OPEN THE BREATH WITH MASSAGE

Massage can help loosen the chest muscles to allow the lungs to expand more
easily. You can do it yourself!

To start, place your fingertips at the bottom of the sternum. Move the
fingertips in little circles with some good pressure right on that bone
(breastbone) , and see if you can loosen up the muscles that attach onto the
sternum. Is it sore, tight, normal?

Move the fingertips up the sternum along the outside of it, feeling into the
places between the ribs, and loosening up these muscles. It should feel
good... maybe a little sore.

Move the fingers all the way up to the clavicle (collar bone) and along this
bone to the shoulders.

After your massage, take a couple of nice breaths, and enjoy the openness in
the muscles you just attended to. This is great work anytime you feel stress
or like you might be holding your breath! It releases physical tension and
emotional holding as well.

No breath class tonight! (I'm going out of town for a day)

Breathe Through Trauma

"Any trauma you can breathe through loses its grip on you. Here's why. Any animal freezes its breathing when a startle occurs. In nature...there is great survival value in freezing into stillness.

When a trauma occurs, the breath is first held and then becomes short and shallow. So releasing a trauma from the body and mind is partly a result of getting the breath flowing again while the person consiously processes the feelings from the events that froze the breath in the first place." From Consicous Breathing - Gay Hendricks

The trauma may be present or from long in the past, but if you can breathe slowly and deeply while thinking or speaking of it, your body will have great help in releasing it!