What Is the Essential Breath?
"Most of us remember the exuberance of our own early youth when we
breathed with relaxed open bellies and as a result had an almost limitless
supply of energy. Then we began to learn and develop poor breathing patterns.
Now, as adults we find ourselves looking for ways to reawaken this experience
of aliveness—frequently turning to artificial uppers such as caffeine, sugar,
nicotine, alcohol, or expensive megadoses of vitamins and herbs. Feeling the
agitation that results from artificial stimulants we may resort to
tranquilizers and sleeping pills to quell our growing unease, and thus begin a
roller coaster of ups and downs. Or we subsist on the excitement of one
fleeting moment after another using sex or our obsession with work and material
possessions to momentarily ignite us. We have a sneaking suspicion that we
could feel better, more energetic, more at peace, and that something, something
not quite definable, is missing from our lives. Curiously the answer to
recovering this dynamic vitality lies intrinsically within us—in the
unconditioned breath that we had as a child.
Breathing is the most readily accessible resource you have for creating
and sustaining your vital energy. Tapping this resource involves a process of
unleashing the potent elixir of what I call the “essential” breath. This is the
breath you breathed as a young child. Most of us have lost a connection with
this breath and so have lost a connection with a natural way of being and our
own natural energy resource. Opening the doors to this life force involves
rediscovering the virgin nature of the breath.
To become a welcome vessel for the breath is to live life without trying
to control, grasp, or push away. And how easy is this? The process of breathing
is the most accurate metaphor we have for the way that we personally approach
life, how we live our lives, and how we react to the inevitable changes that
life brings us.
Throughout time the process of breathing was always considered
inseparable from our health, consciousness, and spirit, and it is only recently
that we have reduced breathing to a mere respiratory exchange of carbon dioxide
and oxygen. In Greek, psyche pneuma meant breath/soul/air/spirit. In
Latin, anima spiritus, breath/soul. In Japanese, ki, air/spirit;
and in Sanskrit, prana connoted a resonant life force that is at no time
more apparent to us than when that force is extinguished at the moment of
death. In Chinese the character for “breath” (hsi) is made up of three
characters that mean “of the conscious self or heart.” The breath was seen as a
force that ran through mind, body, and spirit like a river running through a
dry valley giving sustenance to everything in its course.
And yet few of us, when faced with fatigue, illness, or anxiety, look to
our breath as a possible source for regeneration. Because it is right under our
noses, the significance of this ever renewable source of energy has escaped our
attention.
Most people are not aware that they breathe poorly. Fewer still are
aware of the consequences of restricting this central life process. From
headaches to heart disease and a vast array of common maladies in between,
breathing badly takes its secret toll. Most significantly, very few people
understand the ways in which they restrict and distort their breathing.
Habitually breathing high into the chest, breathing too fast, and breathing
shallowly are epidemic today. A casual glance of any city street will reveal
the extent to which tight belts, tight bodies, and tight schedules are
literally taking our breath away.
When we breathe in a relaxed fashion we move from a destructive
metabolic state to a constructive one. This shift from operating in a chronic
stress mode to a mode of relaxed alertness can affect the synthesis of protein,
fat, and carbohydrates, increase the production of cells for immune system
activation, promote bone repair and growth, as well as enhance the cellular,
hormonal, and psychological processes.
We experience the benefits of these chemical, cellular, and neurological
changes on a more subjective level in the way we feel and think. People who
practice open breathing through healing arts such as tai chi, yoga, or mindful
meditation, are rewarded not only with optimal health; they also seem to have a
different relationship to life’s stresses. They are able to remain calm and
centered in the midst of seeming chaos. We speak about such people as being
grounded, centered, and having “presence of mind.” Perhaps the most universal
experience of my own breath work students is their new-found ability to handle
tough situations with an ease that previously seemed illusive. Just as each
breath arises with its own uniqueness, they have learned to open to each moment
as new and different, and as a result, are finding new solutions to tenacious
problems. As their minds become clearer and their emotions become more balanced
through calm and regular breathing, they are creating a life that is conducive
to health, well-being, and a sense of inner peace". (Donna Farhi.The Breathing Book: Vitality & Good Health Through Essential Breath Work)
