First of all, since we are primarily, as a collective consciousness, so much more easier to teach with physical correspondences and scientific measures, it would be a good idea to see how it is that the breath is so special. THIS realization I actually read about after someone posted it on a facebook group I am currently in, and ever since, I have been learning about the true power of the breath. This special piece of knowledge is that of the vagus nerve. It's pronounced like the word vegas in Las vegas (which is extremely ironic considering the hell fire that goes on in las vegas) and is one of the most quintessential pieces of the great design that is the human nervous system. To realize the importance of this specific system of nerves, one must learn briefly about the 2 classifications of nervous type systems in the body.
The first classification is the Central nervous system which includes the brain, brainstem, and the spine
The second classification is the Peripheral Nervous system which includes all the smaller nerves which connects sensations in the organs, tissues, and the rest of the body to the central nervous system. This PNS is further categorized in 2 other classes.
(this is how the CNS and PNS work together in the body.)
Ok, so why is the vagus nerve so important to mental and physical health? This is why: it is the nerve that connects both the automatic parts of the nervous system like digestion, heart rate, and every of involuntary movement in the body with a part of the brain that can be consciously controlled, like the rate of breath. Here are two pictures. Notice how the nerve actually starts near the middle of the brain where all other nerves connections like face, mouth, and eye control are and goes down all the way down through and deeply connected with organs in the body, up until the lower intestine.
Breathing is a very special phenomena when you realize it is both involuntary, meaning it happens on it's own without you trying to breath all the time, AND voluntary citing the fact that one can hold and control the rate at which one breaths! Not only this but the nerve that does control breathing, which IS the vagus nerve, is so integrated with the rest of the organs with the body that one can not help but realize the importance of the breath and how it affects how one feels and navigates through life! Meaning that the gateway point between conscious and unconscious(involuntary) action is the breath! These pieces of knowledge really helped me to start calming my mind and taking control back of unconscious habits which I had and still continue to dissipate.
But after all of this, I still found myself wondering ok so this vagus nerve is the reason why conscious breathing deeply affects the way I feel when I breath correctly and deeply with the body as to get rid of anxiety, but still, what is the secret key or reason why this works? Meaning I found myself breathing deeply and it helped a lot but I still didn't know WHY it helped so much. And then I came to the conclusion while practicing this conscious breathing. It is because at the very BASIC foundation of the way breathing works, lies the very essence of the way the entire universe works...the yin and yang principle. Male and feminine. Dominant and Receptive.
But how exactly is it being expressed, one might ask. It is in this way: When you consciously breath IN and your lungs are full, it can be seen as the yang principle, meaning YOU decided within yourself to take that breath. You took the principle of taking action, being a male, being dominant, and applied it within the breath that you just took.Now here is where I made the discovery as to how breathing can be so efficient in bringing one back to oneself. The world is overall a dominant place and has been for years upon years. Meaning everyone is always doing something and running their mind on something that everything is being done and constantly drained of any real effiency because the action is so unbalanced, their is no receptive principle. So much so that when one DOES get into meditations and breathing, they want to STILL keep using their dominant force and try to breath consciously on both the IN and OUT breath. It is still unbalanced! There is no receptive principle in this, and here lies the secret! Ok so you breathed in and used the dominant principle to do so because you had to fight and actually put effort into the actual movement of allowing air to enter the lungs using the diaphram. After your lungs are full, the receptive force lies within not doing anything at all! You allow the breath to leave your lungs merely by letting go and not forcing the breath out. You learn to be receptive/feminine/ passive/ letting go. In this way it is not you being the big macho powerful man trying to force the air out of your lungs, you are being receptive to the forces of gravity and contraction on the most simplest of levels that you just relax and become receptive to the bigger picture. When one realizes that one is EVERYTHING then you can see how breathing can be the simplest form of being receptive to everything which in turn becomes a very relaxing and appealing way of going with the flow. The more one becomes able to let go of that out breath instead of forcing it out, the more you become in tune with the greater forces that are acting on your body to keep it in balance.
And to make it even more advanced, if one allows all the air to leave their lungs and to hold the breath at lowest capacity, you will find that the in breath can in turn become the passive force and the out breath can be the dominant force since you can then control the rate and which the breath is expelled.
No comments:
Post a Comment