Throughout the day, check in with your breathing. Is it shallow and tight? Are you tense, angry, anxious, or relaxed? If so, it is most likely reflected in your breathing. You might even be holding your breath as a way not to feel your emotions, particularly if they are negative.
Your breathing serves to connect you with yourself and others, so that not breathing fully can be an unconscious defense mechanism for disconnecting from emotions you’d rather not feel. Even though shallow breathing can lessen your ability to feel your emotions, it can also repress them so that you create a pressure cooker of emotions internally, creating dis-ease in the body.
To promote better health:
- Check in with your breathing periodically throughout the day. Are you taking short, shallow breaths or is your breathing deep and relaxed?
- Ask what is going on with you emotionally at that moment and how does your breathing reflect this?
- If you realize that your breathing is shallow, take deeper breaths and check in with how you are feeling.
- Are you able to expand the lower abdomen as you breathe in, opening the lower chakras with the breath?
With every inhalation, mentally reinforce that you are opening your body to a healthy flow of energy. The in-breath reflects the process of your own will–the taking in and connecting with life. The out-breath reflects the process of surrendering and letting go. The dance of your breathing will tell you much about your relationship to life.