“Follow your exhale. Follow your bliss. All day.”
I cannot say enough about the power of the exhale!
“Take a deep breath” is a command in our lexicon that is misleading, in my humble opinion. Because people on the whole do not know how to breathe deeply, they often strain taking in the inhale. This defeats the purpose of relaxing and receiving the nourishment of conscious breathing.
By really being with the exhale, and with all your focus being empty minded … just on the exhale… you can create a space to really feel, to really go deep. If you can master the art of extending your exhale all the way to the very end, as you let the air out very slowly, then you will naturally take a wonderful deep breath on your inhale. With a relaxed inbreath, you begin to associate bliss! with breathing. This is the goal.
As you return again and again to a long, extended exhale, you come back to feeling that sense of calm and clarity, which builds your ability to sustain relaxation in body and mind. And here’s a little trick: You can also focus on healing disturbing thoughts or challenging situations on your long exhale. You can. With all that focus and the breath in the mix, you might be surprised at what you can do.
So the new command is “Take a long exhale”! When you arrive at the end of the outbreath, you will be so grateful to take that inbreath, and natural deep breathing will come very easily to you in short order.