To access this essential breath, we must first be able to focus on and perceive our own breathing process; that is, we must make the unconscious conscious.

Relax your jaw, throat, and tongue and let your facial muscles drop as if impersonating a basset hound.

Within this pause there is no thought and no movement. You may experience it as a pregnant silence, much like the silence you feel when you enter a forest.

Breath therapy, sometimes combined with other healing practices such as biofeedback or yoga, has been found to alleviate

This type of breathing is the natural consequence of chest breathing and has all the symptoms of that pattern, and more.

To become a welcome vessel for the breath is to live life without trying to control, grasp, or push away. And how easy is this? The process of breathing is the most accurate metaphor we have for the way that we personally approach life, how we live our lives, and how we react to the inevitable changes that life brings us.

Trust that if you let go of your preconceived ideas and expectations the vitality of the breath will emerge naturally.

As you work through the patterns try not to be critical of yourself. Let your new awareness of your breathing be cause for celebration.

The breath was seen as a force that ran through mind, body, and spirit like a river running through a dry valley giving sustenance to everything in its course.