Breathe in, feeling into the expansion in your chest. Be present with the sensation in your chest as your inhale moves your ribs, your abdomen, and anywhere else you may feel sensation.
Breathe out, letting this breath be a release of that which is no longer serving your body, or You in this moment.
Continue to breathe for 5-7 breaths, allowing this foundational exchange of O2 and CO2 bring you into deepening connection with self, and with that which lives outside of you in the great forests of Planet Earth.
Breath practices are my bread and butter. They keep me sane, in an otherwise insane world. More than this, they keep me tuned into a reality that this insane world didn’t teach me in a traditional schooling or workplace sense.
We exist as an intricate part of this world we live in. As our own sovereign selves, we get to know how intricate our own bodies are. And, we get to know these intricate bodies for all the ways they are tied to the grand web of life that extends far, far beyond that which our minds will ever be able to fathom.
As our own sovereign selves, we get to know how intricate our own bodies are
My traditional schooling did help me here. As a student of anatomy and physiology, neuroscience, biochemistry, nutrition, and many more of the traditional sciences that aim to help us understand who we are as these physical selves, I was honored to come to understand so much about the vast and complex webs of molecules and cells that form networks within us.
Networks – those that serve a specific purpose; those that serve countless purposes; those that intertwine with networks, serving purposes that our meager sciences are only just beginning to touch upon.
How I loved doing all I could to understand ourselves through the lens of these traditional sciences! But I reached a point – an important point – that I started to understand that these sciences (supported by the technology available to quantify and calculate) were limiting us in ways that most just couldn’t understand.
This is when yoga (along with other ancient traditions) pulled me in and provided me the guidance I needed to take me to the next level of understanding.
Meditation, yoga asana, breath practice… the means of exploring your self exist right here, right now
You don’t have to get a formal education in vast sciences to know yourself. Instead, the foundation of what is needed is your attention and your awareness.
Take your breath, for example. Sit in quiet stillness, and explore the patterns of your breath in your lungs. As you rest here, notice what appears in your awareness.
Perhaps there is a part of self that is speaking up: a part of you that has some node within your breath in this particular area of your body. Now, follow this thread, and let it show you what your body (or your greater being) is wanting to show you.
We can do this with the breath. We can also do this with movement. Stand with your feet about hip width apart. Lifting your arms up overhead, take a nice, full inhale. Lower your arms back down with your exhale. Take several full breaths in sync with your breath. Once again, hold awareness for what is alive within as you go through this simple practice. Is there a part of you that is speaking up and asking for your attention so that it can reveal to you something that can help you to better understand your own self.
One more example for now: We can also do this with the food we eat, the way we exercise, or the way we do anything in life. Perform the task (e.g., eat that strawberry, that egg, that cake). Eat it, and as you do hold awareness for what is present in your body. Your body wants to tell you what is important to know.
Supplement your own knowings with information gathered from other means of searching for truth
Embodied living has nothing to do with pushing away science or guidance from other living beings. Embodied living is the ability to gather information (the most important information) while integrating it within self so that we can make the best decisions possible.
I studied for years as a scientist & researcher, and today I call upon those that followed this path and uncovered beautiful bits of information that help guide me to make healthy decisions about my own body. But I no longer trust this information if it isn’t grounded in my own experience. I don’t care how much data supports how healthy a strawberry is. If eating that strawberry makes my stomach hurt over and over again, then why on earth would I continue to choose to eat that strawberry! (no real reason to pick on strawberries over other foods. They just happen to be top of mind today).
The same goes for breath and/or meditation practice, along with yoga asana or any other physical movement. I don’t care what the text or teacher tells you. If that breath practice is supposed to calm you, and it makes you anxious, then why would you continue to do it?? (This one is a very real example from my own personal experience).
The point is, here in our modern world, we have the very real gift of being able to gather information from a wide breadth of sources. Call upon sciences, call upon professionals. Call upon teachers and gurus. Call upon ancient texts and peer-reviewed published literature. However, as you do, know this:
Information is only useful as far as it helps you work through the challenge (or move towards the desire) that you are experiencing. It is east to get overwhelmed with information such that it becomes more burden than useful.
More than this, know that you get to be your own discerner of truth as truth unfolds through your own, embodied experience. Call upon all the sources of information from “out there” – but always ALWAYS ALWAYS come back to your body, your felt experience, and come to know the signs from within that signal that which is true from that which is unhelpful.
This post has spoken to the path of embodied living as it relates to your ability to know your own self. But this is only one part of the path. The path of embodied living is about knowing self in connection to the great web of life you are part of. Stay tuned for part two. Or, deepen into that breath practice at the opening of this practice, follow your breath out beyond your exhale and explore where it turns to become your inhale.
It’s here in this seed that you may find answers far more important than I can possibly write in that blog post.
