Today, I’m supporting my youngest nephew’s swim team with a guided meditation as they head to the state swim finals. My focus for the team:  deep, conscious breathing to achieve a sense of effortlessness, of being in the flow, and to help them get to a place of relaxed concentration.  Go MG!

So in that spirit, I’ll share, once again, my passion for the breath. Truly, I could include it in every Friday Focus!

Deep, conscious breathing changed my life.

Really Jessica?

Yup, really.

A regular practice of conscious breathing gave me easier access to awareness and insight, connected me to my intuition and eventually my true self. Over time it helped eased my worry and anxiety so that I could untangle their monstrously false messages, hear them for what they were, making it possible to remove their fangs. Breathing smoothed the process of releasing and clearing beliefs, habits and patterns that were no longer appropriate. It supported me with greater clarity, a way through the muddle created by doubt. It is the cornerstone of transformational work, to borrow from Kathleen Reading Hawes.

The breath is the best thing you can do for yourself when you’re being bombarded with the chaotic energies of life. It creates a compassionate stillness. Gets you into your body, centered, balanced. Provides a gentle, safe opening. The breath invites you into the core of you. It builds a connection of you to you. It helps to move stuck energies. It is like a lubricant that helps things flow more easily. It dumbs you down (in the best way), gets you out of your head, and back to simplicity. It’s natural. It costs nothing. There’s no class to take, no method to study. It’s available to you in every single moment of your life. It brings more of you to you. Breathing puts more life into your life.

Maybe it’s tempting to disregard it because of it’s simplicity, but that is its profound beauty, grace and potency.

So take a good, deep breath…or two…or fifty!

Want more inspiration about the power of the breath? Check out the “doctor of breath”, Norma Delaney, at www.compassionatebreath.net. There you’ll find many free archives. The experiences I’ve had with her and her work were powerful and expansive.

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