesus Christ, Kuan Yin, Buddha, or even Metatron...
Now see yourself reaching out and joining hands with this loving being. Feel this master's powerful, healing light come into your hands and pass through your body in waves. Let this light flow freely...
Feel its peaceful, healing wisdom expanding in your body, raising your consciousness. Let the essence of this pure light extend beyond your body, filling the temple around you. Then feel it stretch beyond the temple to infinity...
Finish the meditation: http://www.parentingweekly.com/pregnancy/breathingspace/vol17/pregnancy_meditation.asp

Meditation by Avalon De Witt
Visit www.AskAvalon.com for more mediations and spiritual insight. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Spinal Breathing


Find a wall or flat surface to provide back support during this advanced pranayama technique.
Close your eyes and your mouth. Slowly and gently inhale and exhale through your nose. The breath should be deep but not forced and should fill your abdomen up through your chest to the top of your collar bone, before retreating during the exhale. Slowly repeat this a few times.
As you inhale, focus your attention and imagine there is a tiny tube or cord that originates at your perineum and stretches up through your spine to the stem of your brain and terminates at the center of your head. Once your attention reaches your head, imagine a tiny nerve turns forward to reach the point between your eyebrows.
With each slow inhale, imagine energy funneling up from your perineum up to the point between your eyebrows and then back down again to your perineum. Repeat this with each breath.
This exercise should be done for a few minutes before meditation. Remain seated when you are finished with the exercise and begin meditation immediately.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Kapalabhati



Kapalabhati is a cleansing breath that literally translates as "skull that brings lightness." Use it to clear a foggy or heavy head or when you have mucus buildup in your air passages and tension or blockages in your chest. It can also help with sinus issues, such as numbness around the eyes.
During this breathing exercise, the breath is deliberately sped up using only diaphragmatic (abdominal) breathing. Each breath is short, rapid and strong as the lungs act as a pump to expel air from the lungs and remove waste from the air passages.
It is important to do this exercise carefully while sitting. If you are pregnant, skip the breath retention step, as holding your breath can harm your baby. This exercise may create tension in the breath and cause dizziness, so always end your practice with some deep, slow breaths.
One Repetition:
Begin by breathing normally twice. Inhale, and then exhale while pulling in your diaphragm. Repeat this 20 times, maintaining a steady rhythm and emphasizing the exhale each time. Follow this by inhaling and exhaling completely. Now, inhale and hold your breath for as long as is comfortable (skip this step if you are pregnant). Slowly exhale.

Friday, May 9, 2008

The Spiritual Center


Sit in a comfortable sitting position, preferably cross legged.
Center your attention on the point located two inches below your navel, the spiritual center of the body.
Begin rocking back and forth slowly, decreasing the arc with each rock until you rest at your natural center of gravity.
Press your tongue on the upper palate. Breathe through your nose and taste your breath. Imagine your breath coming down into the spiritual center below your navel and returning.
Begin counting each inhalation and exhalation. Count to ten and then go back from ten to one, starting over once you reach one. If any thoughts arise, acknowledge it and let it pass by returning to the count.
Each time you redirect your thoughts, you are giving yourself the power to put your mind where you want it.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Focus Your Energy


Sit in a comfortable position and begin breathing deeply. Relax and slow your breath. Breathe as if you are right next to a tree branch that can not be swayed by your breathing.
Close your eyes and put your hands out in front of you. Feel each hand and notice the life force that pumps through them.
Continue breathing deeply but breathe as if you are breathing into just one of your hands. You will start to feel an increase in energy in the hand on which you focus.
If you have a certain place in your body that needs healing, try focusing your breath on that area, as if you are breathing with that body part. If you are feeling depressed, try focusing your breath on positive thoughts. For example, if you are feeling down about your appearance or something you've done, try focusing on what is beautiful about your appearance or something good you've done by breathing into those thoughts.
Lastly, focus your breath on your unborn baby. Breathe into your womb, giving your baby rich oxygen and life force.
Take your time breathing into places that need healing or more life force. When you are finished, slowly open your eyes and return to the outside world.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Blue Light Breath


Sit in a comfortable position with your spine straight as an arrow. Close your eyes and begin breathing deeply.
Notice which nostril is most open and exhale as if only through that nostril. Imagine a blue-white light flowing in that nostril and reaching the point between your eyebrows. Exhale the same blue-white light out the most open nostril.
Now shift the breath to the other nostril. Imagine a blue-white light as you exhale, focusing on the more closed nostril. Inhale the blue-white light to the point between your eyebrows and out from that point again. Repeat the process until both nostrils are fully open.
Next, focus on breathing in the blue-white light through one nostril, to the point between the eyebrows, and out the other nostril. Then switch on the inhale, breathing in through the one you've just breathed out and exhaling through the other.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Dalai Lama's Meditation


Sit quietly, calmly with eyes closed, as relaxed yet aware as you can be.
Visualize yourself on the left side of your minds eye as you would appear to yourself and others in a moment of impatience. Really see this inner vision. Watch your face, observe your body language. What does your impatient self look like?
On the right side of your minds eye, see yourself when you are very patient. What do you look like when you have a lifetime of time. As tense as you appeared on the left as your impatient self, see yourself as relaxed in your patience on the right.
Now on the left side, see yourself as you appear when you're depressed. Look carefully. How does that make you feel? Can you be aware of the aura of doom and gloom you're radiating? And then, on the right side of your minds eye, see yourself as you are when you're joyous. Merge with that happiness. Know how others would see you.
Continue seeing all the seemingly negative feelings and behaviors on the inner left-hand side of your minds eye and the opposite on the right.
On the left, see yourself as jealous and on the right as how you appear when you are truly glad for someone else's success or happiness. On the left, see the bigoted you and on the right, the all-embracing. On the left the mean, on the right the sweet. See the stupid you and the brilliant. See the clumsy and the graceful. On the left, see the unsatisfied and on the right, the contented.
Go on and on, becoming familiar with the "you" on the left and the opposite "you" on the right.
Then see the total "you" who would be there on the left if none of the characteristics of the right side were present. Now see the "you" who would be the totality of yourself with the right side only if none of the behaviors and feelings of the left side "you" had ever appeared.
Read more:

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Meditate on Reality


Find a comfortable space and position. Begin breathing deeply through your nose. Slowly draw out each breath, gently allowing the air to fill your body and then escape.
Close your eyes.
Listen to the sounds around you, whatever they may be. Listen to barking dogs, passing traffic, people talking. Listen to the sounds going on inside your body. Listen to your stomach's grumbling, your heart's pumping beat, the blood running into each part of your body.
With these sounds, create a mental image. Imagine each sound as a wave on the surface of a large lake or ocean. But instead of water, it is life. As you go deeper into the water, your breath becomes free and deep. This is the ocean of your life, where you exist and move.
Breathe in deeply, hold it for a moment and as you exhale, plunge deeper into the ocean of life.


Read more:


http://www.parentingweekly.com/pregnancy/breathingspace/vol14/pregnancy_meditation.asp