Reiki healer and life coach Dan Joy shares helpful tips on using breath to relax out of our ‘doer’ – the version of us that must always be switched on and doing – and slip into a more calm and aware state of being. Details on how to book an online therapy session with Dan are also shared below.
Techniques that encourage you to focus on your breathing help your ‘doer’ to gradually let go of the steering wheel of your life – at least for a while. As long as it is still your ‘doer’ that is in the driving seat, you’re stuck in a goal-oriented mindset that created the busyness and anxiety in the first place. Until the ‘doer’ takes a back seat, you’ll only reach a dead end.
The last thing your ‘doer’ wants to admit is that there is nothing you can do in the usual way to become more aware or relaxed. In many mindfulness or meditation traditions, relaxation or meditation is simply called ‘silent sitting’ because fundamentally that is what is happening. You sit with your physical sensations, with your thoughts, your emotions. Period. Of course, the inner talk will continue to happen. Sometimes it seems that it’s becoming worse as we are more aware of it, without distraction.
When this happens, one thing we can do is bring awareness to our breath. Our breath is a good choice for many reasons. To learn more, you can google the relationship of the parasympathetic nervous system and breathing deep – but for now it is enough to understand that focusing on breathing is a practical tool. As opposed to some abstract images, mantras or colours, it gives us a few subtle grips we can hold on to as we focus our attention. It makes a little sound around our nose, also a tiny sensation at our lips, and it moves our chest and stomach up and down.
To make it a bit more attractive to our mind – if the ‘doer’ needs to feel useful – we can also add counting to have this simple practice:
– Chose a place where we can sit comfortably
– Focus attention on your breathing at one place (nose, mouth, chest or stomach), no jumping from one place to the other
– Count from 1-10 on every exhalation. If we were lucky enough to get until ten, we start again… or if we have no idea where we were, we just start again from one.
So, we are not using our breath to relax. We are just focusing on it. That is the part we ‘do’: sitting silently, focusing our attention, counting 1-10. Try it, and keep trying it, every day for ten minutes and build from there. See how this affects your day, your mindset, your whole human ‘be-ing’.
Dan Joy is a life coach and reiki healer. He is offering online sessions to support you using a range of practical tools and techniques, as well as energy healing, all with triyoga online treatments. Click here to book an online healing session with Dan.
