Welcome!
It was a pleasure to teach you some practical ways you can lean into yourself for resources to self-regulate, calm the nervous system, and inturn, show up in an optimal way, both personally and professionally. Here are some of the wellness tools we explored today, and I hope they serve you well. May they add to your toolbox of inner agency. There is a link below in the meditation section where you can listen to one of the meditations we did in our session. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or would like to connect.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Warmest,
Ryan
Breathwork
Breathwork is a powerful tool that uses your own breath for a steady, rhythmic pattern of breathing that assists the body to let go of what is ready to be released. Our breath is often the most under-utilized tool to manage stress and anxiety. A regular breathwork practice can help you deeply connect with yourself, move stagnant energy through the body, assist you in releasing stored emotions from the body and access the part of the brain that stimulates memory.
In a breathwork session or practice, your breath is guided in a manner that increases the level of oxygen in your body, which increases your energy. The increased levels of oxygen stimulates the body’s natural ability to cleanse itself. Since 70% of body toxins are eliminated through breathing, it supports us to learn to breathe freely and fully. Breathwork can be used to energize or calm the body, allowing you to utilize this tool in exactly the way that feels best to you. Good breathing habits can help you reach a profound state of calm and peace.
Breathwork Exercises
Exercise 1: 4-7-8 Breathing Technique
This breathing technique is a simple and effective way to reduce stress, anxiety and depression. This exercise recruits the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for relaxation. It helps with pain processing, increases your memory, and improves your sleep.
You can do this exercise in the moment when stress arises or preventatively every day as a practice.
How:
Sit relaxed or in a meditative posture
Put your tongue behind your teeth so it’s just touching.
Exhale all the air out of your mouth before you start.
Breath in through the nose for the count of 4.
Hold for the count of 7.
Exhale long for the count of 8.
Complete four rounds in total
Exercise 2: Box Breathing (4x4x4x4)
Box Breathing is a simple, yet powerful relaxation technique used to reset your breath to its normal breathing in a stressful situation or to recenter yourself.
Also known as four-square breathing, its name encourages people to think about a box or square as they complete the exercise. It’s also great for busy minds, as you are counting and visualizing a box as you do so, which helps the mind to focus and calm the thoughts.
It can be done anywhere: at work, at an event, in transit, at a cafe, etc., making it an effective tool to calm the body and aid in emotional regulation. It helps clear the mind, relax your system, and improve concentration. Box Breathing is effective when your body is in fight or flight mode and can be used to center yourself in the present moment.
How:
Box Breathing involves four simple steps, each lasting four seconds:
1. Breathing in through your nose while counting to four
2. Holding the breath for four
3. Breathing out for four
4. Holding the breath for four
Repeat the three steps for 4 minutes, or until calm returns.
Exercise 3: 3-3-3
3-3-3 breathing is a simple technique that you can use to calm down quickly. This pattern helps you focus on your breathing and slows down your heart rate, making you feel more relaxed. It’s a great tool to use when you’re feeling anxious or stressed and need a quick way to regain your calm. This is an easy exercise you can do even at your desk or in a stressful situation to quickly bring your anxiety levels down. It helps you deepen your breathing pattern, and is good to practice when you take 3 deep breaths.
How:
Set aside all of your tasks and be mindful of your breath and how it makes you feel.
Breathe in deeply for three seconds.
Hold your breath for another three seconds.
Then gently exhale for three seconds.
Doing this a few times will help you be aware of your surroundings and develop a better sense of reality.
Grounding
Grounding techniques are exercises that help you refocus on the present moment to deflect from anxious feelings.
You can use grounding techniques to help you create space between distressing feelings in any situation. Ideally, you can kick your shoes off and put your bare feet on the Earth to connect to its measurable electromagnetic field. Otherwise, wherever you are, you can imagine yourself growing roots through your feet, to connect to what’s beneath you, and bring yourself into the present moment, slowing spiraling thoughts down.
Exercise: Take a deep breath and close your eyes. Allowing whatever you’re sitting on to hold you. Feeling that point of contact of the feet touching the floor, grounding you in place. Feeling that point of contact of your tailbone and the seat you’re sitting on, holding you in place. Just noticing these connection points in your awareness.
And if it feels comfortable, perhaps you can picture a string at the top of your head, with a small tug it gently elongates the spine.
And, picturing a string at the base of the spine, doing the same, small tug at the base. Elongating the spine:
Creating space within you, so you can breathe
Releasing the shoulders – imperceptibly rolling them back
Opening the chest
Softening the heart
Gratitude
Gratitude as an active practice becomes a tool to reset when being pulled off-course by big emotion or events we have no control over.
Attuning oneself to positivity expands our awareness and appreciation of things as they are, even unfavorable ones. We can cultivate contentment.
What we focus on grows. Where attention goes, energy flows.
We are master creators and we participate in our quality of experience through our perceptions.
Gratitude is a tangible frequency, that’s higher on the scale of emotion versus fear or pain.
It’s also a developed practice of paying closer attention to life’s subtleties – not ignoring the negative or wishing it would magically go away – that toxic positivity is unproductive, but to instead curate positive focus, especially when things are trying.
We can hold both experiences at the same time. What’s real and unfortunate, and also edging in an expanded field of reality. Because there is beauty in all seasons of life: in loss, grief, and disappointment. Good is still all around and within us.
Can we be emotionally mature enough to allow gratitude in when we are pressed against the wall?
It’s a dance of acknowledging something is tough in the present moment. And tending to what it brings up for you, and then gently bringing focus to other life-affirming, beautiful, simple things also happening simultaneously.
We can hold both at the same time. And rewire our brain. Our vibrational signature. Our state of being.
Exercise
● A practice of writing down 10 things daily for 2 weeks.
● Writing 10 things out – seems like a lot but it helps you expand your purview of goodness.
● You are forced to move through the regular run of the mill platitude gratitudes and start actively finding good in your day.
○ EX/ perfect hot latte, a stranger held the door, the taxi showed up just when it started to rain, etc.
● You’ll find yourself saying “ that will make the list”
● **Recommend: writing your list at night, right before sleep.
○ A great way to fall asleep content, and you have the likelihood of waking up open and ready for the day ahead.
Meditation
A meditation practice helps you create a steadiness within, and form a deeper connection to yourself, and helps you cultivate your spiritual development – whatever that means to you.
It truly is a practice. There are many meditation techniques and types that are best suited for certain people, or the season they find themselves in. A consistent meditation practice can help you show up with more kindness and compassion for yourself and the world around you, while allowing you to integrate lessons and experiences that show up throughout your day.
Access my free download to the Anapana Meditation HERE
This Vipassana meditation is wonderfully effective in bringing you into the present moment by focusing on the breath, allowing thoughts to come and go, while continually keeping the attention on your breathing. It’s simple and easy to follow along with. It calms the mind and the emotional body when you’re triggered or dysregulated. And by practicing this technique regularly, you’ll increase your capacity to stay present in your life and attentive to what’s unfolding, even in the face of full-blown distractions/ activations (triggers).
When those powerful emotions or negative compulsive thoughts race, you’ll be able to observe them, rather than react to them. Over time, you’ll learn to choose your reactions consciously, rather than be controlled by perceptions and unconscious conditioning. That’s true power in the face of life’s turbulence.