I feel like I haven't taken a breath, a real breath since COVID-19 started. Since this is an airborne virus, and we were all wearing mask it makes sense that I have forgotten how to breathe. I noticed the other day how shallow my breath was. It feels like I've taken one gasp of air and held it for months.
I learned how to breathe from Swami Satchidananda at Integral Yoga. They taught me to breathe in through the nose to my abdomen, then push the air up and fill up the lungs and out through the mouth.
In magic carpet yoga, I've added my own twist to that breath. I teach the kids and families to combine breathing with a color. We focus on the energy of a particular color. Pink is happy, green is calming. We imagine a color coming into our bodies through our crown chakra, down to our toes, up to our hearts and back out through our fingers. Breathing helps calm our nervous system and we all need that. It is an important tool in the toolbox when you are feeling stress and who isn't now days.
Adding light to this technique is pure magic. Breathing with your child is a nice practice to have before bedtime. Take some deep, slow breaths into your belly up into your heart and lungs and then out through the throat and mouth. Add light…and for my extra special ingredient add love. Breathe love into every cell of the body and breathe out peace to the world.
This would be a nice little addition to your bedtime routine and an extremely powerful tool for a child to learn.
Here is my Magic Breath Practice:
1) light a candle
2) put a lavender herbal sachet under your child’s pillow.
3) add a crystal next to the bed
4) lie down with your child and close your eyes
5) imagine a color
6) breathe deeply into the mouth into the belly
7) pull the color in with love and light through every cell in the body
8) breathe deeply into the belly and push it up to the lungs and out through the mouth
breathe in love
breathe in light
breathe in joy
breathe in peace
