Instructions for Breathing/ Centering Exercise

1.

Find your feet firmly rooted to the floor or your sit-bones into your chair. Close your eyes and begin to grow deep roots. Feel your bones stacked on top of one another, knees over ankles, hips over knees. Lift through your belly and feel your ribcage open and supported, relaxing your shoulders, head and neck.

2.

Become aware of your breathing. Imagine the breath entering your body in the area between your sit-bones and pubic bone, just in front of your spine. Invite the breath into this opening. Feel your lower belly relax and expand as your breathe into this space.

3.

Now invite the breath a little higher, into the space between your pubic bone and navel, with each inhalation opening up the space inside. A little support in the lower belly helps to encourage the breath to move higher.

4.

And with you next inhalation invite the breath into the space between your navel and solar plexus.

5.

When we make space for the breath we make space for energy to flow into us and inside us. There is infinite energy available in the earth and all around us.

6.

On your next inhalation invite the breath still higher into the area of the heart, and feel the warmth there spreading outward, bathing the whole body and warmth and kind feelings.

7.

And moving the breath into the area of the throat.

8.

And finally making space for the breath into the area of the skull and brain, even opening out the top of the head, one long flow of breath and energy, a conduit of power and healing energy from tail to crown. You are a living fountain of energy, able cleanse and heal yourself.

9.

Now let the breath and energy begin to relax back down through the throat, the heart, the belly and find your stable base.

10.

Notice the feeling of openness inside your center has not disappeared. This centering, this space inside is available to you any time you choose. Simply becoming aware of your breathing and inviting the breath into your center, just in front of the spine will bring you here any time you wish.

Lloyd J. Goldstein