Dear Friends,
I hope you enjoyed picked up some useful tips from Monday’s post. All this week I am sharing some tips I use to get my morning routine off to a good start. Now that we are preparing our mind and bodies we are ready for another connection to be called in…. PRANAYAMA, Sanskrit word for Breath.
Pranayama is the art of breathing. I know it sounds like what do you mean, I mean we all breath, Trust me I felt like that too…. until I realized just how powerful our very own breath can be. I call it the bridge between body, mind and spirit, serving us a vehicle to contentment. Prana is our life force energy, Ayama refers to expansion, regulation and control, connecting the body with the mind, aligning both, as what happens in the body is reflected in the mind and vice versa leading to me one of my favorite quotes, which I am understanding more and more as my personal practice deepens
“The body achieves what the mind believes”
Another words, through regulating our breath, we are able to control our mind and our prana is directed. When we are in control of our minds in a more positive way, rather than the mind controlling us, we shift out of the sympathetic nervous system which is the “fight or flight” response during what are minds believe are potential danger situations to the parasympathetic nervous system the “rest and digest”, restoring the body to a calm and more composed state.
Suggestions for Breath work pranayama practice:
- Set an intention for your day
- Respect your limits, increase your practice slowly and gradually
- Practice gratitude daily, 3 things your are grateful for today…….trust me this is powerful
- Stretch it out…..
- Start a yoga class
When I was a young child growing up, I found this technique myself (without knowing what it was or what i was practicing), breath work helped me sit with my many thoughts and feelings. We had a pigeon coop in the back garden and as a child of around 8 years old I would climb up onto the tin roof, it was even more special on a warm sunny day! I would just sit there gazing out into the fields and up into the moving clouds passing by. I could completely self-regulate in the form of breathwork. When you breath slowly you start to calm and sit with your emotions. This had a profound effect on me. I was completely calm, relaxed, and content. After that I would go out onto the hills and explore nature, I’d meet my cousin Mary and we would spend hours exploring, coming up with ideas how to make our own perfume , what we wanted to be when we grew up and all the lovely things children got to do growing up in the 80’s. We had freedom in nature, No mobile phones, when we were hungry we knew some one’s mother would feed us. We saw rabbits, hares, new born lambs, collected flowers, ladybirds, smelt the ferns after it rained. We were completely immersed in nature, we were free!
But sadly as I got older, I lost that self regulation. I stopped practicing it, I didn’t know what it was, or anyone who did it, but I was growing up and I drifted it from it. I eventually lost it and my life was different with out it……..But THANKFULLY I found it again in my adult life and when I did, I did not let it go. I am here to show you how powerful it is. I held it, I studied it, read, meditated, slept with the books, fell asleep to tutorials of the yoga sutras of the ancient east.
This is where my passion lies and I am here to share it with you my friends.
Wishing you a peaceful day
Marie
