Breathing.  This innate and vital action, which you are no doubt engaging in right now, provides one very efficient and simple way to get in - and stay in - your body.  However, simple does not necessarily mean easy.  I mean, on one hand, you are breathing, right?  Of course you are!  We all know that no breath equals no life. 

However, if you pay attention right now to your breath, what do you notice?  Many of you will find that, while it is true you are breathing, your breath may be very light, shallow, and barely perceptible.  It turns out that most of us have learned to survive quite well on these tiny, barely-there wisps of breath.  And it’s true.  We are surviving.  But surviving well is a far cry from living well.  And, when it comes right down to it, aren’t you really here to live?

The connection between your breath and your body is innate, irreversible, undeniable, and profound.  Because of the way we are put together, if you are barely breathing, you are barely in your body.  And, even more importantly, if you are barely breathing, you are barely feeling.  And that “barely feeling part”, believe it or not, is what is wreaking the most havoc on your life and your ability to fire it up in the ways you’ve dreamed of for so long.  Remember, your mind has come to believe that it is safest if it consistently leaves the body.  And that mind strategy has A LOT to do with staying away from feeling. 

But, if you have lost your capacity to feel freely, deeply, and fully whatever is up for you in the moment, you have basically lost your ability to wakefully, precisely, and accurately make decisions for yourself which are resonant and aligned.  And without this ability, well…you are not so much choosing your way through life, as much as reacting your way through life. 

But, we’ll get more into feeling elsewhere on the site…  For now, it is enough for you to understand that getting back into your body is critical and one way to do that most powerfully and readily is by bringing consciousness to your breath. 

If you take a minute to focus on your breathing right now, what do you notice?  Is your breath shallow?  Is it coming from higher or lower in your lungs?  Is your breathing fast, slow, medium?  Is your chest tight…or loose?  Does your breath flow freely or is it constricted?  Is your belly relaxed or contracted? 

There are no wrong or right answers to these questions.  Any time you take up a practice which is about becoming more aware of what you are experiencing, it is never about judging that experience as right or wrong.  You are only looking for information.  Every experience you give yourself here is about trying to understand yourself more deeply and clearly - including the experience of watching the ever changing quality of your breath.

For instance, if you’ve noticed that you are breathing rather shallowly, using only the upper portion of your lungs, you can use this as important information.  You may be trying to tell yourself that you are avoiding a feeling or two and have learned to keep the breath “up top” so as not to go too deeply into some scary emotional territory. 

Or perhaps you’ve noticed that your belly is contracted and this is making it difficult for you to breathe fully and comfortably.  This may bring up a memory of being told to “hold your stomach in” because, let’s face it, having a noticeable belly here, in this culture, is just simply out of the question.  (Don’t even get me started here on this one!!  Grrrrrr…  We’ll get further into this subject in other sections of this site having to do with weight and aging!)

Remember that whatever you find, it is important information you are trying to give yourself about what is going on within you.  Not good or bad information.  Just the up-to-the-moment, newsy news about you and your current state of being.

Now, are you beginning to notice that, once you are paying attention to your breath, you oh-so-naturally begin to pay attention to your body?  Perhaps you just unconsciously straightened up so that you could breathe more fully and easily.  Perhaps you recognized a tightness in your throat which you didn’t know was there a second ago.  Or maybe you found that focusing on your breath for even a minute is excruciatingly long and uncomfortable for your mind because c’mon, what are you doing just sitting there breathing when you could be doing something really important and productive!  Again, simply notice your experience without judging yourself.

Your ability to breathe fully and consciously is the means by which you enliven all of your cells.  It calls into action the proper functioning of all of your organs, your blood, your muscle tissue, and your bones.  It is the spark which ignites all other sparks.  It is the life-energy of the Soul itself moving in (enlivening) and out (releasing) of Its vessel, providing the on-going rhythm to which all of your experiences will dance. 

Your full and free breath supports your digestion, your ability to think, your sleep patterns and your sexual desire.  It greatly impacts your creativity, your flexibility, and the length of time you can snorkel under water.  Breathing helps you to find your balance so that you can snowboard, dance, skip or hoola-hoop your way to stardom.  It guides you into your connection with the cosmos and all aspects of physical reality.  And, it reassures the heart and soothes the mind when you find yourself in a challenging and stressful situation.

Breathing practices abound which you can utilize to help you regain the habit of fully breathing - which will help you regain the habit of staying in your body.  Here’s one I invite you to try…

Compartmentalized Breathing

*Imagine that your lungs are divided into three chambers: upper, middle, and lower.  The upper chamber is located just under your collar bone, the middle chamber is at the middle of your chest, and the lower chamber ends just above your diaphragm.

*Take a breath and fill, to the count of three, first the lower chamber, then the middle, and then the upper.  You can say to yourself, “Lower 1…2…3, Middle 1…2…3, Upper 1…2…3″  You can also place your hand over the chamber you are breathing into which can help you get a better feel and focus.

*Hold for the count of three.

*Release the breath, to the count of three, lower 1…2…3, middle 1…2…3, and upper 1…2…3.  And hold for another count of three. 

*Start with two or three of these cycles then, as you feel ready or inclined or curious, slowly add more.

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You may practice compartmentalized breathing as often as you like throughout your day.  It is especially helpful: after meals, when you are feeling stressed or notice you are dissociating, when you want to be sure you are fully in your body, after you have made love, before you speak in public, when you wish to oxygenate and revitalize your entire system, or just before challenging your best friend to a pizza eating contest.

Another simple yet powerful practice is to learn how to direct your breath into any and all parts of your body.  Did you know that you can breathe nurturing and vital energy into your lower back?  Or your toes?  Or your right elbow?  It just takes a bit of consciousness and practice. 

Try this:  As you breathe in, consciously invite your breath to enter any part of your body you would like to nurture.  Lightly guide the breath with your intention.  You do not have to work hard at this, or push, or force, or make anything happen.  Your intention, awareness, and breath will be enough.  Simply invite the breath into wherever you wish it to go, and then allow it to go there.  It’s really that easy!

When you first try this, you may not notice much of anything happening.  However, as you practice you will undoubtedly find that there is actually a very visceral, physical sensation that happens when you have breathed into a specific part of your body.  You will literally feel it.  And the feel is one you just may decide you like…very much! 

Breathing consciously like this reminds you that you are indeed, inhabiting a body, and that your body is intricately tied to your breath.  One does not exist without the other.  You are also offering yourself a very kind and nurturing experience, and the more of those you start giving yourself, well…look out!  Entire worlds will change with just that one, little shift.

Breathing fully requires that you consciously open to your breath which is the same thing as saying you get to consciously open to more of yourself.  For instance, you may, as I mentioned above, have been taught to hold your belly in and keep it in, no matter what - especially when that cute someone comes around that you are just dying to get to know better.  But because everything here is connected to everything else, when you tighten one aspect of yourself - like your belly - everything else becomes tightened to some degree as well:   your mind, your heart, your throat, your neck, your shoulders…you get the picture.

And if you’re tightening, you’re most likely doing so because you are scared.  Scared of not being good enough, of what might happen if you let go, or of being out of control.  Opening to yourself means you are turning to face these often long-standing fears - which means you are taking another step towards freeing yourself.  And…opening is a process.  For, opening the heart-space can bring up fears around intimacy and love as well as feelings of deep vulnerability.  Opening the belly may catalyze fears of not being worthy or beautiful or acceptable.  And opening the throat can show us how deeply afraid we are to articulate and share our own wildly beautiful and unique truth.

And what important practice plays a part in opening each of these spaces?  You guessed it.  Breathing.  Breathe into your heart-space and see what happens.  Fill your belly with deep breath and feel the sensation.  You might be surprised by how something so very simply and elegantly natural, can catalyze such a profound change in the way you experience yourself.

Oh, and one more teeny-weeny thing your breath will catalyze?  Presence.  Breathing consciously will immediately bring you into NOW.  The only place in “time” which really, truly matters.  Now.  This moment.  Where all of life actually happens.  And once you are here, Now, the sky is the limit as to what you can create and experience. 

All of this from just breathing?  Really?  Yes.  All of this and more.  This is how powerful and important it is for you to begin fully and consciously breathing - as often as possible.  Your breath truly is the doorway into the most hidden aspects of You and all that is possible for you here on earth.

So now, off you go to notice your breath, surrender to your experience, take in the information you are giving yourself, and see what happens.  You may just find yourself exuberantly welcomed back home, into your very own bodacious bod, right where you belong!  And that means, you’re now getting ready for the real party to begin!

Dig this…your body (yes, yours) plays a major and pivotal role in your awakening process.  It is the vehicle you chose within which to navigate this awesome, quirky planet.  It is a vessel, a container for your Soul, a pliable, unique mass of cosmically earthy tissue put together with the most incredible precision, complexity, and perfection.  Every experience you give yourself must come through your body in order for you to experience it!  Every single one.  No body…no earthly experiences.   Period.

Now, that’s a great story, but chances are good that somewhere along the line, you learned to dislike, be uncomfortable with, or even downright despise your body.  Someone - perhaps your mother, or the mean girl in your first grade class, or that group of boys you had to walk past every day on your way home - made a completely inappropriate, derogatory comment about your body which efficiently and permanently stuck in your young, innocent mind as: The Truth.  This experience has undoubtedly since then been validated over and over again in the messages you’ve received from other people, television, movies, fashion magazines, and advertisements. 

The bottom line of all these messages?  Your body, as it is, is just not going to cut it.  And in this torqued out story, if your body isn’t “up to snuff” according to the latest rules of the culture at large, then YOU aren’t up to snuff either.  And that’s just bad news for the mind which wants to belong, and be accepted, and not wind up alone forever on the couch watching Desperate Housewives reruns with a 10lb. bag of potato chips and a six-pack of Diet Coke. 

This, coupled with any trauma you may have experienced in your life (abuse of any kind, a serious accident, severe illness, or anything else which caused you some major pain on any level) has probably made it very difficult for you to stay in your body and actually experience what is going on within and around you. 

What I’m talking about here when I say “out of your body” is a potent little psychological tool you were born with which is called dissociation.  When we dissociate, we go straight out of the body and usually straight into a tiny, tiny portion of the mind which is reserved for just “hanging out” in while the “bad” stuff happens.  The mind believes that if we mentally, psychologically, and emotionally jettison ourselves out of a potentially dangerous situation, we’ll be OK.  Most human beings at this time on earth have become almost professional at dissociating on and off throughout each day.  This natural mechanism which was meant to be hugely helpful and protective in dealing with seriously traumatic situations has now become an ongoing, daily habit for many people as they attempt to navigate lives which are just too full, too stressful, and way too overwhelming.  In other words, we have adapted to lives which are dangerously out of whack by continually utilizing one of our main survival tools - which was designed for rare and occasional use only! 

For instance, if you pull into the parking lot at work first thing in the morning, and wonder how the heck you got there?  You were dissociated during your drive.  When you’re in a meeting and someone asks you a question and you realize you have no idea what anyone is talking about?  Dissociation.  When you buy a half-gallon of Jamoca Almond Fudge Brownie Chunk Caramel Dream and look down to see most of it gone - with barely any memory of eating it?  You guessed it…dissociation.

When you dissociate, you are energetically, psychologically, mentally and emotionally not available to the current situation and again, your mind believes that because you’re not sticking around for the potential pain (the pain of going to a job you can’t stand, the pain of sitting through hours of people droning on and on about stuff that means absolutely nothing to you, the pain that all that ice cream was supposed to ease and comfort), you’re safe.  But get this…you are immeasurably less safe when you are out of your body.  If no one is home to feel and recognize what is going on inside, you cannot possibly make healthy, wise, or empowered choices around what you need or want in any given moment.  This leaves you more vulnerable - not less, which can then lead, at best, to mindlessly going along on autopilot with what everyone else is doing and, at worst, making choices which are diminishing, dangerous, or even more traumatic for yourself.

So why would you choose such a radical strategy for your day-to-day living?  Well, that’s easy.  If you didn’t, you might actually feel what was going on inside of you (you know, like all that existential angst, and anxiety, and hopelessness…not to mention the deep longing for something - your relationship, your job, your ability to speak Martian - anything to be different or better in your life) and that might mean you end up choosing to make some really, really big and mind-blowing changes in and around your personal corner of the Universe.  And everyone knows how the mind feels about change.  Not its favorite subject.

But if you’re one of the one’s (and there are LOTS of you now) who knows it is time for those really, really big changes to begin, then you need to remember this: No Body, No Change.  Period.  The good news?  You can learn to get back into that body of yours - and stay there.  And once you’re back in the driver’s seat of your very  own superbly tricked-out vehicle, you are one giant step closer to knowing and experiencing yourself as a magnificent living being instead of a fearful surviving automaton.   And that’s a big difference.  Because here’s the thing…if you aren’t in the driver’s seat of your own body, then someone or something else is.  And that’s just plain weird.  Who wants someone or something else taking charge of and wreaking havoc on all that beautiful fleshly perfection?

So basically, it is important for you to know that choosing to wrap your Sparky Divine Self within the luscious folds of your unique body was not a big, terrible mistake.  It was part of what you really wanted to experience!  It is a very powerful way for Consciousness (You) to experience Itself (Yourself) in form.  And thus, it turns out that your awakening process involves moving ever more fully into your body so that you can experience every single magical nuance of what it means to be human.  And who would want to miss out on that?

Listen.  When I invite people into a conversation about their body, what I mostly get in return is either a completely blank stare or a nice, big recoil.  Basically, we’ve all been trained to see our bodies as separate, as incredibly negative things or objects which need to be controlled, managed, manipulated, stretched, tucked, reduced, enlarged, and basically molded into whatever fad of the moment will make us appear to be acceptable and worthy human beings.  In other words, what we now believe matters more than anything about the body, is how it looks.

An immeasurably ginormous amount of personal and collective energy is right now, this very moment, outpouring into the vast wasteland of “how do I look?”  The most insignificant part of your body - the outside - is where most of you and everyone else around you have learned to focus your undying attention, all the time, almost every minute of every day.

But the outside of your body is only a tiny fraction of the whole of what it really is.  If you were to dig even just a little bit beneath that surface you are constantly trying so hard to whip into shape, you might surprise yourself with what you find. 

Let’s try this.  Take a look at your body from the inside out…  

As it turns out, your body is one of the most miraculous creations ever.  It is rich with the density of muscle tissue which propels you through all the aspects of your life.  Those muscles overlay bones which give you shape and structure and support.  Joints are layered with connective tissue that responds every time you take a step or bend over or breathe.  Your heart beats ceaselessly, reminding you of the rhythm of the cosmos with which you are deeply and forever connected, while at the same time, sending vital life force to every magnificent bit of you.  Your lungs take in and expel life-giving air, allowing you to actually experience yourself here on earth. Through the perfect complexity of your digestive system, you have the ability to efficiently take in nourishment and expel toxins.  And you are, at the foundation, made up of literally billions of cells - each of which has its own, unique and particular purpose which, in the end, is all about keeping everything working as properly and as gracefully as possible.

So, when you are contemplating the invitation to get back into your body, you are contemplating nothing less than re-inhabiting the miraculous wisdom and sacred majesty of an organism unlike any other, anywhere else in the whole of the Universe.  And who wouldn’t want that on their Cosmic resume? 

Now, this does not mean that you need to ignore the outside of your body.  It’s just that, if you are ever going to truly make friends with what your body looks like on the outside (which is definitely an aspect of waking up), you get to make friends with what your body really and truly IS on the inside.  In fact, that’s actually how most things will work best for you here - inside out.  Get it on the inside, and the outside automatically reflects the pattern back to you in form.  And that is true whether you are talking about your body, or relationships, or how much money you have in your checking account.  More on that later, though.  For now, since you really get how important your body is to your journey of awakening, let’s look at how you might joyfully go about getting back in there!

As a beginning, here’s a practice I like to call:  “I Want, I Want!  I Need, I Need!”  

Every day, a hundred times per day, your body is sending you messages.  It tells you when you’re thirsty and when you’ve properly topped-off your internal tank.  It tells you when your bladder is full, when your stomach is empty, and when you need to rest, breathe more deeply, or put down that last piece of chocolate.  It tells you when you’re too cold and when you’re in danger of burning up.  And it tells you when you need to pick yourself up off the couch, get outside, and weed that garden!   All day long, your body is talking.  The question is; are you listening?     

If you’re like most people today, you’ve probably learned to ignore most of your body’s messages - and you don’t even know you’re doing it.  After all, when was the last time you heard your boss or your teacher or your partner remind you to listen to and honor all of your body’s messages immediately - no matter what else is going on?

So…here’s your assignment:  Quite simply, you are invited to take care of what your body needs as close to the moment you notice that it needs something.  That’s it.  Simple, right?  This means that when you notice you’re cold, you get a sweater.  If you’re thirsty, you get a drink.  If you’re hungry, eat.  And if you’ve gotta pee, do it.  Now.  Not ten minutes from now.  Not right after you finish that document your boss is in his office waiting for.  And not after one more game of Spider Solitaire.  Right.  Now.

Because here’s the thing.  Every time you ignore one of your body’s messages, your psyche registers a version of one or more of the following: “I do not matter.”  “Everything and everyone else is way more important than me.”  “Life here is hard and painful and challenging.”  “No one cares about me.”  “I can’t keep up.”  Chances are, after receiving perhaps a hundred or so of these messages every day, your unconscious view of yourself is pretty much in the toilet.  And that means you are probably intensely looking for validation, support, approval and acceptance from outside of yourself.  And, have you noticed?  That simply never works.  Ever. 

It is your job to validate and accept yourself, as you are, right now.  No one will ever be able to convince you that you are OK, except you.  And getting back into your body with the intention of respecting and honoring its needs, is taking one huge step in doing just that.  Once you have committed to caring for your body, and I mean really caring for it on the deepest levels - which are way beyond deciding that this year for sure you are going to lose that ten pounds you’ve been talking about losing forever - you will actually inhabit your body which will, quite simply and completely, change everything.

For, if you are in your body, listening and responding to what you hear, you are taking charge of yourself again.  You are no longer allowing anything or anyone else to come before or between or underneath your own self and that self’s needs.  You are saying that you do indeed matter, that you are, without a doubt, a vital and important Divine aspect of Consciousness, and you fully intend to treat yourself as such, thank you very much! 

Also, it just so happens that if you’re back in your body, you regain access to feeling (remember feeling?).  And if you are feeling, it is then - and only then - possible for you to identify your own experiences of “resonance” and “alignment” (or dissonance and non-alignment), both of which are THE guiding principals in taking back your own power to choose that which is truly right for you. 

So, it might be helpful to experiment with seeing yourself as the airline steward here to serve on your very own personal jetliner (this would be your body).  You get to saunter down the isle asking yourself if there is anything you need…  More pillows for your nap?  A sexy bubble bath?  A steaming hot beverage?  Your favorite decadent, yummy snack?  The idea is to deeply and fully start giving your body the attention it needs and craves, right when it needs and craves it.  I mean, after all, this is the only body you get this lifetime.  The only one.  And you’ve been ignoring it (not that you really meant to, of course) long enough.  Don’t ya think?

Now, start listening to what your body has to say, and get back in charge of yourself!  I mean it!  Right.  Now.  

Oh, and by the way…  Take up this practice, and I guarantee you will change your life…and isn’t that really what you’re all about?