Twenty-One-Day Breath Mastery Challenge

Breath mastery starts with Breath Awareness. To get the full benefits of breathwork, you’ll need to develop a very conscious and intimate relationship with your breath. The main thing about the practice of Breath Awareness is that you are not doing the breathing. You are not breathing in any particular way: you are allowing the breath to come and go by itself while you are simply an impartial observer, a detached witness. This is a mindfulness practice, also called breath watching. Observe your breathing right now. Ten minutes is good; twenty minutes is better. Commit to making this a regular daily practice. If the breath moves through your nose, focus your attention on the feelings and sensations in your nostrils as the air passes in and out. If you are breathing through your mouth, notice the feelings and sensations of the air as it passes over your lips and tongue. You can also focus on the feelings and sensations of movement in your chest or belly as the breath comes and goes. If your mind wanders (and it will), if you get caught up in thinking, or if something else pulls your attention away from the breath or distracts you from it, simply place your attention back on the breath as soon as you can. Focus totally on the next breath. Reward yourself by taking a particularly pleasurable breath that energizes and relaxes you. Start to develop the habit of tuning in to your breathing at various times and during various activities. For example, notice how you breathe while you walk, work, and lift things. Notice your breathing during personal interactions with others. Also, begin to notice how other people breathe. Pay attention to the breathing of the people you live with, work with, and play with. Pay attention to how they breathe when they speak, move, strain, complain, and celebrate, when they are angry, nervous, embarrassed, and so on. Paying attention to other people’s breathing will make you more conscious of your own.

Today, we move from the passive practice of Breath Awareness to the active practice of Conscious Breathing. However, in order to start off properly, we are going to take our cue from nature and start with two natural reflexes or breathing responses: yawning and sighing. A sigh is made up of an inhale that is twice as big as usual or normal followed by a long, relaxing exhale. The key to this exercise is to make your inhale twice as big or deep or full as a normal-sized inhale. It’s like adding one inhale on top of the other. You are to create an extra stretch or expansion on the inhale, which
will automatically trigger a bigger or longer exhale than usual. This natural breath done consciously will both energize and relax you. If you are like most people, you are already taking a sigh about every five minutes, or twelve times per hour. Nature makes you do this in order to inflate
all the alveoli, to keep your lungs healthy and maintain your respiratory capacity. If you are practicing Breath Awareness, you will begin to catch these
unconscious, automatic sighs when they happen. When you do, I suggest that you cooperate with them: follow them up with another deliberate sigh. Double down on nature!

Practice an expanded inhale and a luxurious sigh of relief right now. Exaggerate it. Make it dramatic. Be theatrical! When you breathe in, get the sense of adding one inhale on top of the other, adding an extra stretch to the inhale, and then when you let the exhale go, deliberately relax. Use the exhale to consciously release any physical tension from your jaw, neck, and shoulders. Taking a couple of these breaths may trigger a yawn. If not, go ahead and trigger one on purpose. Wiggle your jaw and do something in the upper part of your throat as you inhale to deliberately activate the yawning reflex. And just as you did with the sigh of relief, exaggerate it. Make it dramatic. Make it a full- body experience. Add enjoyable sounds and pleasurable stretching to the yawn. And now here is the real key: Combine a yawn and a sigh. When giving yourself a big, conscious sigh of relief, deliberately trigger the yawning reflex. And when you are yawning, deliberately give yourself a big, expansive inhale and a luxurious sigh of relief.
Trigger the yawning reflex, and as you do, breathe big, expanded inhales and big sighs of relief. Mix yawning and sighing. Practice this right now for the next five or ten minutes. Stretch and move and make sounds as you practice. Make it a full-body experience. Observe the effect it has on your energy, your mood, and your mental state. Plug this exercise into your daily practice protocol 10 + 10 + (10 x 2). Use it when completing one activity or when you are about to begin another. Use it to cool your brain and to provide a healthy stretch to your lungs. Use it to feel more awake and relaxed. Do it just because it feels good and because it’s good for you. Have fun with it, and have fun with the reactions you are sure to get from the people around you when you do it. This exercise should make for some very interesting journal entries!

Many people have the habit of breathing shallow breaths high in their chest. This pattern can activate the fight-or-flight reflex or a stress reaction; it tends to keep us anxious or on the edge of irritation and anxiety. Today, we want to practice the opposite of that. We want to apply the general rule for antistress, anti- anxiety: breathe low and slow. Slow, diaphragmatic breathing is a fundamental key to optimum health and peak performance, so you need to master it at all costs. It needs to become second nature. Many men, when they take in a deep breath, focus only on puffing up their chests. And many women, concerned about their appearance, tend to hold their bellies in when they breathe. We need to breathe down into an area called the dan tien or the hara. It is the center of gravity in your body, a couple of inches below your navel, midway front to back. Breathing this way needs to become our unconscious, automatic resting pattern. Right now, put one hand over your belly button and one hand on your upper chest and practice breath watching. Which hand moves most? Which hand moves first? Are you a chest breather or a belly breather? If you are a habitual chest breather, you absolutely must change that pattern. If you are already a natural belly breather, you will benefit greatly by consciously deepening and strengthening that healthy pattern. Practice it lying on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. As you breathe in, arch your lower back; and as you exhale, press your lower back to the floor. As you are inhaling and arching your lower spine, notice that your pelvis wants to rotate or tilt downward and back (like sticking your butt out). As you exhale and press your lower spine to the floor, notice that your pelvis wants to
tilt or rotate upward and forward (like tucking your butt in). In fact, just by rhythmically moving your spine and pelvis this way with each breath, your body will naturally “pump” air in and out. Get a sense of this pumping action. In addition to supporting healthy breathing, this exercise is good for loosening up and strengthening your lower back. Another way to train in diaphragmatic breathing is to put a book or some other object, like a small sandbag, on your belly. When you inhale, lift the book up with your breath. When you exhale, let the book settle down again. Without any props, simply breathe slowly and consciously, and as you breathe in, let your belly pop out. As you breathe out, pull your belly button in toward your spine.
This is diaphragmatic or belly breathing. While sitting, place your hands over your belly button, interlacing your fingers very lightly. When you inhale, your hands and fingers should move apart. When you exhale, your hands and fingers should come together again. When standing, place your hands on each side of your waist, above your hip bones, fingers toward the front and thumbs toward the back. When you exhale, squeeze your hands in toward your midline and squeeze your fingers together. When you inhale, you should feel the breath pushing your hands apart and spreading your fingers open. To improve your diaphragmatic breathing, practice applying more pressure with your hands and fingers and inhaling against this pressure.

Getting comfortable with a rate of six breaths per minute is extremely therapeutic. Today, you want to focus on that pattern. If six breaths per minute is too difficult, then aim for eight or ten. If six is easy, aim for four or five. Six breaths per minute means a five-second inhale and a five-second exhale,
with only a slight momentary transition between the inhale and the exhale and between the exhale and the inhale. The breathing is rhythmic and feels continuous and smooth.

In, 2, 3, 4, 5
Out, 2, 3, 4, 5
In, 2, 3, 4, 5
Out, 2, 3, 4, 5

This is a breathing pattern that you can settle into whenever you like. It’s a great way to focus the mind and to relax and energize the body. It also increases heart rate variability (HRV). If the four-to-six-breaths-per-minute range is way out of your comfort zone, start with twelve breaths per minute and gradually slow it down. If you run out of breath or you are already full before you’ve reached the end of your count, just gently hold or pause the breath while you finish counting.

Learning to snap the exhale loose, to release it quickly and completely, is a powerful skill. If you have not learned how to let go of your exhale, don’t be
surprised if you can’t let go of tension or pain, fear or anxiety, or thoughts that keep going around and around in your head: you have not learned the energetic skill of letting go. We can develop this ability by using the breath. Once you learn to let go of the exhale quickly and completely, you will be surprised at what else you can easily let go of. When you pull in a full inhale, you create internal pressure, and you stretch all the chest muscles. You can then use that pressure and the elastic tendency of your muscles to do the exhale for you. The exhale is reflexive. You don’t need to blow or to push; you simply relax and let go and the breath pours out by itself.Try it now. Pull in a big inhale and then snap the exhale loose. Release it. Dump
it out. Let it go quickly and completely. Don’t control the exhale. Don’t let it out slowly. Set the exhale free and allow all the breath to pour out of you as close to all at once as possible—like a balloon popping. There is a knack to this, and when you catch it, it feels great. And once you know how to engage the exhale, it will help you in those moments when you need to let go on some other level. Day Six: Linking Movement and Breath
“Lead with the breath.” That advice comes from the great dance and breathing teacher Ilsa Middendorf. It also comes from the legendary Mikhail Ryabko, the founder of Systema Russian martial arts. When two totally different teachers from two separate cultures and fields of endeavor arrive at the same insight, we should pay attention.
Every martial artist, boxer, and athlete knows the power of synchronizing movement and breath. Listen to some of the leading tennis players every time they hit the ball. You will find this principle in karate, weight lifting, tai chi, chi kung, and yoga, as well as Taoist and Sufi practices. Today, you are going to begin to make it part of your breathwork practice. We already touched on this when we focused on diaphragmatic breathing, arching the spine and tilting the pelvis with each breath: breath moving the body, body moving the breath, body and breath moving together.This practice can be as simple as opening your hands while you inhale and closing them as you exhale. It could mean opening your arms as if welcoming someone on the inhale and then folding them over your heart on the exhale, or tilting your head back and looking up as you inhale and then tucking your chin in and looking down as you exhale. Another possibility is turning at the waist in one direction as you inhale and twisting in the other direction as you exhale.
Reach up with both arms as if grabbing air on the inhale, then sharply pull your arms down, making fists, with the exhale. Combining the breath and any movement is as much a meditation as it is an exercise. Breathe in rhythm to your footsteps. There is an entire book called Breathwalk by Gurucharan Singh Khalsa and Yogi Bhajan dedicated to this simple, yet powerful practice. In fact, you can turn the simple act of getting up from a chair into a breathing exercise. Start inhaling a second or two before you start to stand, and continue the inhale until you reach a fully upright position. Then start exhaling a momentor two before you begin lowering yourself back to a sitting position, ending the exhale as you settle all your weight fully onto the chair. You can combine breathing with push-ups, squats, sit-ups, or any repetitive physical movement. This is your chance to get creative. For example, if you have two flights of stairs to climb at your office, you could inhale while climbing the first flight and exhale while climbing the second flight. Or you could simply inhale as you lift and place your left foot and exhale as you lift and place your right foot. Today, synchronize your breathing to your movements. Be conscious of your breathing while your body is in action. Let your intuition and your imagination guide you. This is a serious practice, so have fun with it!

A reminder: Let the breath be like the locomotive engine at the head of a train. The engine moves a bit, and then the first car moves forward slightly,
followed by the second, then the third, and like that all the way down the line until the whole train is moving. Let your breath be that engine: move it first, and let your body follow. In other words, lead with the breath.

Learning to snap the exhale loose, to release it quickly and completely, is a powerful skill. If you have not learned how to let go of your exhale, don’t be
surprised if you can’t let go of tension or pain, fear or anxiety, or thoughts that keep going around and around in your head: you have not learned the energetic skill of letting go. We can develop this ability by using the breath. Once you learn to let go of the exhale quickly and completely, you will be surprised at what else you can easily let go of. When you pull in a full inhale, you create internal pressure, and you stretch all the chest muscles. You can then use that pressure and the elastic tendency of your muscles to do the exhale for you. The exhale is reflexive. You don’t need to blow or to push; you simply relax and let go and the breath pours out by itself.Try it now. Pull in a big inhale and then snap the exhale loose. Release it. Dump
it out. Let it go quickly and completely. Don’t control the exhale. Don’t let it out slowly. Set the exhale free and allow all the breath to pour out of you as close to all at once as possible—like a balloon popping. There is a knack to this, and when you catch it, it feels great. And once you know how to engage the exhale, it will help you in those moments when you need to let go on some other level. Day Six: Linking Movement and Breath
“Lead with the breath.” That advice comes from the great dance and breathing teacher Ilsa Middendorf. It also comes from the legendary Mikhail Ryabko, the founder of Systema Russian martial arts. When two totally different teachers from two separate cultures and fields of endeavor arrive at the same insight, we should pay attention.
Every martial artist, boxer, and athlete knows the power of synchronizing movement and breath. Listen to some of the leading tennis players every time they hit the ball. You will find this principle in karate, weight lifting, tai chi, chi kung, and yoga, as well as Taoist and Sufi practices. Today, you are going to begin to make it part of your breathwork practice. We already touched on this when we focused on diaphragmatic breathing, arching the spine and tilting the pelvis with each breath: breath moving the body, body moving the breath, body and breath moving together.This practice can be as simple as opening your hands while you inhale and closing them as you exhale. It could mean opening your arms as if welcoming someone on the inhale and then folding them over your heart on the exhale, or tilting your head back and looking up as you inhale and then tucking your chin in and looking down as you exhale. Another possibility is turning at the waist in one direction as you inhale and twisting in the other direction as you exhale.
Reach up with both arms as if grabbing air on the inhale, then sharply pull your arms down, making fists, with the exhale. Combining the breath and any movement is as much a meditation as it is an exercise. Breathe in rhythm to your footsteps. There is an entire book called Breathwalk by Gurucharan Singh Khalsa and Yogi Bhajan dedicated to this simple, yet powerful practice. In fact, you can turn the simple act of getting up from a chair into a breathing exercise. Start inhaling a second or two before you start to stand, and continue the inhale until you reach a fully upright position. Then start exhaling a momentor two before you begin lowering yourself back to a sitting position, ending the exhale as you settle all your weight fully onto the chair. You can combine breathing with push-ups, squats, sit-ups, or any repetitive physical movement. This is your chance to get creative. For example, if you have two flights of stairs to climb at your office, you could inhale while climbing the first flight and exhale while climbing the second flight. Or you could simply inhale as you lift and place your left foot and exhale as you lift and place your right foot. Today, synchronize your breathing to your movements. Be conscious of your breathing while your body is in action. Let your intuition and your imagination guide you. This is a serious practice, so have fun with it!

A reminder: Let the breath be like the locomotive engine at the head of a train. The engine moves a bit, and then the first car moves forward slightly,
followed by the second, then the third, and like that all the way down the line until the whole train is moving. Let your breath be that engine: move it first, and let your body follow. In other words, lead with the breath.

Consider that you have three breathing spaces: a lower space from the perineum to the belly button; a middle breathing space from the navel to the nipple line; and an upper space from the nipple line to the collarbones. The full yogic breath is like filling a glass with water: it fills from the bottom up. The full yogic breath fills the entire breathing cavity with each in-breath, and it sends a lovely wave of energy through the body when done smoothly and powerfully. To make the process even more beneficial and enjoyable, imagine filling yourself with light, love, peace, joy, strength, courage, clarity, health. In other words, focus not only on breathing air but also on breathing energy (prana, chi, ki). Do this exercise sitting, either on the floor in the classic cross-legged position or on a chair, spine straight but relaxed. Your chin should be slightly tucked in, the tongue lightly touching the roof of your mouth, where the soft palate meets the hard palate (to close the energetic loop).

• Send the first part of the in-breath all the way down to your perineum and feel your lower belly expand.
• Allow the breath to overflow up into the rib cage, breathing into your back and feeling your chest expand from side to side.
• Fill the upper part of your chest. Feel the collarbones rising up toward the chin. (Don’t use your shoulders or tense your neck muscles when you breathe.)

In the beginning you can mentally count: one . . . two . . . three . . . as you fill the lower space, the middle space, and the upper space, each in turn. In time, it all becomes one long, smooth breath with three seamless phases. Remember that even as you are filling the upper space, the lower space continues to fill and expand. (Don’t pull in on the belly as you aim the breath high into the chest.) Give yourself the sense that you are expanding from top to bottom, side to side, and front to back as you breathe in. When exhaling, release the entire breathing mechanism at once, and feel the top, middle, and lower spaces empty in turn. Remember that this is a breathing meditation as much as it is a breathing exercise.

Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Take little short breaths in and out as fast as you can. The accent is on the inhale. My teacher, chi kung master Hu Bin, taught this to me in 1985 when I visited Beijing, but he had no specific name for it. I was very happy when I heard Vladimir Vasiliev, author of Let Every Breath . . . , refer to this as “burst breathing.” Burst breathing can help you to quickly recover from a painful blow or a sudden shock. You can also use it when you need to quickly rest and recharge yourself while maintaining movement or exerting force or resistance—for example, in grappling or weight lifting. Burst breathing is a great way to “suck” pain or fatigue from your muscles and vent it from the body. Breathing very short, very quick breaths is a way to loosen up your breathing mechanism. At the same time, you are getting practice at instantly shifting breathing channels: nose, mouth, nose, mouth, nose, mouth. Because the breaths are so short and quick, you don’t have time to move a lot of air with each cycle, but try to take in and release as much air as you can with each quick burst. Be very conscious of any tension and unnecessary effort. Ease, efficiency, and economy of effort are important. Start now: breathe short quick breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth for a few minutes. The focus or accent is on the inhale; the exhale is reflexive. Breathe in this way as quickly as you can, at a smooth, steady pace. If you get all jammed up, if the breathing becomes sticky or chaotic, slow down just enough to do it right and then gradually speed it up again. You should aim for two cycles per second or 120 breaths per minute. Breathe normally for a minute or so and then do another round of burst breathing. It’s okay to ease off or take a couple of long, slow breaths from time to time as you practice the rapid breathing. This is training. Be patient with yourself, but be persistent.

Box breathing, also called “square breathing,” incorporates breath holding with inhales and exhales. It strengthens mental focus and our powers of concentration. It is a mindfulness practice. It also balances our energy and our nervous systems. Breathe in for a count of four, hold for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, hold for a count of four. Don’t tense your body or lock up your breathing during the holding. It is more like an “open pause.”
If you are measuring your count in seconds, you will be breathing at a rate of just under four breaths per minute. But it is not necessary to measure your breaths by the clock. Simply balance all four phases—inhale, hold, exhale, hold —keeping them all equal in length. This is a great breath exercise to do anytime that you want to be in an energetically balanced or neutral state. It is a good way to prepare for a stressful event or a complex activity. It is not for use during complicated tasks. Plug this exercise into your training protocol today and practice it when standing in line at the bank or when stuck in traffic, or anytime you need to be grounded, focused, alert, and relaxed.

Today, let’s practice a very healthy and powerful Chinese medicinal breathing exercise called “reverse respiration” or “paradoxical breathing.” This way of breathing is also practiced in many yoga traditions. As you recall, normally, when we inhale the diaphragm “moves” downward, causing the belly to pop out, and when we exhale, the diaphragm “rises up” and the belly is drawn inward toward the spine. With reverse respiration, we reverse this natural movement by deliberately pulling in on the belly while inhaling, and then popping the belly out while exhaling (thus the term “reverse” or “paradoxical”). This way of breathing creates strong intra-abdominal pressures, which in addition to toning the diaphragm and strengthening abdominal muscles helps improve digestive and intestinal problems as well as gynecological conditions. It is also used in chi kung to “pack” chi into the fascia; and it is used in tantric meditations to raise kundalini or draw sexual energy up into the heart. (Kundalini is another name for our life force energy.) Sometimes this pattern of sucking in the belly as you inflate the chest can become chronic. This creates constant stress, weakens the diaphragm, and creates imbalances and unnecessary wear and tear on the system. For those who have unconsciously adopted this unhealthy pattern, taking conscious control of it with this exercise is the best way to stop it and restore internal balance and natural breathing. Reverse respiration or paradoxical breathing can be done standing or sitting. It’s always a good idea to experiment in different postures and various positions. Start with the exhale. As you exhale and empty your lungs, blow the breath out either through pursed lips or with a shush sound, or through the nose. As you do, deliberately push or pop your belly out. Then, when you inhale, suck the belly in, pull the belly button toward the spine, and pull up on the perineum, as if you are trying to tuck all your abdominal organs up under your rib cage and high into your chest. Take your time with this exercise. Focus. Use some muscular effort as you push the belly out during the exhale and suck the belly in during the inhale, but don’t force or strain. After eight or ten rounds or several minutes of reverse breathing, rest and allow the breath to flow naturally in and out by itself, or practice natural diaphragmatic breathing in between rounds.

This is an ancient Conscious Breathing exercise, and it is a basic practice in traditional pranayama, the yogic science of breath. The practice of alternate-nostril breathing has an extremely positive effect on your physical, emotional, and mental health. It is a perfect exercise for getting control of runaway thinking, useless mental chatter, or an out-of-control mind. Left/right nostril dominance is connected to left/right brain activity, and according to the ancients, it also relates to the sun, moon, and planetary cycles. In general, the left nostril stimulates the right brain and is associated with emotional, musical, visual, calming, cooling, relaxing, eliminating, female, and lunar activities. The right nostril stimulates the left brain and is associated with rational, verbal, warming, energizing male, and solar activities. This basic prana yoga exercise involves using the thumb and ring finger of your right hand to alternately block your right and left nostril. Most people like to rest their index and/or middle finger on their forehead between the eyebrows (over the “third eye”). When practicing alternate-nostril breathing, start with the exhale. The idea is to empty your lungs and clear the channel before drawing in a fresh new stream of breath.

• Block your right nostril with your right thumb and exhale and inhale one breath through the left nostril.
• Then switch: block your left nostril with the ring finger of your right hand and exhale and inhale one breath through the right nostril.
• Block the right nostril with the thumb and exhale and inhale a breath through your left nostril, then switch. Block the left nostril with the ring finger and exhale and inhale a breath through the right nostril.
• Practice alternate-nostril breathing in this way for ten or twenty minutes in the morning and again in the evening, and do it about ten times throughout the day for two or more minutes each time. You can breathe according to whatever rhythm or pace you find comfortable. You can use your heartbeats to measure the count. Slow is always good.
• You can also incorporate box breathing into the practice of alternate-nostril breathing:
  exhale 4,
  hold 4,
  inhale 4,
  hold 4.
• Another traditional prana yogic rhythm is
  exhale 4,
  hold 2,
  inhale 4,
  hold 2.

Today, we bring together the mind and breath in a creative way. Consider that there are four dimensions of awareness—that is, your awareness can be internal or external, and it can be narrow or broad. You can focus your awareness on one point in your body, or you can spread your awareness out to every cell in your body. You can focus your awareness on a single external object in your environment, or you can expand your awareness to include everything around you. Today we take advantage of an ancient Chinese bit of wisdom: “Where attention goes, energy flows.” We want to practice consciously sending breath- energy into the four dimensions of awareness. Use your imagination, use visualization. Use deliberate, willful intention to direct your breath into these four dimensions.

• Start by focusing on a point a couple of inches below your navel and in the center of your body at that level. This point is called the dantien or hara, the center of gravity in the body. Breathe into that place. Spend a few minutes focused on sending every breath to that place. You could focus on a joint or an organ or some place in you that needs healing or strength.
• After some time, switch dimensions. Focus your awareness on your surroundings, or let your awareness shift to your entire body from head to toe.
• Send breath to every cell in your body. After a while, focus on some specific external point or object: a flower, a tree, the second hand on a clock, or some sound in the distance. Send your awareness and your breath-energy out to it like a laser.
• You can even combine dimensions: focus on your whole body while looking at or listening to something or someone. This comes in handy if you want to track your internal reactions to the words or actions of another. Try it when you are caught up in the news of the day on TV. As you are watching the program, focus on the feelings in your body.

There is a story about Galileo: When he was fourteen years old, he was in a church, and he began to focus on a chandelier that was swinging in the wind (external narrow awareness). And then he did something that very few people would think to do: he began to count his heartbeats (internal narrow focus). In doing that, he discovered the mathematical law in physics that controls the pendulum: a testament to the power of combining dimensions of awareness. Who or what controls or directs your attention and your energy? Fear? Pain? Habits? Other people? Advertisers? Miscellaneous impulses and random urges? Using the breath to gather and focus your energy and awareness is a life skill that has benefits beyond measure.

Choose a powerful word or a phrase, an affirmation or a declaration, and begin to repeat it to yourself with each breath, as if you are literally breathing those words into your being. Is there a quality or a talent that you want to embody? Is there something that you need to remember or want to remind yourself of? Perhaps you have a power statement, or you are committed to changing some negative or limiting self-talk or internal dialogue. Use the breath to impress your body and mind with a liberating or nurturing thought, affirmation, or declaration. Equally important as the words or phrases you use are the feelings that come with them, that are created by them. If you follow a thought, it will lead you to a feeling; if you follow a feeling, it will lead you to a thought. This practice is about combining thought and breath to generate beautiful, powerful feelings.

You may recall the words that Ram Dass spoke that day: “The power of God is within me; the grace of God surrounds me.” Maybe you prefer the classic affirmation, “Every day in every way, I am getting better and better.” One of the most powerful affirmations I was ever given was “I am always already free!”

Breathe that one for a while. With each breath, stress one of the words in the statement. Breathe in each word until it percolates down through your subconscious mind to the core of your being. Maybe you can choose one of the archetypal affirmations taught by Binnie Dansby in chapter 3, such as “I am an innocent child of a gentle universe”, or SEAL commander Mark Divine’s favorite: “Looking good, feeling good, ought to be in Hollywood!”
What do you value? Freedom? Courage? Compassion? Peace? Clarity? Harmony? Health? Love? Persistence? Patience? Create a power statement, an affirmation, or a declaration, and then put the power of the breath into it to create a real and powerful experience of it. Heartfelt words powered by the breath can transform your mind and your life. Today is a great day to be alive, a great day to breathe new life into your mind and body!

Today, I invite you to use your breath to express how you feel and to use your breathing to connect to those you love and serve. Breathing is a behavior. In the same way that you can give and receive information with posture, facial expression, and the tone of voice, you can also express yourself and sense others through and with your breathing. Most of the energy that is transmitted through the breath bypasses the conscious mind and goes directly to the most ancient part of our brain, our gut, our heart, and our soul. If you want to make someone nervous or put them on edge, just start breathing as if you are getting ready to explode or charge at them! If you want to send a subtle signal of safety, give yourself a long, smooth inhale and a gentle, relaxing sigh of relief through your nose. Put yourself at ease with the breath and others will naturally feel more comfortable and at ease in your presence.Many expressions, like “Aahhh,” “Oooh,” “Wow,” and “Hmmmm” can be enhanced by consciously adding breath to these vocal expressions and interjections. Mirroring someone’s breath can add to your sense of connection and strengthen rapport, in the same way that mirroring someone’s posture and demeanor does.
Taking in a long, conscious inhale while nodding in agreement, for example, will give you a deeper sense of the energy under or behind the other person’s words, and the other person will have a deeper sense of being heard and understood.
You can use the breath to signal the completion of an exchange; it can give everyone involved a sense that what was just communicated outwardly was thoroughly integrated, agreed to, or accepted internally. You will note that this often happens naturally, unconsciously—for example, at the end of a meeting, just before everyone closes their notebooks and prepares to get up or go on to other things. We are communicating with our breath whether we are aware of it or not. The idea today is to make those natural breathing responses more conscious and deliberate and to creatively engage in them on purpose at key moments and during social interactions. We have an ancient, reptilian brain that is hardwired to respond to breathing signals, and if you are a helper, a healer, or in a position of leadership, you can creatively breathe in ways that empower yourself and others.
Pregnant pauses in a presentation can be very powerful, and even more so if filled with a conscious breath or a deliberate and obvious pause in breathing. Plus, some things are often better left unsaid, so today can be a day when you replace verbal outbursts that tend to inflame, escalate, or exacerbate a situation with gentle, quiet, conscious breaths. For your practice sessions today, chose an emotion, state of mind, or quality that you want to communicate and invent a breath that expresses it. Imagine you are a Shakespearean actor and your part in the play is to dramatically convey a feeling or a message using no words—only breath. You owe it to yourself to develop a wide repertoire of healthy breathing responses that will help you to really feel, release, and integrate things. Today, engage in Conscious Breathing responses for fun, for greater impact, or to deepen your connection or rapport with yourself and others. Your focus today is to be very creative with your breath and to use it to deepen your connection to others.

Today, we get right to the heart of spiritual breathing, but first, let me say that spiritual breathing need not have anything to do with any religious belief. Many religious people are far from spiritual in the way they live, and many genuinely spiritual people have no religious affiliation whatsoever. Today we want to use the breath to connect with our heart, to open our heart, to be in our heart, and to breathe from our heart. There are a lot of romantic ideas associated with the heart. We often think of the heart as needing to be protected, as fragile or easily “broken,” when in fact it is the most powerful part of us. When we talk about the heart here, we are referring to the pump that circulates blood through the body, but we also mean something much more. “Heart” can refer to the warrior spirit as well as to natural love and compassion. The physical heart generates an extremely large electromagnetic field. The electrical field of the heart is about sixty times greater than that of the brain, and the magnetic field is about five thousand times stronger than that of the brain. This electromagnetic field can be measured from several feet away. Through the heart, we can connect with ourselves and others in ways that defy logic and understanding. Through the heart, we can connect with something greater than ourselves, something beyond what the body can sense and the mind can determine from experience.
Consciousness is not a function of the brain, it is a combination of body intelligence and mind intelligence. It seems that the heart is the mediator between the two and a perfect channel for this information and intelligence. It is said that the longest journey we ever need to make is the twelve inches from our head to our heart. Let’s dedicate this day to making that journey! The practice is simple: get out of your head and get into your heart. You can even put your hands over your heart as you breathe into that area.
Add to this practice by generating feelings associated with the heart, such as love, compassion, or gratitude. Gratitude may be the highest-frequency, most healing emotion there is. Think of something that makes you feel grateful, or generate the feeling of gratitude for no reason whatsoever. Put yourself into this feeling while consciously breathing into your heart. Pretty simple, right? But oh so powerful! Start your day with ten minutes of this practice. Stop ten times during the day to breathe gratitude for two minutes, and then end your day with another ten minutes of grateful breathing.
Make your inhales longer, slower, and deeper or bigger than usual as if you are using your breath to create space inside of yourself—a sense of spaciousness. You can add visualization to the meditation: imagine your heart as a flower opening. This practice of projecting love is not just some woo-woo, New Age hippie thing. Soldiers employ it on the battlefield as a way of making themselves more available to intuitive information.
Being conscious of your heart space and breathing into your heart, deliberately generating feelings of love and compassion, appreciation, and gratitude, is a profoundly powerful spiritual practice. Not only does it help you get through difficult times, but you will also find that your presence affects other people in a very tangible and positive way.
To be conscious is to be spiritual, to be spiritual is to be conscious. When you bring loving consciousness to anything, it becomes a spiritual experience. To breathe into your heart is a spiritual activity, a spiritual experience. I cannot tell you how many times fervently antireligious people have reported to me that they had their first genuine experiences of spirituality as a result of breathing consciously into their hearts.

Tantra is an ancient path to spiritual awakening, spiritual purification, self-realization, and ultimate liberation. There are many taboos around sex, yet if it were not for people surrendering to their sexuality—and even celebrating it—none of us would be here. Sexual energy is life energy, creative energy, healing energy, breath energy. Inhibiting or suppressing any one of these inhibits and suppresses all the others; there is no way to block one without blocking the others. A great spiritual teacher once said that “sex is just as sacred as Samadhi.” He said, “The bottom rung of a ladder is just as much a part of that ladder as the top rung.”
Here are several exercises you can play with today:
In a very sensual way, imagine drawing energy up from your feet to the top of your head with the inhale, and then sending the energy from the top of your head back down to your feet with the exhale. Keep sweeping the energy from your feet up to your head and your head down to your feet as you inhale and exhale. When you get the hang of it, expand beyond the body and begin drawing energy from the center of the earth through you and up into the heavens with the inhale, then draw energy from the heavens down through your body to the center of the earth. Another meditation is to imagine totally emptying yourself into everything and everyone in the cosmos with each exhale, and then filling yourself with everything and everyone in the cosmos with each inhale—becoming empty and full, holding nothing back, and leaving nothing out.

Try this: Create a wheel of energy between your genitals and your heart, and circulate that energy with your breath. Draw energy up from your sexual center into your heart and then back around and down from your heart into your sexual center. Plug this practice into your training protocol today. You don’t need a partner to practice tantra; life, nature, existence, the universe, or your own being can be your beloved. (Besides, running off ten times a day for two minutes with your partner might raise some eyebrows!) You can do this meditation sitting at your desk or on the subway. Don’t be surprised if people sense something wonderful, special, or radiant about you.
If you do have a partner, give yourself lots of time to practice this: Facing your partner, either lie down beside each other or sit in chairs facing each other. Simply look into each other’s eyes and imagine circulating energy between your partner and yourself. One partner inhales love energy in through the sexual center and exhales it out through the heart. The other partner inhales love energy in through the heart center and exhales it out through the sexual center. Breathe in the same rhythm as your partner: as you inhale, your partner exhales, and as you exhale, your partner inhales. Welcome to the world of sacred sex, the world of tantra.

De-Reflexive Breathing, or Krishna’s kriya yoga, is a very beautiful and ancient spiritual breathing exercise and meditation. Until recently, it was only passed on in a strict, traditional way and only to the most deserving and devoted aspirants. But a few years ago it was made available to everyone through the Internet.
Here’s the basic method: while physically inhaling, mentally exhale, and while physically exhaling, mentally inhale. Imagine light coming into you as you exhale and light going out of you as you inhale: air and light traveling the same path at the same time, but in opposite directions. The goal or purpose of the practice is to reprogram or decondition an inherited primal program known as “body identification.” Let me explain it briefly: when a dog sniffs, with the inflow of breath comes the inflow of information. When a dog barks, with the outflow of breath goes the outflow of information. The dog’s consciousness is bound to its breath.
Likewise, from birth, when I inhale, my experience is that the breath is coming into “me,” and when I exhale, my experience is that the breath is going out of “me.” My consciousness is bound to the breath by an inherited survival reflex. This sense of “me” is known as “body identification”—and yet we know that we are not our bodies.
We may have a philosophical or intellectual understanding of this truth—that we are something more, something else, something beyond; that we have a spiritual nature or essence that is greater than the body—and yet we live our lives as if we are our bodies. Everything in the universe has consciousness, and when we become too fixated on our own separate, individual consciousness, we get out of balance with the rest of the universe, and in a way, we disconnect ourselves from the rest of existence. Spiritual enlightenment or liberation means choosing to expand our consciousness beyond this reflexive body identification and shifting to an expanded awareness of ourselves as something more. We identify with a higher self, or what has been called our true nature.
When we were small children, growing and learning about the world, we needed a sense of a separate self to keep our bodies safe. We had to learn the difference between “my body/me” and everything else in the physical universe. If we lived in unity consciousness then, experiencing ourselves as being at one with everything and everyone, we’d get run over by a truck! This primal reflex that gives us a separate sense of self is a useful survival program and a convenient social device. It need not be destroyed or denied. But we do need to soften it and awaken to a more expanded sense of ourselves. War and violence, scarcity and lack are extensions or projections of this inherited belief in separation: “It’s us or them!”
Normal breathing keeps this inherited reflex alive and active in us, and De-reflexive breathing is meant to neutralize it. De-reflexive Breathing frees us from a survival program that has outlived its usefulness. It is time to understand that to be against anyone or anything is to be against ourselves or a part of ourselves.
Don’t worry, you won’t forget to duck if a rock is flying toward your head. You will not lose your ability to survive in the physical world. When you embody your higher self you become safer and more secure than ever. Try this meditation now: when inhaling, imagine light pouring out of you.
When exhaling, imagine light pouring into you. You are mentally inhaling as you physically exhale, and you are mentally exhaling as you physically inhale. It might help you to think out, out, out as you inhale and in, in, in as you exhale. You can also use your hands to represent the light, drawing your hands toward your face as you exhale, and moving your hands away from your face as you inhale. I hope you get this. It may sound complicated, but it is quite simple.
Reread it a few times and practice it as you do.

One of the central tenets in Zen is the “beginner’s mind.” This is the ability to look at what is as it is, in the present moment, without projecting anything from your mind or your past onto reality. Conscious Breathing is a perfect way to bring yourself totally into the present-moment reality. The archer has always been a symbol in Zen, so we are going to use archery as a metaphor for our practice today. You see, the same dynamics involved in shooting a bow and arrow also apply to breathing. Both archery and breathwork involve combining powerful physical forces and sharp mental focus.
When the archer draws the bowstring back, that is the inhale. When the archer releases the bowstring, that is the exhale. There is that special moment when mental focus and physical power come together: the target is clearly in view and everything is lined up perfectly. At that moment, there is nothing to do except let go and let the arrow fly. The arrow is your intention. Generate a heartfelt intention as you breathe in, and then when you breathe out, release the intention along with your exhale. In this practice, you are the archer, you are the bow, you are the arrow, and you are the bull’s-eye.
As you inhale, your breathing muscles are stretching and build up physical force. As you generate an intention, you are building up mental force. When your lungs are full, there is nothing to do but let go. The air will release itself. You don’t need to push, you don’t need to force, you don’t need to blow: you only need to let go. Today, you want to get familiar with that natural breathing reflex and put it to work for you. When the inhale is full, you don’t need to blow or push or force the air out. All you need to do is let go and relax, and the exhale will happen by itself.
Is there a goal or an outcome you wish to achieve or see manifested in reality? Focus on your intention while you inhale, and then simply let go, relax, and let the reflexive power of the exhale set that intention into motion for you. Maybe you have a wish or a prayer, or perhaps you desire to support someone somewhere with your loving intention. Use your breath to do that. Inhale and generate a heartfelt intention; exhale and release that intention out into the world and your life. Let the natural power of the breath be the force behind your intention. Each time you inhale, generate the intention as if for the first time. Each time you exhale, relax and let the intention go as if for the first time.
In this way, every breath can be a prayer and a blessing. Your arrows can be things you need to release. Your arrows can be negative thoughts and emotions. Your arrows can be past trauma, a fear, a doubt, a resentment, or anything you no longer need or want to hold on to. Your arrows can also be positive; they can be arrows of love, peace, and joy.
The Saint Francis Prayer comes to mind: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.”

Imagine sitting or standing in a pool of water or light. Draw that liquid light up through your body to the top of your head with the inhale; then release the breath out the top of your head and let that light shower down around you like a fountain, returning to the pool. Keep circulating the energy like this with each breath. You can also allow the energy to pour through your arms and out your fingertips as well. Allow the energy to clean and purify and brighten your being, allow it to pour out into the world freely. You can also imagine your body like a flower or a tree: the breath rising through the stem or the trunk and exploding out the top, blossoms at the end of every branch, releasing a glorious, divine fragrance. Or you can keep it simple: a fountain of breath rising through the body and flowing out the top of your head, showering down energy all around, again and again. Adding a feeling of love and gratitude, generating feelings of peace and compassion, or visualizing your favorite color of light can bring this breathing meditation to life.

This practice involves breathing in a very imperceptible way so that from the outside it appears that you are not breathing at all, but on the inside, the experience is very big and very rich. You are breathing pure energy, and the air moves in and out in a very subtle way. The focus is on silence, stillness, spaciousness, and very subtle breathing. Most people are good at sitting still and being quiet, at least on the surface. But very often, they are like ducks: cool and calm on the outside, but paddling like heck underneath. Today we want to create inner stillness, inner peace, and a deep, quiet spaciousness while breathing in the most subtle, almost imperceptible way we can. Putting your hand under your nose, you will barely feel the air moving in and You out of your body. To do this practice you need to be very relaxed, quiet, and still, with no demands on your time or your energy. It may feel like your breath is just hovering in some neutral place yet you experience moving or “breathing” energy in and out consciously. You are barely breathing. The focus is on deep stillness. At the same time, you want to create a sense of open spaciousness that is within you as much as around you. The focus is on subtle energy breathing with no sense of boundaries or borders. This energy is indeed in and around everything and everyone. It is not personal; it is universal, and you are consciously moving and directing it.

I have saved what I feel is the best practice for last. This is by far one of the most powerful breathing practices on the planet today. The pattern is quite simple: active inhale and passive exhale, with no pauses or gaps between the breaths. You are breathing in a continuous, connected, circular rhythm. Breathe into your heart, and remember that you are not just breathing air, you are breathing energy. That is the Rebirthing Breathwork technique in a nutshell. Consciously pull in the inhale in a gentle, active way, and then release the exhale without the slightest pause. Snap the exhale loose, set the exhale free; release it quickly and completely—don’t blow, don’t push. Don’t control the exhale at all. As soon as the exhale is over, start the next inhale right away without a pause.
One way of experiencing this practice is: you pull the inhale in and keep pulling, actively producing an extra stretch or expansion of the inhale. Then,
when you stop inhaling, the exhale simply happens by itself. You “do” the inhale; you don’t “do” the exhale. It is a reflex; it just happens by itself when you stop pulling in. We learned this on Day Five. We called it “engaging the exhale.” The Rebirthing Breathwork technique means that the breathing is continuous. The inhale connects seamlessly to the exhale, and the exhale merges with the next inhale; the inhale turns into the exhale, and the exhale blends into the next inhale.
Active inhale, passive exhale. Consciously pull the breath in and expand; deliberately release the breath, relax, and let go. Breathe in and out through the same channel: breath in and out the nose, or in and out the mouth, but don’t breathe in the nose and out the mouth. If ten is full and zero is empty, then you want to touch eight and three with every inhale and every exhale. And remember, you are breathing energy, not just it. You want to get the breath up high into your chest and feel those spaces expand and relax. That does not mean you are blocking the breath from flowing to the abdomen. Keep your belly relaxed and that will happen naturally. Just make sure to focus on breathing into the chest, into your heart space. Feel it stretch and release, expand and relax. Your breathing needs to be active and full enough to trigger an energy experience, and you need to be relaxing completely on every exhale. Try to stay relaxed even as you inhale actively and powerfully that is, don’t use any unnecessary effort or produce any tension on the inhale. It’s a skill: full, powerful, yet gentle and relaxed inhales.
After a few minutes, you should start to feel energy sensations: buzzing, tingling, vibrations, electrical sensations. Open to them. Breathe and relax into them. Remember that all your body’s feelings are safe. Your feelings cannot hurt you. It is safe to feel your energy. If the energy becomes too intense, ease off on the breathing, but don’t stop. Keep a gentle wheel of breath turning: active inhale, passive exhale. Make your breathing softer, gentler, not so deep or full; but make sure to keep your breath moving in a connected rhythm, to keep the energy moving and flowing until everything clears, releases, integrates, or subsides on its own. Throughout the process, physical sensations will come and go, as will thoughts, images, memories, and emotions. The emotions can be very deep and seemingly endless. People often experience infancy patterns or re-experience and release childhood traumas. The idea is to breathe and relax into, through, and out the other end of whatever arises in your consciousness. Trust your process. Nothing will come up that you cannot breathe through.
Let whatever wants to happen in your body happen. Welcome whatever presents itself. Give attention and space to whatever happens, and don’t try to control or manage anything. Stay focused on simply keeping the breath moving and relaxing with every exhale. Rebirthing Breathwork is an advanced technique that I mentioned earlier that is best practiced with a good guide or coach. It is possible that you can trigger a process that will continue for an hour or more, so be prepared! One idea is to start by mastering the technique called “Twenty Connected Breaths.”
Do the conscious, connected breathing as described: active inhale and passive exhale, with no pauses or gaps between breaths. But just do a set of twenty breaths to start, and make every fifth breath a big, cleansing breath. That means you do four short, quick, connected breaths and then one big, long one; four short breaths and one big one; four short, one long; four short, one long: twenty breaths all together, all of them connected. Do a set of twenty connected breaths right now. Before you start, get a sense of your energy. Practice internal awareness. Do a set of twenty connected breaths and then observe your internal state again. Notice how you feel before and after the exercise. You can do several sets of twenty connected breaths, or you can let your practice morph from the outset. For example, you might take ten or fifteen short, connected breaths and then two or three big, long, cleansing breaths, then another set of ten or fifteen breaths without a pause and another two or three big, long, expansive inhales and sighs of relief. Rebirthing Breathwork is also called “intuitive-energy breathing,” so you can follow your intuition. Experiment with speed, volume, and intensity. Remember the rules: active inhale, passive exhale, no pauses or gaps between the breaths. Inhale and exhale merge into a continuous, circular, connected breathing rhythm. Breathe in and out the nose, or in and out the mouth, but don’t breathe in the nose and out the mouth.
Got it? Then go for it! Awaken your electric body. Activate your energy body, and let this energy do its work on you and in you. This breathing can produce a deep, transformational experience. Trust life. Trust the energy. Trust your process. Trust your body. Meet and greet whatever arises with your breath. If you feel the need to stop, don’t stop, just adjust your breathing—make it slower or quicker or more subtle, but keep breathing, no matter what!