(lively music)
- Sat nam, yogi.
Welcome to this channel.
My name is Mariya Gancheva
and this is our breath series,
which is a program of 100 days.
If you haven't done so,
please make sure that you subscribe to our channel
and hit the bell button to be notified
any time we release a new video.
Let's practice.
Welcome to day one
and you've made it.
You've signed up for the journey.
Please make sure you've signed up for the email sequence
if you haven't done so.
It should be somewhere on the link on the program.
If not, just email kundalinilounge.com.
These are essential supplements towards the videos
so that they guide you through any additional information
you should know.
But I'm so excited you've decided to join me
on this journey.
It's gonna be a long journey
and you and I are gonna get
to know each other very, very well.
But the beauty of this is we're gonna learn so much
that I cannot tell you show excited I am
that we are gonna be crossing that bridge.
Today we're gonna learn the first thing we need to know
and that is how to breathe.
It's simple as that.
It is the most common mistake every human being does
because our life is very different.
We are, a lot of us are constantly on the go,
something's happening, the family, at work, the kids,
financial stresses, social media,
the news, constant crisis, this happened, that happened.
(Mariya gasping)
We really are constantly bombarded
and so what happens when you're stressed and anxious
and let alone, if you're a smoker,
then definitely what's gonna happen
is your breath shortens.
So if you imagine yourself as that's your breathing body,
and then that should be your natural kind of capacity
of how the breath should flow,
what happens is we actually condense in.
So we start breathing up short
in the upper body
and we don't nourish the body whatsoever
with the needed oxygen that transports
all the beautiful nutrients around the body.
So number one, we need to learn natural breathing.
A few things before we start.
You can do this while you're sitting
or if you're completely new to yoga,
you can actually lie down
and it's a beautiful experience
to feel just like as you relax.
We don't wanna rush into anything.
We want to really know notice and listen
and that's very big part of yoga
where we go inside, we close the eyes
and we really go inside
to notice where the breath is,
to notice the quality of that breath.
Is it long? Is it short?
Is it frequent? Is it lengthy?
Am I anxious, am I relaxed?
These are things that we're gonna start noticing.
And once you notice,
then you know what you need to change.
So the first thing we should do,
we need to find a comfortable place to sit.
It can be on the chair, you can lie down on the floor,
you can be sitting in what we call easy pose.
So just simply having the legs crossed in front of you.
I'm using a pillow underneath my buttocks
just to prep my pelvis forward,
which lengthens my spine.
The spine has to be straight.
So if you imagine a flower,
and that flower eats from the soil,
if we break the stem,
that flower is not gonna survive
because the nutrients won't go all the way up
to the beautiful flower.
So we are the flower.
We can't be hunched,
we can't be in any other shape
because we're not gonna let the flow go whatsoever.
We need to get the energy going
but we also need the breath.
And that's the (Mariya inhaling) O2
that you breathe in and you expel.
So the spine has to be absolutely straight.
If you think of yourself like a rod
that goes all the way up from your crown
and then all the way down through your coccyx
to the floor, one lengthy straight spine.
Chin is slightly tucked in, shoulders are relaxed
and away from the ears.
There is freedom in the neck.
The spine is absolutely straight
and you're balance beautifully left and right.
So that means that I'm not on one side,
I'm not on the other.
I don't feel any discomfort sitting this way.
I feel straight and I feel elongated.
In this pose, you can have your hands in Gyana mudra.
You can have your hands in your lap.
Whichever one you feel comfortable with.
We're gonna close the eyes
and we're gonna point the eyes towards the middle
of the forehead and we call it the third eye.
So that's where the eyes nerves are gonna cross
and that's the stimulating point of the pituitary gland
or the center of intuition you may have heard.
So close the eyes,
focus them at the third eye
and just above your middle center, just above the eyebrow.
Notice if the spine is straight.
Just mentally go within
and let's check from the head,
all the way down to the base of the spine.
Do you feel any sensation of pulling,
of any pain?
And if you do, try to adjust the body
so that you feel absolutely comfortable.
And then we're now gonna focus on the breath.
Without doing anything,
with no judgment, with absolutely no difference to you
at this moment.
Notice how you breathe.
Is it through the nose or through the mouth?
Is it up in the chest or down in the belly?
Is it short, is it a long deep breath?
Nothing matters, only notice.
No judgment.
Also notice how you feel.
Are you anxious, are you stressed?
Are you rushing after this to do something?
Are you thinking about the emails you need to go through?
Or are you present and are you right here?
And I'm gonna now invite you
to also notice what happens to your belly
when you breathe in.
As you breathe in, does the belly expand
or the belly contracts?
And now I'm gonna invite you to expand the belly
as you breathe in consciously.
So with intention, expand the belly as you breathe in.
And then contract the belly as you breathe out.
(Mariya exhaling)
Expand the belly as you breathe in.
Contract the belly as you breathe out.
Don't change the length of breath,
don't change anything.
Just the opening of the belly and closing.
And you can put your hand on the belly
and just feel how it expands and contracts.
And just do this a few times,
expand the belly on the inhale,
and contract the belly as you exhale.
(Mariya exhaling)
And now just gently start to elongate the breaths
and gently, (Mariya exhaling)
take a bit longer to inhale while expanding,
hugging the hands and the belly.
And when you exhale, exhale completely,
squeezing the belly in towards the spine.
(Mariya exhaling)
And inhale deeply.
(Mariya inhaling)
And exhale completely.
(Mariya exhaling)
And let's do two more times.
Inhale.
(Mariya inhaling)
And exhale.
(Mariya exhaling)
And last time, inhale.
(Mariya inhaling)
And exhale.
(Mariya exhaling)
And now gently open your eyes.
Notice the difference that has happened in you
just by simply noticing where the belly is.
Now, the reason I asked you to allow the belly
to expand is because in modern life,
we breathe the wrong way.
It doesn't matter if you're an anxious person by nature
or simply just your life is a little bit up and down,
because of the stress,
we tend to inhale, squeeze the tummy in,
exhale, relax it,
and that is exactly the other way around
as it should be.
The natural breath is when we allow the expansiveness
to happen, opening up and then,
(Mariya exhaling)
exhale when we squeeze the lungs out.
So what we wanna do is expel all the carbon dioxide out
of our body because when we breathe short,
not only we don't feed the body the oxygen it requires
but we also don't expel fully the carbon
and that creates the toxicity
in the lungs and a lot of mucus.
And we're gonna learn this through our lectures
as well as we go through
but just remember that natural breathing happens
from the belly,
allowing the whole oxygen to come in.
And then exhaling.
It doesn't have to be a forced breath,
we not doing absolutely anything special.
It's the way you breathe.
It's just the awareness of one thing only
and that is your tummy.
I also would encourage you to wear clothes
that are very relaxed around the waist
because that sometimes holds the belly in
and we don't really have that freedom
to allow the diaphragm to move freely.
So for today, just notice how you breathe.
Don't change your breath,
don't try to lengthen it, don't try to shorten it.
Just breathe and notice.
Be present in the breath.
That's called breath awareness.
Being conscious of how we breathe.
And also, try to get that breath
to allow for the belly to come up and out
because that will give us the foundation
of everything we're gonna learn
for the next 100 plus days.
I hope you've enjoyed this first lesson.
That is learning how to breathe naturally.
And it's the most vital thing you can learn.
Be present in your breath.
Notice how you feel.
Even if it takes one minute,
just sit down and be like am I breathing right or not?
How I am today?
That is already a gift you give yourself.
So I really encourage you to take the opportunity
and throughout the day,
just make a mental note.
How am I breathing?
How is my belly going?
Am I the other way around?
Because if you are, we're gonna need to work hard
on reversing that habit
and really shifting it.
Beautiful, thank you so much
for joining me on our first day together.
We learned the most crucial thing
that you can learn and that is breathing naturally.
And although it sounds funny,
a lot of us breathe the wrong way.
So now that you know how to breathe,
please breathe throughout the rest of your day.
Thank you so much for practicing with me today.
As always, please remember to check our channel,
kundalinilounge.com, where you can practice the full program
and receive the daily emails to motivate you
and to educate you.
There're plenty of lectures
that go through the different breaths
and the different techniques
and what they really mean for us in our life.
I can't wait to see you there.
Make sure you stay subscribed,
hit the bell button to be notified
and make your way to kundalinilounge.com
on the link below to get signed
to this beautiful program
and really experience the fullness
of this knowledge of our breath.
Sat nam, I can't wait to see you again.
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