Focus on breathing
We all must do it to live. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.
From the moment we are born until the moment of death, we repeat this continuous cycle taking in air with the essential oxygen needed to break down food into energy. After, we exhale carbon dioxide and water as waste.
With breathing as a metaphor for life, we continuously take in new things, deciding which to integrate within us and letting go of the rest. What do you keep? What do you let go of?
Focusing on the breath
In many meditation practices, an important way to quiet the mind is to focus on breathing. If you’d like to explore more, here are a few resources you might enjoy.
- This informative blog, Breathing Techniques: A Guide to the Science and Methods, by Rebecca Moses, explores the act of breathing from many different angles.
- The Anatomy of Breathing, by Clandine Calais-Germain is an excellent resource including illustrations of all parts of the body involved with breathing.
- Here’s a 5-minute video from Quite Mind Cafe titled Breathing Meditation – A Guided Meditation.
- This 4-minute Cioffredi PT video, Learn the Diaphragmatic Breathing Technique, shows belly breathing.
Focusing on my breath has helped me calm down and work through pain and difficulties. While belly breathing, I mentally focus on the points between the breaths, too. At the end of the inhale, I gently contract a painful muscle or hold a difficulty in my mind. I then focus on releasing it with the exhale. At the end of the exhale, I envision ratcheting down the original stimulus. After a few minutes, I usually feel better.
About Breathing Meditation
I chose a four-color scheme in this encaustic painting to represent the inhale, exhale and the points in-between. The red represents the inhale, focused on energized and raw pain or difficulty. The violet is the point of maximum inhalation and can be a point of remembering, contracting or holding. The green represents exhalation, letting out waste air and also releasing pain and difficulty. Finally, the white transitions back to the beginning of the breath, a bridge between the ending and a new beginning. The bottom section shows how the strength of each step can change over time.
How does it feel when you focus on your breath?
⇒ For information about purchasing this artwork, contact Janet Fox.