A wise woman offered to teach me about breathing. One might presume that there is nothing to it, but she told me otherwise. Breathing deeply, mindfully, is fundamental to both health and healing. 

 

I lay down on her table and she suggested that I bring attention right below the opening of the nose just before air turns into breath. 

 

"Try not to change your breath, follow the breath into your body and out again. Witness. We are letting your breath reteach you how to breathe with the effortlessness of a healthy infant, as we begin to notice the holding patterns we’ve developed through life that inhibit our breath."

 

My body listened. The world slowed down. 

 

"Explore the difference of a nose breath versus a mouth breath. The nose and sinuses clean, filter, warm, slow down the inhale to prepare it for the lungs. Mouth breathing is gulping raw untreated air with none of the privileges offered by the nose and sinuses!"

 

"Observe the length of inhale and exhale. Which is longer?  A longer inhale over time can lead to  overbreathing, hyperventilation, fight or flight  and many body complications. A longer exhale can keep the O2/CO2 ratio in balance and keep us in a state of calm. Notice how deep the inhale travels into your body. Upper chest? Lower lungs/diaphragm? Belly?  Whole body? 

If breath is spirit it can fill not just the lungs but the whole body with it life force. A breath bath." 

 

After an hour of her guidance to breathe into my back, and down to the diaphragm I felt, well, different. 

 

"You look different," she said. 

 

Perhaps the air comes to life as we inhale it. Surely, it births life. What is the air doing, in the room where I now sit? Waiting for its chance to serve anyone who walks by? 

 

I never took chemistry in college, and the limits of my knowledge about oxygen could fit in a thimble. But I breathe. Always have, except when I am afraid. 

 

Babies know how to breathe to best effect, but we seem to let go of that awareness along the way. Our rhythm gets truncated, and more shallow. I loved those years of holding a newborn under my chin, mesmerized by her sense of calm. What did she know that I have forgotten?