The Tao of Natural Breathing_ For Health, Well-Being, and Inner Growth - Dennis Lewis [42]
8 Spacious breathing in the ordinary conditions of life
Once you are able to keep your belly, chest, and face relaxed during the previous practice, you are ready to try spacious breathing in the ordinary conditions of your life. Whatever you do, don’t choose situations, especially at the beginning, that are so stressful that you will be doomed to failure. Start, rather, with ordinary situations—walking down the street, talking to a friend, and so on. Then, as you get a better feel of the practice in these conditions, you can move on to those that are more difficult. Eventually you will want to try spacious breathing when you are tense or emotional. Try it, for example, when you are in the middle of an argument with someone, or when you are lost in self-pity, anger, worry, impatience, and so on. If you are able to remember to practice in these more difficult conditions, you will experience firsthand how spacious breathing can help transform the stress and negativity that is bound up with your self-image into the energy you need for your own vitality and well-being.
As you undertake these practices, try them in a light, playful, and experimental way—from the standpoint of learning firsthand about yourself. As you continue this “playful” work with spacious breathing over many weeks and months, you will notice various tensions beginning to dissolve as if on their own. You will also notice your breath occupying more of each breathing space. These changes will make it possible for you to observe deep-rooted patterns of tension in the various postures and movements of your organism, patterns that inhibit the sensation of energy and movement and stand in the way of your becoming more available to the whole of yourself. You will also begin to sense that these patterns are related to, or even fueled by, various old attitudes and ideas, as well as chronic negative emotions, that create and maintain your self-image and leave little space for new experiences and perceptions. You may also observe that it is just these attitudes, ideas, and emotions that are the main obstacles to natural breathing and thus to your health and well-being.
6
THE SMILING BREATH
The “smiling breath” is for me a
fundamental practice of both self-awareness
and self-healing. The sensitive, relaxing energy field
that it produces helps me observe by contrast
the unhealthy tensions, attitudes,
and habits that undermine my health and vitality.
What’s more, the practice helps to detoxify,
energize, and regulate the various organs
and tissues of my body, and thus helps
not only to strengthen my immune system but also
to transform the very way I sense and feel myself.
Much has been written in recent years about the power of laughter to support the healing process. The story of how Norman Cousins, former editor of The Saturday Review, used laughter (and Vitamin C) to help recover from an incurable disease was first published in his book Anatomy of an Illness in 1979, and is widely known today.45,45 In 1994, the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, believing “that laughter is the best medicine,” added a Humor in Medicine project to its Program in Medicine and Philosophy. According to the program’s brochure, Ways of the Healer, “The physiological and psychological benefits of laughter have been well documented. This program addresses how to stimulate and apply healing laughter most effectively in a hospital setting.”
THE CHEMISTRY OF A SMILE
Those of us who have experienced in our own