P.S. Here is the video transcript of the activation I lead you through above:
Hi, everyone. I’m so glad you’re here, and I’m so glad that you are part of the Mama Lunch Break newsletter.
Today, I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of talking a lot and telling you a story and sharing about something, I just want to share with you a breath practice.
As therapists, we talk a lot about breath. We talk a lot about how breathing can impact us in so many different ways. But most of the time, we only talk about how to use breath to slow down and calm down.
And while I love using breathing to calm ourselves down and slow ourselves down, this month, I want to teach you how to use breath to activate and energize yourself.
Because the truth is, we are near the end of the summer. Summer’s almost over. Kids are about to go back to school, which means we are in the final push to get that last bit of energy we have left to get through this version of parenthood.
You know, so many of us love summer. It’s a great time to be with our kids. In fact, I am relishing in all of the time that I get to have with both my girls.
But I also find it incredibly overstimulating and really difficult at times to find the energy and the capacity to show up for my kids in the way that they need my energy to be.
So, one of the things that can be really helpful is to use energizing breath in order to give us that boost.
Now, there’s one warning here. This particular breath that I’m going to teach you will heat you up and activate you. So, if you are feeling angry or anxious or totally overstimulated, this may not be the breath for you.
This is the breath for you when you’re tired, exhausted, trying to figure out how to find some ounce of energy that you have.
Maybe even a good breath work for those days where maybe you feel a little down on yourself. A little like, “Ah, I’m just not doing a good job. I’m not doing what I’m capable of, but I want to be better.”
This is also a really good breath work practice for that.
Because if we shift our mindset and we energize ourselves in this way, we can wake ourselves up. We can remind ourselves of our capability, and we can show up in a way that feels more centered and more energized than how we feel.
So, all of that to say, let’s do some breathing today.
So, this breath practice I actually learned a long time ago when I was getting my degree in theater. It’s called Breath of Fire.
My theater instructor, she taught us this breath practice to use so that we could wake up, warm up, and prepare to get on stage to do our scenes.
And I still use this breath practice today in order to provide me that same boost of energy when I have to wake up, get up, and prepare to be “on” as a mom.
So, you get to learn it too.
I’m going to teach it to you how she taught it to me.
Now, I have learned along the years that this can be taught in different ways. So, if you have heard of Breath of Fire, you might be learning it differently today from me, or it might look exactly like you’ve learned it.
So, with Breath of Fire, we actually are going to start by using a particular stance in our body.
Now, we can use Breath of Fire without the body positioning, but I like to teach the body positioning too.
Now, I’m going to show you how our body’s going to be, and then I’m going to come back and teach you the breath, and then we’re going to put it all together.
So, first, for Breath of Fire, we’re going to be in a broad, expansive body position with arms above our head.
I’m going to back up a little bit more so you can see.
With our arms above our head, thumbs facing each other, shoulders back.
Just take a minute and do that position all by itself without the breath at all.
I bet you will feel more awake in your hips. I know I do. I’m sitting here feeling awake just simply by putting my body in a power pose.
Now, I’m going to get closer to the teaching part.
First, let’s talk about how we use it and why.
So, Breath of Fire is a breathing exercise that actually speeds up our exhale so that we’re doing it quicker. We’re not taking time with it. We’re doing it fast and waking up and energizing, which also means our inhale is happening quickly.
So, the speed at which it’s happening is part of what’s waking us up.
The reason for this is if we look at breath and the way that it calms us down, is that when we exhale, we tend to slow down.
So, if you take a longer exhale, like during one of my other breathing exercises, maybe I’ll bring it in another week, is called kite breathing, where I’m working on slowing down, we take a longer exhale than inhale so that we can slow our body down and land.
But with Breath of Fire, we don’t want to land. We want to energize. We want to wake up.
So, we’re going to be exhaling much more quickly and almost lifting ourselves up through the exhale rather than damping ourselves down or weighting ourselves down.
So, what this looks like is we’re just going to use our nose. We’re going to breathe out through our nose repeatedly, over and over and over again.
Now, let me tell you, back in college, I did this really darn well, and I could do it with quite the fire. Now that I’m 38, it’s not as impressive, but it is still as effective.
So, how it sounds and what it might look like is this.
(Hear and audible exhale through the nose with no real break for the inhale, worth watching this part in the video)
If you hear, you’re going to hear the exhale and a tiny little inhale. So, you’re taking little bits of inhales while you push, push, push, push, push the air out to wake up, heat up, and energize your body.
So, I’ve got to show you one more thing.
What you didn’t see is while I’m doing that, my diaphragm is going nuts because we need to use our diaphragm to help us with this breath.
We need this exhale just like that.
If you notice, my body’s feeling it right here in the tummy area.
Now, when we put it all together and we use that exhale, remember, we’re not using our mouth at all. We’re only using our nose.
We’re heating up our body. We’re energizing our body. We’re getting in a power pose and going, “I’ve got this.”
Like this.
First, I always start with a big inhale because I think it’s helpful because, you know, have a good breath if I don’t do that.
So, I’m going to just do a big inhale.
You can do that for upwards of a minute if you have the ability. Not everyone does.
But when you take some time to do that, even if you just do it for that short five seconds that I did it, you’re going to feel different.
And let me tell you, I feel a different energy already.
So, I’m going to do it again so that you can do it with me, and we’re going to try to do it for about 20 seconds.
You ready?
Get in your position. Cross the legs. Arms up over your head. Shake off any of that energy you need to shake.
Inhale, and go. (20 second Breath of Fire)
Let it out.
I hope you feel more energized. I know I do.
And I hope to see you next month.
If you haven’t checked out below yet, or if you’ve already checked it out, you’re coming back to the top.
What you’ll see below is another meditation and mindfulness. This one is not a recording. It’s actually one to slow down. It involves eating a raisin, so check it out.
And then you’re also going to see some information about two programs that I run. One of them is free, called the Mama Lunch Break Gathering, and the other one is called Powerful Connections.
Please check them out.
And I hope that you send this along to your friends. Let them know that I’m here so that they can get this lunch break too.
See you next month.
