Breath.
It is the foundation of your life.
Of the five fundamentals to human living I discuss, breath is the one we can last without for the least amount of time. Therefore, it is undoubtedly the most important.
But a lot of people don’t know how to breathe properly much less how to access some of the transformative aspects of breathing.
In this class, I wanted to talk about better breathing as well as how we can turn our breath into something tranformative on our spiritual paths.
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The Transformative Power of Breath Class Description
We have two key parts of our nervous system–the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system. The overly simple understanding of the two is that the parasympathetic nervous system handles rest, and the sympathetic nervous system handles fight-or-flight. We need both, but we need them to be used appropriately.
However, some people are so busy and over-stimulated that they’re living in their fight-or-flight response. This causes all kinds of damage to the body. The breath can help a person get out of this. Furthermore, the breath can help work oneself out of states–like hypervigilance–that the person has gotten chronically stuck in.
There are all kinds of breathing techniques. Some work with the resting side of the nervous system. Others work with the fight-or-flight side. There are different reasons and purposes to engage with the different sides through different breathing techniques.
However, one reason is NOT to be better or more spiritual. There are some really intense breathwork tools that people are using these days, and some people are using them to prove something to themselves. Others are trying to do inner work faster, but faster is not better. More intense is not necessarily better. It really doesn’t matter how long you can do Wim Hof breathing in an ice bath.
So it is important to understand what your breath does, what your intention with your breathwork is, and what is going on inside of you so that breathwork is healthful and transformative and never destructive. You need to be prepared to go where some of the intense breathing techniques may take you.
Finally, I’ll talk a lot about proper breathing in general. The shallow breathing that many people are stuck in is unhealthy. Unhealthy breathing creates more problems that you know. If you want to know some of them, check out the book recommendation below. I don’t usually recommend books, but that is a great one to buy, read, and APPLY in your life.
For more on this topic, I recommend these resources:
Breath by James Nestor
Adding Breathwork to the Spiritual Toolkit
Numbing Yourself to Live and Over-stimulation
Why You Want to Come
As always, you want to come to realize spiritual freedom. For those who want to be considered for one-on-one work or a dedicated group, you also need to come to my classes to be considered for those offerings.
You also want to come to:
- Get tips on how to better blend your breathing with your spiritual practices,
- Learn to appreciate the power of the breath,
- Learn about some of the types of breathwork that are available and when you might want to use one,
- Do some gentle breathing work with me (I won’t be guiding anything intense),
- Discuss how to prepare properly for intense breathwork, and more.
As usual, I am happy to answer your questions on the topic as well.
Specifics of the Online Class
Here are some of the specifics of how the gathering would work.
- Meet on a Monday at 10:30 AM Pacific Time or 5:30 PM Pacific Time (sometimes Tuesday evenings as well)
- Have a class of around 10 people
- Meet online via Google Hangouts (this online video chat service is free)
- Meet for 1 hour and 1/2
- Most of the class will be a lecture style
- There will be around 1/2 hr for people’s questions
The suggested donation is 50 USD for those who can afford it. For everyone else, it is whatever fits your budget. Please don’t donate until after we spoken together and you’ve gone through the enrollment process. Signing up for my newsletter is NOT the enrollment process. That comes later.
If you have questions about this class, I’m happy to answer them.
Once again, if you’re interested and aren’t on my free newsletter, you can sign up below. I’ll send out a specific newsletter when I’m ready to enroll people in the class.
In love and kindness,
Jim Tolles
