THE ART OF BREATHING by Justine Toms The breath is always with us.

We can think of it as a portable altar - a place to provide nourishment for the soul and calm for the restless mind. Recently, in the course of producing the New Dimensions radio interviews the subject of breathing has come up repeatedly with a diversity of guests. When such themes are so spontaneous and otherwise knocking persistently on our consciousness, it feels like time to stop and pay attention. This is not as easy as one might suppose. AsI begin to give my own breathing more attention, I notice the surprising fact that I hold my breath a lot, and often my breathing is shallow. Many of our guests have pointed out that the breath is apowerful helpmate to relieve stress and support a more healthy body.But more than having health benefits, I'm discovering that the breath, when used correctly, can positively affect our spiritual well-being as well. Dan Millman, author of The Laws of Spirit ,describes the relationship of the breath to being in balance in our lives. He tells us, "To be in balance, it's essential to have the breath in balance. When we're angry, the exhalation tends to be stronger than the inhalation. When we're sad, the inhalation tends to be stronger than the exhalation. The breath is out of balance. When we're feeling fear, we don't breathe much at all. DAN MILLMAN "Bringing the breath back into balance is apractical discipline. It helps bring our life back into balance, to express whatever we're feeling more effectively. It's certainly one of those principles of life that we need to pay attention to. "When someone asks me, 'Dan, how do you breath?' I recommend, 'In and out.'That's facetious, of course! But breathing is the link between the mind and emotions in the body. It's one of the fundamental practices of life." Iyanla Vanzant, a former defense attorney,Yoruba priestess, and the author of The Value in the Valley: A Black Woman's Guide Through Life's Dilemmas, agrees with Millman that we must learn to breathe consciously: "Most of us don't realize that the key to stillness is breath. When you're sleeping,your breath is regulated. There's a steady flow in, there's a steady flow out, and the connection to the higher realms, to the spiritual realms, are very, very strong. IYANLA VANZANT "When you're awake, you're talking, you're chewing, you're laughing. And the minute you go into fear, you stop breathing. But when you sleep, the spirit has an opportunity. So the first connection to getting still is to learn how to breathe, and to breathe consciously - to become conscious of how you inhale, how you exhale; the rhythm of your body, the pulsating of your heart -because that is life. "Life is not whether you drive a Beemer, or whether you pay the rent on time. That's not life. Life is just Astarte of being - not doing but being. That state of being is enhanced and intensified through breath. So in order to get still, we've got to learn how to breathe. . . . "We're not taught how to be gentle without ourselves. We're usually so harsh and cruel and abrupt with ourselves. We want it all, now. We don't realize that life is aprocess, and it takes time. The same way it takes nine months to incubate a baby in the womb, it takes forty days to incubate a new idea in your brain, forty days of consistent practice to incubate anew idea in your brain." I asked Vanzant why forty days - what makes that number so magical. She said, "Forty days is the foundation of life. It rained forty days, and it rained forty nights. The number four represents all of the natural elements - north, east, south and west; air, water, fire and earth. And the zero - the symbol of infinity, the alpha and the omega - is a symbol of God. In order to build a new foundation, you need God - that's your forty." Vanzant emphasizes the need to be consistent. She explains, "It will create a new pattern. Even in your body, the skin you have today is not the same skin that you had forty-five days ago, because you're constantly shedding and constantly growing. And everything needs a foundation. "If you can just do something simple for forty days, then that change is solid. Every day for forty days, get up in the morning and take five deep breaths before you brush your teeth, go to the bathroom or utter a word. If you miss a day, go back and do it again. By the time you do it consistently for forty days,on that forty-first day, if you don't get up and take those five deep breaths, you're going to feel it. You're going to know immediately,'I didn't breathe today.'" It seems so simple yet the implications are enormous. Just imagine the rippling effect if each one of us did as Vanzant suggests: "First thing in the morning - eyes open, sit up,feet to the side of the bed, five deep breaths - every day for forty days. I guarantee you, your whole entire day - your being, psyche,everything - is going to change." Gay Hendricks, author of Conscious Breathing has been studying the breath for years, and shares this insight about breath work for health in describing a recent study. "Somebody sat a graduate student in a medical doctor's office,and simply asked them to watch breathing patterns in the waiting room. They found that something like eighty-eight percent of the people in the waiting room had disturbed breathing patterns.Regardless of their physical problem, they had disturbed breathing.That was one of the most fascinating things I've ever read. Probably none of those people were going to go in there and have anything done about their breathing."

Hendricks goes on to say, "Many of the most creative medical doctors I know - Andrew Weil is a prominent examplesay, 'Look at breathing along with everything else.' Many medical doctors say disturbed breathing goes along with illness - but which comes first? We're not sure. It could be that the disturbed breathing actually creates the situation in which there's a disturbance in other organs in the body. GAY HENDRICKS "On a purely physiological level, if you learn how to breathe deeper and more powerfully - with exercise, for example - you actually grow more capillary space in your body. There are about 60,000 miles of capillaries in your body. But if you're a regular exerciser, you have a lot more than that. You may have another ten or twenty thousand miles of capillary space in your body,so you've literally got more space for feeling in your body. Good breathing enhances your ability to grow a larger version of yourself,on a purely physiological level alone. "When you're breathing correctly, you don't have to worry too much about getting breath up into your chest. It'll take care of itself. You want to aim the breath down and in, so that it really rounds that area between your navel and the top of your pubic bone. That's the key area you want to keep softening, in order to get a full breath down in there. "Everybody, all day long, can mix themselves what I call an 'oxygen cocktail,' right there on the spot, and take that nice, deep belly breath. I do it all the time in meetings. "Participating in something with your breath and with your consciousness, feeling it, breathing through it, will lead you to action more quickly. I've found that if I breathe through my fear, suddenly the action I need to take is revealed to me very quickly. If I resist it, it may take me longer to get to the actual message of it. Breathing through things, I've found, actually catapults you into action more quickly. "Elizabeth Barrett Browning said, 'Whoever breathes most air lives most life.' The more we really celebrate ourselves and open up to deeper and healthier breathing, the more life we'll feel." Breathing deeply from the diaphragm is natural for healthy, new babies. When and why so many of us lose this natural capacity is the subject of a lifetime. Whatever the reasons,many of us have poor breathing habits. Nancy Zi, voice teacher and author of the book The Art of Breathing and a videotape of the same title, tells us that mental imagery is very important in teaching breathing because the action of breathing is very abstract and intangible. As a shallow breather myself, I find her image of breathing like an eye dropper very useful. NANCY ZI "Think of your torso," says Nancy Zi, "as an upside-down eye dropper - the kind with the glass tube and a rubber bulb. If you imagine your stomach as the bulb, when you exhale, you squeeze that rubber bulb, and air goes out. Now, instead of stuffing in air through that glass tube and pushing the bulb out, all you have to do is let go of that pressure. The bulb will expand, and air will be drawn in. "If you think of breathing that way, instead of shoving air in, you will find that you are not breathing audibly.You'll find a lot of people breathing like "hahh, hahh" - you hear it. With this imagery of drawing in instead of stuffing in the air,you breathe better. Also, you are breathing abdominally. Zi goes on to say, "We don't really put air into our stomach, after all. The air goes into the lungs. But on top of our stomach muscles is the diaphragm, and our diaphragm muscle is where the lungs sit. So if we expand our abdomen, the diaphragm drops, pumping air to the bottom of the lungs. If your diaphragm muscle is always squeezed, the lung is squeezed upward, and you aren't using the bottom part of the lung. Abdominal breathing doesn't really mean air going into the abdomen. It just gives that sensation." In this age of high-tech medicine and pills for everything, it's refreshing to hear from Andrew Weil, a Harvard-trained doctor who has traveled around the world checking out alternative modes of treatment from a diversity of cultures. When asked what most impressed him, he came up with a surprising answer. Weil laughingly said, "There's an odd thing about all this, which conforms to what we read in myths and enlightenment tales of how it's supposed to be. I spent about ten or twelve years seeking out healers in remote areas. Some of it was very arduous traveling, getting to some very remote places, tolerating lots of discomfort and also being very disappointed with what I found at the end of the road. Then it turned out that the most interesting healer that I learned from was in my backyard in Tucson, Arizona,where I had been living, and I didn't know about him! It was only after all of this traveling that I found him. "He is an osteopath, a D.O., who is now about eighty-four. He is, I think, the most effective clinician that I've seen, and has an incredible success rate. From him I learned,among other things, the importance of breathing as an essential function of human health and illness. He practices from a tradition that was developed in the 1930s, based on craniosacral manipulation,which is work on the cranium (the skull) and the sacrum (the tailbone). ANDREW WEIL, M.D. "In this theory, breathing is seen to be the key to health. Proper breathing nourishes the brain and central nervous system. If breathing is impaired, the natural movements of the brain and the membranes covering it, and the fluid covering it,are not adequate. This can result in disease in any system of the body.

"Now, I think here is a real point of difference between this kind of medicine and regular medicine. In medical school, I learned nothing about breathing. I learned about diseases of the respiratory system, but I learned nothing about the function of breathing. In regular medicine today, there is a total absorption with symptoms in the diagnosis and treatment of disease,once it's there - with very little attention paid to the normal functioning of the human body, and looking at functions like breathing, and seeing their importance. "I could talk for hours about breathing and breath, and its importance to both physical health and mental health,and how simple it is to teach people about breathing as a preventive technique, as a way of controlling moods like anxiety, for example,as a way of improving cardiovascular function - a key element. "One of the most important things that Learned by watching this man was that I also saw him perform relatively instant cures of conditions that had resisted long-term treatment by regular medicine. To me it was very refreshing to see that you could treat illness without a lot of equipment, without a lot of technological hardware, without drugs, without charging people a lot of money, doing very simple stuff and getting excellent results. That was very refreshing to me. "This man's philosophy is very simple: He talks a lot about the healing power of nature, and that you make this little adjustment and 'let old Mother Nature do her work.' That attitude is also something I don't see much in all opathic medicine -a reverence for and recognition of the healing power of the human organism." It seems to me that, when used correctly,the breath can positively affect our state of being better than any miracle drug. In fact, I'm going to mix myself an "oxygen cocktail"right now. Please, won't you join me? With five deep breaths I toast your good health, well-being and deep connection to a life lived in fine balance of mind, body and soul. TAPES FEATURED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE LISTED BELOW PRINCIPLES OF THE PEACEFUL WARRIOR with DAN MILLMAN "All my life," says Dan Millman, "I've searched for principles that seem to have a certain integrity and permanence, that apply in all conditions." Here we are treated to the fruits of this search, as Millman discusses the "Laws of Spirit" that he has discovered, and how we can use them to live the life of the "Peaceful Warrior" - a life of strength, wisdom and balance. He tells how we can choose the circumstances of our lives: "If we don't like the screenplay, we can become a screenwriter, and write a new script." But he avoids new-age banalities about creating all aspects of our reality, and offers straightforward, heartfelt observations about living better in any life situation. Millman is the author of several books including No Ordinary Moments (H.J. Kramer 1992),Way of the Peaceful Warrior (H.J. Kramer 1994), andThe Laws of Spirit: Simple, Powerful Truths for Making Life Work (H.J.Kramer 1995). Topics explored in this dialogue include: laws of spirit that apply in all circumstances of life seeing your life through "the eyes at the ends of the universe" how to act with compassion, even in the midst of anger a healthy kind of self-centered Ness how to use breathing to balance your life how you can overcome victim consciousness the construction worker and his peanut-butter sandwiches responding to privilege, or the lack of it recognizing choices in life beyond what you expected relationship and family as spiritual paths Tape #2530 1 hr. $9.95 Members' price: $8.46 THE POWER OF BREATHING with GAY HENDRICKS Breathing deeply and consciously is a part of almost every meditative healing practice in human history, and in this dialogue you will hear why. Hendricks also describes simple methods for improving health conditions, resolving fear, tension and old hurts, and expanding your capacity for joy, well-being and creative action. He tells how breathing can help us "grow new positive energy channels in ourselves, so that we can actually learn to experience higher levels of organic bliss." This program includes a brief excerpt of physician Andrew Weil speaking on a previous "New Dimensions" program.Hendricks is a pioneering psychologist in body-centered therapies,the author of Conscious Breathing:Breathwork for Health, Stress, Release, and Personal Mastery (Bantam 1995) and co-author, with his wife

Kathlyn, of several books including At the Speed of Life (Bantam 1993). Hosted by Shoshana Alexander. Topics explored in this dialogue include: what conscious breathing is - and how to do it overcoming "upside-down breathing" reviving yourself with an "oxygen cocktail" how fear is behind most anger, and how breath can release both the connection between breathing disturbances and illness pain control and relief through breathing participating more fully in your life and your sensations how relationship dynamics are revealed in breath patterns expanding your capacity for joy and well-being how mood swings can be eliminated through breathing Tape #2518 1 hr. $9.95 Members' price: $8.46 THE LESSONS IN LIFE'S VALLEYS with IYANLA VANZANT We all know what it's like to be in a "valley" - a deep, cold, dark place in life where we may feel hopelessly trapped. Iyanla Vanzant,however, reminds us that "a valley is a low point between two mountains" - that each kind of valley holds its own treasures for teaching and strengthening us. Her own path from teenage welfare motherhood to a successful consulting career illustrates how to get through the valleys by finding the divine spirit within ourselves,through tools as simple as breathing. Her insights based on the struggles and successes of African-American women are actually for everyone who feels oppressed by circumstances seemingly beyond our control. "Life brings us into these experiences called 'valleys,'"she says, "so that we can learn how to take care of ourselves."Vanzant is a former defense attorney, a Yoruba priestess, and the author of Acts of Faith(Fireside 1993) and The Value in the Valley: A Black Woman's Guide Through Life's Dilemmas (Simon &Schuster 1995). Hosted by Justine Toms. Topics explored in this dialogue include: how to hear the "still, small voice" that turns your life around the value of pain in helping you focus on problems overcoming peer resistance to your own success why breathing is the key to getting in touch with spirit expressing the beauty and power of the creator in your life handling upsetting or stressful situations escaping "The Valley of O.P.P." - Other People's Problems how letting go of a job brings you to "The Valley of Courage" how to recognize and avoid "analysis paralysis" the forty-day breathing plan Tape #2533 1 hr. $9.95 Members' price: $8.46 BREATHING YOUR WAY TO HEALTH with NANCY ZI To breathe is to be alive and as we breathe more deeply and fully, so can we experience life in a deeper and more complete way, according to Zi, a classically trained professional singer and voice teacher who has developed a philosophy and practical approach to breathing she calls Chi Yi, taken from the Chinese words chi for breath andyifor art. Based on the ancient Chinese practice of chi kung, a technique of breath manipulation used as the basis for many forms of martial arts, it helps people create a greater sense of power and balance and sharpens mental and physical coordination. Zi is the author of The Art of Breathing (Bantam 1986). Tape #1996 1 hr. $9.95 Members' price: $8.46

NATURAL MEDICINE with ANDREW WEIL, M.D. A refreshing view of the diverse range of healing methods available,including those from traditional cultures, alternative approaches and modern medical technology. Weil emphasizes taking personal responsibility for one's own health through the practice of preventive medicine, and at the same time outlines when it's appropriate to employ conventional medical care. For anyone wanting to cut through the complex medical maze, Weil provides a clear and practical overview of what's possible. He is the author ofHealth and Healing (Houghton Mifflin 1988) andThe Natural Min d(Houghton Mifflin 1972). Tape #2082 1 hr. $9.95 Members' price: $8.46

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Behind Poor Breathing

Youd think that, logically, with all of the information now available, in our stressful and rapidly changing times, that vast numbers of people would be doing themselves the favor of learning the foundational key to health that lies in direction of the breath. The information hasnt reached the general public yet. Its readily available, it rapidly washes stress out of our system, makes us look and feel younger, and most of us would spend only a few minutes practicing it each day to feel great. So why arent more people learning about it? As children we began responding to emotions by holding our breath. No one told us that breathing was important, so we let it become the unconscious process most of us took it to be. Why didnt they tell us? Even when we played with our breathing by holding it we were cautioned not to hurt ourselves. Did breathing become a thing to fear? One theory is that breathing is taboo because powerful emotions are associated with it. We developed the habit of breath-holding to emotionally protect ourselves. The incidents may be long gone and the energy remains. Breathing, it is feared, would open the past. In actuality, it would re-solve the emotional energy stored in the energy field. Another theory is that there is a conspiracy. It has been hypothesized that breathwork could empty the hospitals, put scores of healthworkers out of work business, upturn the aspirin and depression business, and uplift the cause and delivery of public education. The thought of a mentally alert, emotionally non-manipulatable, healthy populous is politically unsettling. Even more unsettling is the proposition that certain forms of breathwork could reverse the established condition and free to consciousness to think for itself. Just on the physical level, millions of people being out of pain and feeling good could be tremendously upsetting. Children, given early breathwork tools to optimize their functioning, would reveal themselves as the wise souls they are and education would transform.

Curing Depression
When I began transformational breathing, I was recovering from a severe depression. My brother introduced me to Gail Darwin in May, 1995, and from the first session with her, I knew my life was about to change permanently. I breathed for harmony that first day (dont ask what prompted that one), and was granted a feeling of connectedness to the universe that lasted two full hours. It was the most magnificent feeling of my life. I had five more private sessions with Gail before I took the PE&PT, plus a workshop. Even though I hated the action of TransformBreathing, I couldnt quit. It was my ticket off the American Medical Associations drugs (Paxil) and back to life.

From what little (admittedly) I have seen of people caught in the AMA cycle for treatment of mental disorders, I would say that few people are able to remove themselves from the cycle with any real chance of permanent success. Of the people I talked to while in the hospital, most were repeat customers who felt that another visit was in their future. This was not acceptable to me. I was not cured overnight by the breathwork. In fact it wasnt until after the PE&PT that I was able to take myself off the Paxil completely. It has been through the breathwork and association with people involved that I have been able to identify my issues and slowly divorce myself from them, leading me to a happier existence step by step, I am pleased to say that I have finally gotten to the point where I often look forward to my breath sessions. In fact I breathe just about daily. A.V.H., Herndon, VA.

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Excerpt from Coaching Adolescents in Breath

As Transformational Facilitators, the task is laid before us: Within the safety of a group or the trust of a personal relationship, we can help adolescents define their dreams and their intentions, promote positive lifestyles and make appropriate choices through the tool of TransformBreathing. TransformBreathing opens the inner doorways of clear thinking, intuition, and awareness so that adolescents can identify their personal knowing, experience the feeling of joyful calm, and then act affirmatively. When introducing TransformBreathing we explain it honestly in beneficial terms for their health, stress reduction, and inner exploration. We encourage the Transformational Facilitator to ask youth to bring the intention of joy to their breath, as a metaphor for life. As the coach, invite adolescents to bring an affirming attitude to whatever they do. The Transformational Facilitator helps youth to understand that they dont have to change the world or the people around them. We help them manage their emotions and change their own attitudes. Transformational Facilitators dont instill confidence, they have confidence in youth and radiate it! We help adolescents understand that life is not the destination, but the journey and the discoveries along the way. When we teach TransformBreathing to adolescents, we do so in small steps. Rather than dive directly into an explanation of the full three stages of TransformBreathing, we want to give them the basics and the general preliminaries to breathing. Demonstrate the following: A. Open throat - We open the throat to allow comfort and air flow. B. Mouth Breathing - We breathe through the mouth to activate the vitality in the body. Relax the jaw to release tension. Nostril breathing, on the other hand, tends to clear the mind and activate transpersonal states. C. Inhalation - We emphasize a prolonged inhale to increase the oxygen intake. D. Exhalation - We emphasize a brief sigh to relax the breathing mechanism for continuous breath. E. Connected Breathing - With no pause between the inhale and the exhale, the flow of life force is connected and breathing becomes more conscious. F. Pace of Breathing - We encourage everyone to find their most comfortable breathing rhythm. We encourage beginners to start with slow, deep breaths and relax into their comfort zone. When we are dealing with peoples (especially adolescents) feelings, forget the classical words that we learned like accept, process, clarify, and vent. Instead, we keep two simple words in the forefront of our minds: recognize and respect. As Transformational Facilitators we can exemplify for teens how to recognize the feelings that come up through TransformBreathing and show them how to respect this energy (emotion) that flows through their feeling nature. Recognition of a feeling serves to validate without sympathizing, correcting, or judging it as inappropriate. Adolescents can have such overwhelming and fluctuating feelings that change from day to day, group to group, and parent to parent, that their sensitive natures can go on overload quite easily. The TransformBreathing process is a tangible key to stabilize fluctuations. ***

Coaching Children with Breath by Drs. Tom & Caron Goode - $12 + $3 S/H How can we coach children in TransformBreathing? How can our attitude of success inspire them to develop a healthy body, emotional responses, and mental attitudes for success in the game of life? Our coaching can be a model for interactive mastery. We provide them with an ancient and well respected, yet revolutionary, procedure--TransformBreathing. It is an easy method of relearning what they did naturally as infants - breathe deeply, fully, and at a monitored pace. This breathwork is a key tool to resolve and prevent stress, manage emotions, and encourage and maintain mental clarity. The statistics in Chapter One are frightening when we discover why conscious breathing is becoming a necessity that we can no longer overlook or put off. In the physical environment, oxygen is being depleted by pollution; respiratory illness has doubled, especially for children. The physical factors of stress, such as shallow breathing, are similar to reacting emotionally or acting impulsively. One of the most startling discoveries weve made, when working with thousands of people at the International Breath Institute (IBI), was that the way people breathe causes stress not wellness. Recent studies show that our emotional aptitudes, rather than our intelligence quotient, may constitute eighty percent of our success in the world. A good emotional aptitude is the ability to manage emotions that come up rather than to act impulsively. Daniel Goleman, author of the best selling book,Emotional Intelligence, summarized the research on emotional intelligence in Chapter Two. He indicates that we can reprogram negative emotional patterns in our body for better emotional health. TransformBreathing is the answer to re-patterning emotional blocks and trauma! Here is an excerpt from Coaching Breath in Children. Coaching Breath in Adolescents by Drs. Tom & Caron Goode - $12 + $3 S/H "It was amazing. I was really happy. I had more energy with breath and only one hours sleep than I would have if Id had twelve hours sleep. Before this, I was caught up in stuff at school like everyones anger, and now it doesnt touch me. I completely shed all the barriers I put up to that part I dont want others to know about - the stuff deep inside. Other people take drugs and alcohol to feel the way that this breath makes you feel". "My life is different than before, but I cant put my finger on it. Remember how I said I wanted to be more of myself all the time-like not get pushed off center. Well I feel like Im in touch with myself and not so influenced by whats around. Im more clear, and it was great laughing like that again." T. A. (Age 16) TransformBreathing can be the key for many adolescents in finding alternatives to deal with this stage of their lives and the pressures that accompany it. We know this to be true from the work of two dedicated Transformational Facilitators, Phyllis Roy and Laurie Danner. Phyllis sponsored a Teen Breath Group in Greenfield, Massachusetts in 1996. The group members were kind enough to allow us to tell their stories anonymously as related in their journals, pictures, and voluntary feedback. Laurie Danner has talked with us several times over the last year about her work with adolescents who are in a rehabilitation center for substance abuse. She consented to an interview for this monograph so we could determine exactly what TransformBreathing could do for adolescents. Her interview sheds light on both the successes and the uncertainties of working with an adolescent population. Most of all, when the stories are told and the facts collected, we conclude that the TransformBreathing process taught by the International Breath Institute has dynamic benefit for this population. Why? Because our basic principles of applying intention, seeing the client as whole, and using the breath as a tool for well-being and balance allows integration of traumatic emotions, safety of expression, and retraining of the physical body in its trauma or addiction patterns. These simple concepts of the TransformBreathing process hold true across the general population, and most favorably with adolescents.