Welcome to Lesson #8 of Deeper. Slower. Easier. Level 1.
Lessons 1 → 3 were about breathing into the muscles of your torso.
Lessons 4 → 7 were about breathing beyond your torso into extremities and subtle body.
So where do we go from here? Have we maxed out?
Yes and no.
Yes: once you correctly learn to “breathe” using your torso, limbs, skull and EMF, no more expansion is possible in your energetic body.
No: you are more than your energetic body.
Before explaining what else you are, you need to come to terms with something important: you are still not breathing as deeply as you think you are.
This seems extremely unlikely given the fact that you are nearly blue in the face from inhaling, and your lungs (probably) feel more full than they’ve ever felt…
But it’s true.
It’s true, because were you to be completely full of breath (completely without tension) you would actually be sent into an ecstatic, transcendental state. Aka you would immediately be thrust into the infinite space between everything and nothing.
Here are the real questions, then: (1) where are you not breathing? And (2) why are you not breathing there?
To answer the first question: hopefully it’s clear by now that you aren’t breathing where you are tense. And that’s because tension = short muscles = tiny volume = shallow breath.
But we still haven’t touched on why you are tense in the first place! On why you aren’t breathing deeply!
Which leads us back to where we started: you are more than just an energetic body.
You are also a mental body — a psychic body — a body made up of thoughts.
I bring more clarity to this topic in Levels 5 and 6 of this series, but for now you’ll just have to settle with this statement: you are tense in certain areas, because you are unconsciously thinking certain stressful thoughts, which manifest as tension in those certain areas.
These “certain areas” are what ‘Target Practice’ works on.
This is how ‘Target Practice’ works, practically speaking: when you find tension in a particular location on your energetic body — on your mid-back, say, or your right ankle, or the bottom of your left kidney — you will imagine a ‘3D bullseye’ surrounding it.
Next, while you breathe in, you’ll aim your “breath” towards the center of that sphere, expanding it like a balloon in your mind’s eye. Bigger and bigger and bigger.
Bigger and bigger and bigger until…!
Until…! Until…! Until…!
Go ahead to the Lesson #9 to find out what to do from there.
Thanks for what you’re doing here. I hope you’re enjoying this as much as I am.
– Ethan ॐ
P.S. ‘Target Practice’ can be separate from the techniques we’ve learned so far. It is a new way to inhale that works specifically with one area of your body. Aka this technique is not necessarily layered on top of ‘Plunger Breathing’, ‘Spinal Jacks’, ‘Radiate’, etc.
P.P.S. Level 2 of this series goes much deeper into ‘Target Practice.’ While it may seem kind of “meh” at this stage, it’s actually an exceptionally helpful tool.
money should not impede your access to yoga! email me for scholarship opportunities - no shame and no questions asked.
level 1:
how to release all of your