Breath and Meditation in the Days of Covid-19

This is a series of 5 recorded practices sessions to guide you in progressive levels of breathwork for the dual purposes of cultivating physical resiliency and experiencing internal stillness. This seems like a very good time to return to practices while we are, to one degree or another, effected by the Covid-19 pandemic. At the very least we can all benefit from working on our immune systems, and breath practice is one excellent way to do that. We also need a way to manage stress---because we have it in spades. And meditation is a great way to help with that. These 5 recorded practices will use breath practice on its own for immune boosting and increasing respiratory function. And we’ll also use it as a gateway to meditation. 

PRACTICE I

The Paradox of Effort: Trauma and stress inhibit our capacity for full, oxygenating breath. This practice explores the paradox that we need to use some effort—i.e. tension—in order to make internal space so that effortless, relaxed breath can be most effective. We will begin with focused attention on the ease of breathing, with a section in the middle that adds some effort to increase breath capacity before a return back to effortless breath. It’s only 10 minutes. See what it does for you, and use it as often as you like.

Practice 2: Different breath practices have different affects—but they all include a purposeful focus on the breath. Breath always happens in real-time—rarely if ever do we fixate on yesterday’s breath or worry about tomorrow’s. By focusing on the breath in real time, we step fully into the present, which is a beautiful doorway into meditation. Practice 2 is an exploration of the sounding breath called Ujjayi Pranayama. Ujjayi has a balancing influence on the entire cardio-respiratory system, releases feelings of irritation and frustration helps calm the mind and body.

Practice 3 combines easy expansive breath with a 10 minute Ujjayi Breath practice, followed by a 10 minute meditation.

Practice 4 brings together body awareness, breath, sounding breath, and meditation into a 28 minute session to take you deeper inside to the real you.

The Paradox of Fear

The Coronavirus panic has been an invitation to declare with the best of intentions that fear is the enemy of a well-functioning immune system. Living in fear certainly has been shown to have serious health consequences, yet I doubt if that knowledge has ever helped a fearful person to reduce their fear level, and in fact it is way more likely to have upped the volume of their fear exponentially. You used to just be scared. Now you’re scared, ashamed for being scared, and even more scared because you believe your threat level is higher still because you’re scared.

So how do we escape from the grip of fear? 

To begin, you can lighten it. Take slow, deep breaths. It will calm your nervous system and slow your heartbeat. Acknowledge your fear and name it. Research shows that naming an emotion in itself reduces its hold on you. “I’m scared because this pandemic and the way it’s being handled feels chaotic, threatening and worst of all unpredictable.” It’s fear-worthy. Admit it. 

Reducing the intensity of emotions is great, but it’s really only the beginning. It calms down the inner emotional first-responder team so we can use our thinking and feeling capacities more effectively. Once you calm the emotion, you can look more realistically at the options you have to keep yourself and other people around you well. Find websites about strategies for dealing with fear. There are lots of them. Then try out their suggestions.

Some of us developed the ability as children to combat fear by denying it, some by trying to fix everything that might go wrong, some by pulling the covers over our heads till it goes away. There are many blueprints for how to be a human being dealing with life. It can be a gift of love to allow someone different from you to be themselves as they’re trying to survive, too.

Telling someone they’re wrong to be afraid is not an act of kindness. If you are one of the head-in-the-sand types of fear-responders, perhaps your fearful friend can help you learn to be more present to your own feelings. If you’re in bed with the covers over your head, I hope you get some comfort till you’re ready to come out and meet the day. If you’re a problem solver, we need you! And we need you to acknowledge that not everyone has your capacity to DO what needs doing without some feeling and thinking time first. You might also contemplate the things you can’t fix, and your feelings about that.

Understanding Vibrational Fascia Release Technique (VFRT) through the lens of Biotensegrity

Current research into the workings of the body support a major shift from a mechanistic model to a relativistic model based on a principle called tensegrity (tension + integrity). The tensegrity model states that everything that affects one part of the system will have an effect on the whole system, at all times, no matter what. The application of this principle to the body is called biotensegrity. 

Biotensegrity looks at our bodies as a seamless whole held together by a layered web called fascia or the fascial network, made of collagen and elastin fibers. Fascia organizes and holds every cell, every organ, every muscle and every bone. The skeletal system itself—which we have long thought was our primary system of strength—is organized, balanced, and suspended within the fascial web. 

The therapeutic implications of biotensegrity are remarkable. It posits that our bodies are shaped based on how we use them. At their best, our bodies are strong and resilient and balanced, able to take the occasional hit and rebound easily as long as we’re moving in a balanced way. However when we hold chronic tension because of habitual patterns of posture, if we move repeatedly in the same way without counterbalancing movement, or if we are immobilized from injury, the fascia that holds us together will, over time, reform itself to match and hold those patterns. This is true whether it’s from too much sitting, sports, playing a musical instrument (that includes both postural and repetitive movement stress) or furrowing one’s brow habitually.

Short term limitation of movement creates long term fascial adaptation. If we can’t or don’t move in any particular way, the fascial system responds by tightening to keep us upright and functional. But this makes us less flexible and more prone to injury.

Remember that if any one spatial relationship with the system changes, all spatial relationships change as the system adapts. This is always true. So when you sprain your ankle and can’t move your foot around, it effects not only the foot and ankle, but the entire system from toes to the top of your head.

Unhealthy fascial patterns have to be reprogrammed. Stretching isn’t enough for a lasting reboot.

Research supports the premise of Vibrational Fascia Release Technique (VFRT), that when applied to rigidified fascial patterns, mechanical pressure combined with vibration will create change.. VFRT creates this optimal mechanical application by applying a weighted tuning fork to the unhealthy fascia, using tried and true methods for palpation, appropriate pressure and sustained vibration. Clients report nearly instantaneous relief from even long held mobility and pain.

If you’d like to see what VFRT can do for you, check out your nearest VFRT therapist. We all love helping people to look better, move better, and feel better.

Beauty, Meaning and Metaphor

Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder

I begin this New Year with a revised website introduced by the loveliness of this 17th century still life from the Getty Museum’s collection.

“A pink carnation, a white rose, and a yellow tulip with red stripes lie in front of a basket of brilliantly colored flowers. Various types of flowers that would not bloom in the same season appear together here: roses, forget-me-nots, lilies-of-the-valley, a cyclamen, a violet, a hyacinth, and tulips. Rendering meticulous detail, Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder conveyed the silky texture of the petals, the prickliness of the rose thorns, and the fragility of opening buds. Insects crawl, alight, or perch on the bouquet. Each is carefully described and observed, from the dragonfly’s transparent wings to the butterfly’s minutely painted antennae. Although a vague reference, insects, short-lived like flowers, are a reminder of the brevity of life and the transience of its beauty.”