(This is article #4 in a series of articles I created for Montreal Community Contact, April 14, 2023 p. 10)

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Welcome Back!

In the last article, I invited you to explore what happens when you focus your attention on a sensation occurring in your body and engage one of the four breaths. Today we are going to go a little deeper. Now that you have been playing with noticing these sensations, we are going to explore how breath becomes the invitation for you to relax into them, and begin the process of shifting your thought patterns.

When you first begin to notice the sensory cues, the physical sensations associated with the feelings and emotions in your body, your intellect may begin to fight back. You see, it doesn’t want you to drop into your body. Why? Because your intellect has  been the part of you running the show, and it’s afraid it’s going to lose its power.

For many of us, the intensity of some of the sensory cues that present cause us to disembody, and go deeper into our intellect. Our intellect creates stories and scenarios to help us cope with the strong sensations we are feeling. The problem with this is, when we lose ourselves to our thoughts, nothing changes. This is why changing patterns and habits can seem so hard. In order for any change to take place, we must focus on what is happening inside ourselves, and this is where breath comes in.

Think about an experience, now or in your past, which has left you feeling overwhelmed by the emotion and the sensory cues associated with it. What did you do? Did you disembody? Did your intellect create stories to help rationalize your reactions? This is where taking a different breath can have a huge impact.

Consider starting with the Water Breath. The Water Breath is the breath where you inhale and exhale with no stopping. In the second article in the series, I outlined how to do each breath and what they represent. You can also read more about them in my book Breath Sensations Words, available on Amazon.

When you choose a different breath, new neurological pathways are opened. This means how you think about a certain experience, and/or conversation, has the opportunity to shift. Consider clicking on the QR code where I will guide you through a process to test it out.

By actively choosing a different breath when you feel stressed, frustrated, angry, excited, and/or happy, you invite new thoughts into your awareness. New thoughts invite new perspectives, which in turn have the potential to shift your reactions and responses. When your reactions and responses shift your experience of your world is transformed.

Until the next time!

Lisa