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Using the Science of Breath for Empowerment
Do you have #GoodVibesOnly?
I’ve seen this sentiment on T-shirts, coffee mugs, stickers, and more.
This emphasis on valuing positive emotions, feeling good, and being the happiest person you know inherently denies the other half of our reality—the difficulty and the challenges in life.
Life has difficult emotions. It can’t ONLY be about good vibes. Rather than deny that these difficult emotions exist, it’s better to learn ways to process them by inviting them in. Be empowered by the science of breath.
Here are some important messages from my video on the topic:
- 1:57: When we emphasize positive emotions, it sets up this dichotomy that certain emotions are good and other emotions/feelings are bad.
- 2:40: In yoga, we talk about the yolking or the unification of the opposites where two opposite forces are just two sides of the same coin.
- 4:10: When we cultivate skillful action like mastering emotions you don’t even resist them. You actually invite them into your life.
- 8:55: Thought shapes energy.
- 10:14: Energy also shapes thought.
- 13:20: Your body and your breath are two of your greatest allies in changing the quality of your life.
The Inherent Struggle of Being a Human: Categorizing Info
The human mind, specifically the prefrontal cortex, is always trying to categorize, make sense of, and analyze information. So, every time we assess any situation, emotion, feeling, sensation, or experience that we’re having we’re trying to define it as good/bad, right/wrong.
That’s why when there’s a sentiment such as #GoodVibesOnly we’re setting up a dichotomy. If there are good vibes, there must be bad vibes as well.
In yoga, we talk about the unification of the opposites or yolking. Basically, that two opposite forces are just two sides of the same coin.
Skillful Action Helps Us Manage Life’s Curveballs
We want to live more skillfully in our life. In fact, the aim of yoga is to live our potential. And when we cultivate skillful action, we are able to invite difficult emotions in rather than resist them.
Life is intense and can be tough a lot of times. Our lack of confidence and roots of anxiety often come from the fact that we don’t trust how we’re going to show up in the face of challenge and adversity. Since adversity and challenge in our lives are never going away, it’s good to be solution-oriented toward life’s challenges and problems.
Learn to Use the Energy of Our Emotions and Thoughts
With my 6-module course Yoga.Psyche.Soul.™ I teach you very practical skills that you can use in your life to become a spiritual samurai so you can handle difficult emotions.
Whether you’re frustrated with your partner, yelling at your kids, or get impatient, the skills I teach help you learn very quickly how to alchemize it or transmute the negative, catch that curveball, draw that potential energy in and transform it within your being, and then cast the ball back out and use it as the kinetic energy in the direction of what your aim is.
A huge piece of module one in Yoga.Psyche.Soul.™ is about subtle body anatomy and how the breath body works as a bridge between the physical body and the mental body.
The alchemy of yoga psychology and pure empowerment is to learn to use the energy of our emotions and thoughts, connect that to the prana body and direct that flow of prana where we want to in our bodies and our lives. This is the majesty of the yoga practice.
Pranamaya/Subtle Body Translates into Physical and Mental/Emotional Bodies
We have five koshas and the pranamaya kosha is between the physical (annamaya kosha) and mental/emotional (manomaya kosha) bodies. This means the breath can translate into both hemispheres—the physical/literal and the mental/emotional.
When we have a difficult emotion, we learn how to transmute that using our breath and direct that flow. To shapeshift that energy and use the science of breath for empowerment.
Thought shapes energy.
When we have an experience in life, we immediately determine/define whether it’s good or bad, right or wrong, pleasurable or painful.
If you’re dating someone and they don’t call when you think they should, maybe you interpret that as a negative thing—maybe they don’t like you, they are dating someone else…
You go into a whole story about it, but you really don’t know why they didn’t call. Maybe their grandmother is in the hospital or their dog got sick.
You’re interpreting that through the lens of your mental/emotional body as a negative. As soon as you interpret something as negative, our physical body and our prana constrict. When that prana constricts, our physicality around it shapes itself around that. Thought shapes energy.
Conversely, if we cultivate openness, compassion, loving/kindness, that opens our energy and it’s in a flow state.
Energy also shapes thought.
We can cultivate a certain quality of energy, of prana, and that will help determine the shape of our thoughts. This is where asana, pranayama, mantra, mudra come in.
We work from the outside in to shape the quality of our energy which then informs the quality of our thoughts. We work from the inside out to shape our thoughts, reframe our belief systems, and really hone and refine our inner stories and our mindset so that ripples out and has a different quality of energy. We’re working in both directions.
Imbalances will create more negative thoughts and more negative energetic patterns.
We want to work from the inside out changing our thought forms and patterns and we also want to work from the outside in changing our physicality, energy body that will have a direct effect on our thoughts themselves.
If you’re feeling anxious, begin to slow down and smooth out your breath and that will really help your energetic frequency.
If you’re feeling depressed or have low self-esteem, one of the best things you can do is a good, strong workout to get that fire burning to change the state of your energy.
This is the basics of the mind/body connection.
You can use your body and your breath as two of your greatest allies in changing the quality of your life.
In module one of Yoga.Psyche.Soul.™ we really dig into the roots and understanding the science of the mind/body connection and specific protocols and tools to address imbalances in life. This is really an empowerment training: once you learn these skills you can then teach them to other people.
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Hi Ashley,
Love your work.
I have suggested to a friend who was depressed to get up and move to get that stagnant energy moving throughout her body before and she told me that even after her workout she still felt down/depressed.
Would this be because she wasn’t being mindful of where she was diverting her thoughts and energy during her workout? (i.e.gave energy/thought to the situation that brings her down during her workout instead of the task at hand thus didn’t reap the benefits of working out)
Many thanks!
Anna-Maria