The Breath and What It's Hiding
La respiración y lo que oculta
A question about the difficulty of regulating the breath during meditation, and how the breath's patterns are connected to deeper emotional avoidance.
The Breath and What It's Hiding
A question about the difficulty of regulating the breath during meditation, and how the breath's patterns are connected to deeper emotional avoidance.
Can you explain the role of breathing while meditating? I tend to find it difficult to regulate my breath while I'm focusing, or trying not to focus. I'm trying to just let the experience be, but I find myself being pulled to my breath, trying to stabilize it or not have to pay too much attention to it. Are there maybe breathing techniques I can learn?
It's a very powerful rabbit hole to explore. Breathing practices have been around for thousands of years, and they're very valuable. But there's always going to be an aspect where that doesn't really matter and is a distraction. At the same time, a lot can be unlocked through it.
Ultimately, the breath happens. There is a link between the mind and the breath: it's one of those aspects of our body-mind that can be either involuntary or voluntary. If we're not paying attention to breathing, it's happening on its own. We can also pay attention to it and manipulate it. That's why the breath has been such a powerful link in meditation for connecting body and mind.
The controlling mechanism
You're probably noticing a lot of activity of control in the breath. The mind is very involved, going back and forth, trying to breathe a specific way.
What we ultimately want is a natural breath, where breathing happens on its own no matter what, harmonizing and balancing by itself. But you can't do that intentionally, because that's the opposite of natural breathing. You can't control something into not being controlled. Certain practices, however, can help unlock that controlling mechanism.
The breath is controlled in part because it's also a way of repressing. By controlling the breath, we control what kinds of energies come into awareness. That's why it's all tied up in the breathing. Certain practices can unlock that, and the controlling becomes unnecessary.
I resonate with that feeling of control. I grew up in a very troubled family where there wasn't much control around. I feel like it's very important for me to stabilize myself, and when I can't do that, I get frustrated.
It's possible that in order to stabilize, you need to destabilize first. You may be trying to create a harmony that's temporary, that doesn't last, because you first need to go to what feels out of control, what feels non-harmonious. Not in the sense of acting out, but going into the frustration, the pain, the powerlessness.
That did come up during the meditation. I felt a sense of powerlessness and of being out of control, and I let myself go into that. But I also can't help feeling like there's some practical exercise to lengthen my breath. Maybe it's also that I'm not able to breathe correctly.
The symptom versus the source
I understand that, but I don't think trying to move the breath into a specific pattern is the most successful long-term approach. What would need to happen is for you to feel what you're trying not to feel, and then the breath will go more naturally.
For example, you're saying you want to lengthen the breath, so you're probably noticing shallow breathing, tight and not very expanded. That's exactly how the breath helps to numb: by avoiding a relaxed, deeper breathing. But deeper breathing isn't necessarily a lot of air in and out. It's actually the opposite: very relaxed, slow, and deep, meaning the diaphragm is completely relaxed. That's a more natural breath when we're not physically active.
What I'm trying to point to is: don't focus on the symptom. The symptom is the complexity in the breathing, the shallowness, the tightness, the controlling. If you try to address that directly, it's like fighting something that's actually serving as a support mechanism for you. If you're able to go into the sensations and feelings that the breath is helping you numb, then the breathing will stabilize on its own. It will move into the more harmonious breathing you're longing for.
I did get the sense that when I touched on that feeling of loneliness, that feeling of helplessness, and really gave it some attention, I saw a slight shift in my breathing. But it wasn't long-lasting enough to feel significant. Maybe it's a sign I need to go deeper into whatever feeling wants to be seen.
It's whatever energy is appearing in the moment. And it's often a lot more than we can imagine. There's a period in this work where there's a process of a lot of feeling, because we've gone so long not feeling. All of that serves to rebalance the body, the mind, and our emotional states.
But it's important not to have a sense that this process is going to come to an end and then you'll be okay, then you'll find what you're looking for. It's just a stabilizing of something that's in the way.
Counting the out-breath
Have you tried what I've described: counting the out-breath?
I use an app counter that plays a sound for however long the out-breath is so I can track it.
That's not what I mean, because that's controlling your breathing. You're following an app that's giving you a timed interval for the breath. I really don't recommend that. It's not harmful, but I don't recommend following that kind of external guide. It's very cerebral. The issue is that it's giving you a time for your breath, and what you want is a natural breath, which is only what your body will naturally come to at any moment. It's never going to follow a timer.
What I mean by counting the breath is this. You spend five, ten, twenty minutes just noticing the breath. You're going to find yourself controlling the breath; that doesn't matter, it's going to happen. Whenever there is an out-breath, at the end of the out-breath you count "one." Then there's going to be an in-breath; at the end of that breath you count "two." You do this up to a number you choose, somewhere between ten and twenty. Pick a number like thirteen. Don't pick a round number like ten.
Pick a number that's tricky to remember, one that requires you to pay attention: thirteen, fourteen, eighteen.
I think I understand. You don't want to make it about the counting. The counting is just...
No, the counting is important. The point is that it's going to help you see how you distract. Let me explain the full practice.
Once you get to your number, you start counting back down, but only on the out-breath. So when the breath is going out and you hit thirteen, you start going twelve, eleven, at every out-breath. You don't time the out-breath. You just wait for the out-breath to happen and to end. You're following the breathing, listening to it, and then counting when it ends.
So you go from one up to, say, thirteen, then back down to one, then up to thirteen again, back and forth. You do that nonstop for however long you've set your timer, say twenty minutes.
Getting lost and starting over
What's going to happen is that many times you'll find you don't know what number you're at. You forgot. You stopped counting. In that case, you start again from one. Other times, you won't remember if you're going up or down. Start again from one. Other times, you'll realize you're at twenty, twenty-three, thirty, a hundred and twenty. Start again from one.
This mechanism helps you see when you've gone away from the breath. You just keep starting at one when you're lost. I say don't pick a number like ten because the mind can do that automatically without you being very present. You can go up to ten and down to one and back to ten while thinking about the movie you saw last night. Whereas if you pick thirteen or fourteen, you have to be really paying attention to the number. You have to remember you chose thirteen in order to turn back and not go to fourteen. You'll see it: "I'm at fourteen now." Start again from one.
The point is that there is no arriving at doing it right.
So it's not about how far you get.
It's not about that. It's just: start from one, start from one, start from one.
The vulnerability at the end of the out-breath
Another aspect, which you can combine with the counting or do separately: notice what happens at the end of the out-breath. If you bring attention to the out-breath, even right now, notice how there are going to be small temptations to stop at a certain point and begin the in-breath. At that moment, you can bring a more tender attention into the body, into the belly, into the chest area, as the breath is reaching the end of its cycle, where it starts to feel a little uncomfortable, where you begin to long for the in-breath.
Just keep relaxing. It's not pushing the air out. It's just relaxing a little more: the diaphragm, the belly, the chest. Then notice that most likely there's a little bit of discomfort, or an anxiety, some kind of emotion or feeling. Then you can let the breath happen again. Never force keeping the air out, but always pay attention to a certain vulnerability at the end of the out-breath. Gently extend the out-breath to feel into it, and extend it again by noticing how there's a bit of a contraction at the end.
Think of this as a very slow, tender, gentle kind of cooking of the body (in a good way): bringing an energy of warmth, vulnerability, and sensitivity. You start to connect with those little micro-discomforts of anxiety, sadness, fear, frustration that you'll find in this vulnerability at the end of the out-breath. You could even fully expand your attention into the body and all its aspects as the breath is going out. Notice the tensions, the pullings, the holdings that are always there at the end of the out-breath. Then very naturally let the in-breath come again, and explore what's at the end of the next out-breath.
I find that when I could be more gentle with my in-breath, meaning at the end of my out-breath, I feel the strong desire to fill myself with air. I feel that's maybe coming from a very vulnerable place. But when I do bring some sensitivity into it, I can't really hold that vulnerable part of myself for long.
Air hunger and the habit of not feeling
That longing and desire to take the air in is very deep in the body and very deep in the mind. It's triggered by the brain. That's exactly what I'm recommending for you to start feeling into. It's going to feel like an anxiety, like an air hunger. Look at that air hunger as a bit of an addiction.
It's very popular to think you need to take big in-breaths and breathe big, but that's only useful for a very short moment within a specific practice. It's not healthy. Healthy breathing is actually a lot less air, a lot less oxygen. A healthy breath involves less air intake, but not by forcing yourself not to breathe.
Think of that air hunger, that need to take in, as the anxiety that's building from the habit of not feeling.
I feel like it's years of living in fight-or-flight.
That's exactly it. That's the mechanism in the brain that's triggering it. There's a sensor in the brain for the level of carbon dioxide in the blood, and that's what triggers the air hunger. That's what keeps the breathing fast and shallow. And what actually happens is that by taking in more air, it raises carbon dioxide in the blood. So the cycle reinforces itself.
No final arrival
But the point I'm trying to convey is this: there's an aspect where all of this that we're working on and talking about is not going to get you to some ultimate freedom. There isn't a place where this ends and you arrive at feeling good and free. But so much can be processed through this work that it will stabilize your mental state and your body.
I resonate with what you're saying. It's just strange how much I've been programmed by all the different breathing instructors and pranayama practices. It feels as if I can't do without them. What you're explaining is much simpler. It's a very new insight for me.
Combining the practices
You can explore combining these: at the out-breath, count, and always keep the out-breath infused with an expanded sensitivity and vulnerability. Touch that which might feel uncomfortable, then let the out-breath go a little further than feels comfortable, so you feel a little bit of that air hunger.
And you don't push. You relax. It's about relaxing. The second you realize you're pushing out or forcing yourself not to take an in-breath, let the in-breath happen. Even before you feel it, just relax, relax, relax. Then bring sensitivity into whatever emotion or sensation comes up.
If you do that every day for fifteen to twenty minutes, with the counting, it will be a powerful practice. There's also circular breathing, which really unlocks a lot of what the breath is doing. It involves very much controlling the breath and flipping it in the opposite direction. But I only recommend doing that with someone who knows the practice. I do it a lot in retreats and in-person groups.
I've done circular breathing as well, as part of a group.
Good. So that's what I have for now, and we can revisit it whenever you'd like.