a sweet trick:: breath for yourself
This is just a small trick the lady next door shared with me last night. She said she focuses on following her breath when she’s anxious. Stops for two minutes. And follows it in and out.
By Anna Hatzakis
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought. It’s what everyone says. But she added this:
Follow your own breath. Draw it in for you, air that’s not muddied by other people’s energy.
In that little bit of simple advice, I discerned something fresh. It’s one thing to follow your breath. It’s a super focusing technique that brings you into the present. But it’s something extra to follow a breath that’s especially for you, the you on the inside. The quiet you that sits somewhere around the lung/heart cavity where the air is drawn in. It gives the “task” an extra sense of purpose. And don’t we all respond to that!
When I focus on breathing in I feed that quiet part of myself. My inside people. Just for a few minutes.
Nice.
In other news…
I wrote 3000 words of my book yesterday. It was a bit about “what we yearn for” using some of the wonderful feedback readers of this blog shared with me a few weeks back.
I also took part in Live Below The Line, a campaign that raises $$ for homeless people by getting folk like you and me to live on $2 a day. Admittedly it was only for a day. This year I wasn’t able to do the full five days. Next year. In the meantime, on Tuesday I’ll share some tricks with lentils I worked with…
Have a great weekend, my friends. x
I love this post Sarah, seem so simple to follow our own breath and I really need to do it more. I tried it after I read this post and felt amazing. AIr that is just for me. I love it.
xxx
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Hi Sarah/Jo,
Sorry to spam this blog post but I think that there used to be a search function at the top of your blog where you could plug in a word and search for related posts – has this disappeared or did I just imagine it was there?! I constantly find myself thinking of old posts that I want to read but can never find them. Thanks – and thanks for making my work days a bit sweeter Sarah – always give me plenty to think about x
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May 20th, 2011 at 11:23 am
hey Yazzy – it was really there, and it should be back soon! Hopefully by the end of next week. have a great weekend
jo xx
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Ahh the power of the breath .. it centres and relaxes us (introducing stillness); acts as our ‘anchor’ or focus (so our mind can concentrate instead of wandering) and leads us gently into a deeper state of peacefulness .. meditation in just a moment. I used to set my alarm each hour on the hour to chime a reminder to just stop .. and breathe. Wonderful!
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I have recently started doing this during times of stress and anxiety and it is amazing how something so simple can make you feel a little better. thank you for all your wonderful insights and posts!
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Sarah, your website has had gremlins for about 1 week now. It is just getting worse. Thought you already knew about this though.
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May 20th, 2011 at 2:28 pm
This was your comment way back when on the 10th
Jenn says:
What’s going on with your home page? I can’t quite read the start of this blog.
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Sarah Wilson Reply:
May 10th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
I’ve got someone working on it…annoying i know!
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May 21st, 2011 at 7:14 pm
Get the fuck over it for fuck sake.
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[...] a sweet trick:: breath for yourself | Sarah Wilson [...]
you might be interested in “prana breathing”…it’s about breathing in a column of light/energy along with the regular breath. Particularly invigorating and also very connective.
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The inside people thing (one of my favourite of your tips btw!) always reminds me of an episode of Star Trek, and a society who believed we had many souls all living inside us. Like lots of literal people. I like that. Especially when I cant make up my mind about something, then think that maybe that’s cool, cos I dont always need to.
High fives on the 3000 words!! *simulates mimed high fives* Alright!!
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Sarah, great job with the 3K words yesterday.
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Beautiful technique, I’ll certainly give it a try.
I’m also shamelessly directing attention to this;
http://huntingdale.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the wisdom, Sarah.
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