Conscious Breathing
Breathwork is a long forgotten and recently revived, ancient holistic health practise, which has amazing benefits for the body and for the mind. I thought for years that diet and exercise were the most important aspects of our health and spent the better part of twenty years consumed by my obsession with using those as the tool to find peace in my life and in my body. Taking nothing away from the importance of those two pillars however, I have learned that it is breathing in fact, which is the missing pillar of holistic wellbeing. To me, breathwork is the most underrated and under documented “bio-hack” in terms of changing our body chemistry and physiology, as a means of master-minding stress, anxiety, mental health issues and increasing energy and vitality in the body.
Using the Energy Codes® practices, breathwork is a means of connecting the physical, energetic, and spiritual bodies – mind, body, and breath – so that we may experience ourselves as whole, as our true essence, the Soulful Self. In The Energy Codes®, we speak of the breath as energy, spirit, or soul. Breath is our vital life force, through which when compressed, we express our physical form. Breath is life sustaining energy, and yet not many people ever actually consciously think about their breathing or where this inner energy comes from.
Consciousness is one of the greatest mysteries of life. Inner energy is another. Michael A. Singer
The most important thing in life, is our prana – our inner energy. Our breath contains invisible energy, which many call prana, chi, shakti or spirit. The word “prana” loosely translates to life force, or vital energy. All matter is made of energy. The more prana or energy something has, the more alive it is. And this is true for us as humans. The more energy we have flowing through our system, the higher our vibrational frequency and the more we are able to create happy, healthy, and energised lives.
Research shows, that the most powerful technique available to maintain the flow of prana in the body, is to inhale it, in other words, to breathe. When we breathe, we expand our life force energy. Breath is our spiritual energy. Without it, we simply cease to exist. Breathing is also the most effective way in which to dissolve energetic blockages in our systems. Organic energy flow will purge all stored energy naturally if we allow our energy to flow as it is designed to for optimal health and homeostasis.
Learning different breathwork practices, such as breath control (pranayama), energetic locks (bandhas) and seals (mudras) have been a big part of my learning and healing path. These techniques can be used as a means of moving and locking energy in the body to restore balance, peace and vitality in the body and mind. Breathwork practices entrain the breath to anchor in the core of the body. This involves calling all our fragmented and dispersed energy ‘back home’. The sushumna is the path for the ascent of energy, from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. This invisible prana tube, which runs along the spine, stewards the flow of prana through the body. Dr Sue calls this, our Central Channel, our centre of consciousness, and all The Energy Codes® breathwork practices are centred around this “energy superhighway”.
The core breathing practise used in The Energy Codes® is the Central Channel Breath. The central channel breathing technique funnels consciousness into the body, which activates the Chakra System. Breathing this way helps us to build circuitry for greater embodiment and expression of the soul’s purpose in this lifetime. Conscious breathing simply means, awareness of the breath – being aware of energy moving with the breath. When we practise central channel breathing, the invitation is to “feel” the breath moving through the body, and feel on a visceral level, that we “are” the breath.
Breathing, with practice, entrains our life force energy to move through the body as it was intended to. Conscious breathing infuses inhaled high frequency energy into the lower frequency densities in our system, raising the body’s vibration and awakening consciousness in those areas by bringing previously dormant circuitry online and making this now freed up energy available for healing and creating.
Just as energy is designed to move through the body, so too are all of life’s experiences. When something happens in our lives, that doesn’t make it through, energy blockages occur in the body, and dis-ease ensues. All energy patterns that do not make it through the body, sit there, pocketed away, until we are mindful enough to release them, or until we are ready to glean the lesson held in each experience, allowing it to pass. These energy blockages cause a “wobble” in our energy field because all of life’s experiences passing though us, must compete with, and travel around these blockages. This causes a distortion in our perspective of the world, and these blocked energy patterns end up running our lives.
Conscious breathing teaches us to be the piolets of our bodies, not the passengers. James Nestor, Breath.
Regulating the breath affects the way that our nervous system functions. Conscious breathing can calm the nervous system, boost immunity, clear the mind, and cultivate a state of deep inner peacefulness and calm. In this way, regular practise of breathwork techniques can reduce feelings of stress, anxiety, and even depression. Deep breathing as a form of meditation, can sharpen memory, promote more restful sleep, and even improve cardiovascular health promoting vitality and longevity.
There is no greater gift that we can give ourselves than to learn the power of the breath, particularly when connected to the consciousness, to intention, and to love, as Dr Sue teaches. To transform anything in our bodies or in our lives, the breath must be involved. To heal the body, awaken the spirit, and enlighten the mind, the breath must reach an area of the body that it had not previously been circulating through.
The invitation is to make the central channel breathing practise part of everyday life. Always breathing in the core, and always breathing conscious breath. Working with the conscious breath allows us to hear the voice of the Soulful Self speaking. Conscious breathing, as practised in The Energy Codes® is therefore the tethering of the mind to the Soulful Self. Since we are created in the energy of Source, which is pure love, living as the Soulful self is the ultimate goal of this awakening and transformation process. Developing this awareness in these practises has transformed my life in the most remarkable ways, connecting me to my life purpose and a sense of indescribable peace within myself and about life. When the breath stops, the soul leaves the body and the physical body dies. The power of the breath is, simply put, the essence of life itself.