Hello everyone! Tutu Mora here with the Y bringing you tools to feel well in your body,
mind and spirit. Today, we're going to be doing some grounding somatic breathwork. You won't need
any props. You can sit, you can stand, you can even lay down. You're just going to need some
time to be with yourself without distraction. So I'm going to stay standing but again, take what
feels most doable and comfortable for you and we're going to start by just placing your hands
on your low belly here and we're just going to breathe normally so invitation is to breathe
in through the nose out through the mouth but no need to alter your breathing rate
or your pace just breathing at the rate that feels natural and comfortable for your body right now.
Now let's bring a hand to your chest and as well leaving a hand on that low belly and I
want you to see if you can breathe up into both hands together so I'll turn to the side so you
can kind of see what that might look like in a little bit more of a three dimension.
So as I inhale, I want to feel both my chest and belly hand rise and fall with my inhale
so breathing in almost like you're just breathing into that front plane of your body
and taking your time to feel like you're breathing
into both of those hands, breathing into that whole front plane of your body.
Now you can keep your hands where they are but we're going to direct that breath
into the back plane of the body. So as you breathe, I want you to feel like you're using your
inhale directing it away from your hands so almost like if you would have set a hand
on the small of your back and on the back of your heart and you're
just puffing that space out instead. So now breathing into the back plane of your body
and that can feel a little different. We're less used to breathing into the
back of our body than the front so take your time to adjust.
Take your time to even just shift your awareness to that space within your body.
Let's take a couple more. Again, just directing that breath into the back plane of your body
and perhaps even noticing how that feels different. You might notice that it feels
like a little bit of a stretch in some places, it might feel just difficult to direct your breath
into the back plane of your body.
Now let's bring our hands to the sides of the ribcage here
and I want you now to breathe laterally into your body so as if we're breathing out to the sides.
So breathing, inhaling, feeling as though you're pushing your hands away with your inhale.
Now you can experiment here by bringing your hands to the sides of your rib cage,
you can bring your hands to your hip bones, you can bring your hands to either side of your chest,
you can even bring your hands to either side of your neck or your thighs and really
experimenting with directing that breath widthwise in different areas of your body.
So we'll start here with the rib cage
and then let's move our hands down to the hip bones
and just again breathing laterally breathing into each hand and maybe noticing which side
of your body it feels a little more difficult to fill with your breath
and then let's experiment again bringing your hands to either side of your
of your neck here if that feels okay for you and again breathing into each of your hands,
breathing laterally as if you're going to push those hands away.
And that side-to-side breath can feel quite different depending
on if you're directing it either where we are now, perhaps the rib cage, perhaps the
hip bones but play around with just what it feels like to breathe side to side like that.
Now our last plane that we're going to breathe into is top to bottom so
to start, let's bring one hand to the crown of your head
and just see if you can breathe up into your hand.
Breathing as if you're lengthening your spine a little bit towards the sky
towards that direction because that can depend whether you're standing sitting laying down
so having that feedback of your hand can be helpful here
and then you can rest your hand let's breathe down now breathing down into your feet
again that can be kind of an adjustment to direct your breath
and even focus your attention to the lower half of your body.
Now let's add in that crown of head, down towards the feet so as you breathe
feel like you're directing that breath up and down.
Let's take one more here finding that reaching up reaching down with that breath
and now finally attention back to the rib cage the bottom of the rib
cage where we're kind of honing in on that diaphragm. Let's find a 360 feeling so we've
directed our breath into all these planes of the body so towards the front, towards the back,
the sides up and down and so now let's think about a 360 feeling of breath almost like there's
a little balloon at the bottom of your rib cage and you want to fill that up the back, the front,
side to side, up and down and so breathing here just as if you're filling up that balloon,
feeling that balloon kind of collapse as you exhale and expand in all directions as you inhale
and
exhale. Taking two more here
and then you can return to normal breathing. You can open your eyes
if they were closed you can just gradually let your awareness return to the room here
and you can return to the rest of your day hopefully with just a very gentle more grounded
present feeling within your body and a greater sense an awareness of the space that you have
to breathe within your body which can be very important. So this can be a lovely practice
just to take on its own whenever you feel like you need it or before and after a movement practice.
So play around with it see what feels right for you when to integrate that into your day
and I'll see you back here next time on the Y's Recharge With Us From Home series. Take care!