Inhale to Lengthen. Exhale to Deepen

“Inhale and lengthen your spine. Exhale and drop deeper into the pose,” I say to my students during one of my yoga classes.

Synchronizing breathwork to movement is the key to a more meditative practice. A richer, more authentic practice.

And it is by far the most difficult concept to teach and to perform.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

I’m pretty sure I have been living on inhale for most of my adult life.

Consuming endless amounts of information. Surface level inquiry. Understanding enough to function. To get by. To juggle the many demands of my very full and busy life.

A life without silence.

Forced to live in my masculine energy.

Survival mode.

Something changed when I hit fifty. A subtle, yet profound something.

I found my exhale.

A way of living deeper instead of linear.

Discovering my feminine energy. And basking in the chance to explore this side of me.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Choosing a subject and spending endless amounts of time traversing through the concepts.

Mulling it over. Dissecting it. Wallowing in it.

Savoring the subject. Whatever subject happens to intrigue me at the moment.

Not prescribed. Random, even accidental.

Embracing my intuition.

Nurturing the creative in me.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

The infinite truth. The simple truth that none of us can avoid.

You cannot have one without the other.

And just as difficult to teach as the concept of movement with breathwork.

“Remember everyone. Don’t hold your breath to get through a difficult pose. Inhale to lengthen. Exhale and go deeper,” I repeat, watching as faces contort and eyes roll. “If you can master your breathwork, you can control your nervous system.”

And find the elusive, most sought after state of being.

Peace.