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Round about the time my youngest was born and during the pregnancy I couldn't walk anymore, I became too familiar with crutches and wheelchairs. After the birth I could’t even do sitting asana (yoga poses) anymore. Even simple cross legs was impossible. It was even impossible to pick up my daughter as she went from baby to toddler. It effectively ended my Iyengar Yoga teaching career but sent me on a deep excavation of Pranayama (breathwork) in an attempt to heal my body.
Yoga after all, was not about fancy poses but about uniting the body, mind and soul. Living from the Soul, not the mind was a goal that could surely be reached without Lotus pose or headstands.
I had done some Pranayama but this would be a deeper excavation.
The GOAL:
I just had to show up everyday and stay on the mat for an hour.
The first ten minutes was easy, it was like doing corpse pose and my body was used to that. Then it was me, on the floor, lying, thinking, not thinking, frustrated, uncomfortable, sometimes comfortable. I could meditate for 10 minutes sitting and do 3 or 4 hour Asana practise but this was a whole new experience. I wanted to move and not lie dead still. I wanted to feel into the poses I used to do but my body couldn’t.
There was a myriad of tiny little things that could frustrate the body.
A bit like the princess and the pea. If the blanket under my head was folded with a crease, or too thick, or too thin, or the bolster under my knees had a lump a few millimetres higher than the other, or if the blanket that covered me covered a part of my hand. The blanket on my feet could go from light as a feather to an iron weight during the hour, and so much more.
The process of setting up my equipment brought precision and discipline.
I was not allowed to move, only the breath was allowed to move inside me. So, once I went down the whole thing had to be perfect. Needless to say, this took a few months. It was truly interesting to see how many tiny “peas” could disturb the body during the hour and how that would make it even harder for the barrage of thoughts that kept interrupting the process of following the breath, to become even a little quieter.
Getting the body to be still was the first challenge but easy compared to the next one:
Mind, glorious mind.
I remember how I would just lie there on the floor thinking if only I could stay with one whole breath without having a thought. Just be with the breath. My thoughts kept coming in different layers of intrigue. After I could manage not to think about things external to Pranayama, my mind thought it fantastic to think about the method of Pranayama: the dynamics of the breath or where the breath was going, what it was moving in my body etc. Everything would come up. I kept thinking: Just breathe once without a thought. Just once. At the very least listen to the sound and allow that to over tune the thoughts...sounds easy but quite the contrary.
Following the sound was the bridge to silence.
The more and more I could follow the sound, the less and less the thoughts came. The more and more I stayed with the sensation of breathing in the body, the less the thoughts came.
As the months went by my breath got deeper and longer and the spaces between the inhalation and exhalation became noticeable. An oasis, instead of an avalanche.
I got stronger and fitter in daily life as well, even without Asana practise. I had more stamina and endurance.
One morning it happened, there was no thought...at least until I thought, wow, there is no thought.
It was a miraculous feeling. I felt like I suppose people feel when they summit K2. I had reached a point in space. The space inside. There was so much space. So much space inside...I felt like an explorer that could set out into the infinite. Inside the body, the final frontier.
I learned that the breath could move with intent, it could fill places and excavate the physical body but also the subtleties of the esoteric body; meridians, nadis, chakras, the etheric body. The breath could fill and overflow into the spaces inside and the space outside, the skin; a porous membrane that kept a subtle reminder that I was here and now, somehow.
Ramble on about the breath, I can, for hours. It was and remains one of the best explorations I have made of myself. I had healed so much with the breath. As the years went by, I could sit upright again.
The long struggle had brought its many jewels of learning.
It took a few years to get sitting again. When that happened I knew it was time to revisit the fancy sitting poses that decorate social media feeds everywhere. It was time to Meditate. Before my commitment to the breath, I could only sit in Meditation for 15 minutes without wanting to eat my fingers. I would sit nonetheless, with shear brute force. It brought immense disturbance to my mind and my body.
Following the breath for years had set me up for a seamless transition back into Meditation practise. I could sit and at the very least watch the breath, experience the sensation of breath and listen to the sound. I had something to return to when the mind went monkey on me.
Meditation is now the cornerstone of my spiritual development. It was not easy to sit, to just sit and stay relaxed and receptive. My journey with breathing really delivered me to my seat.
I can highly recommend dedicating some time out of everyday to breathe, just breathe. Even if you are lying down, especially if you actually feel comfortable. The benefits are far reaching and will change your life. Even if you start with 10 minutes, you will be amazed.
If you want a bigger challenge and you would like to start an hour a day challenge and need some guidance, reach out. I am always here to share some of my challenges, maybe you can skip them and cross the bridge quicker than I did.
In the end it is all about getting to know the Self, body, mind, emotions and Soul.
Happy breathing!
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