Sunday evening I decided to join my friend Marci and try out a breathing meditation called Breathwork here in Saratoga. To be honest, I haven’t sat down and just focused on my breath since India … whomp whomp ... "bad lady" as Timji would say. It’s been far too long since I sat down and truly dedicated time and space to just my breathing. I’m guilty of tacking it on to the end of my practice or the beginning, but usually due to lack of time, it’s short and honestly after yesterday, feels a bit pathetic.
Yesterdays class was guided by Brigitte and was AMAZING. She has the gentlest voice and holds the space for all in attendance. You start lying down on your back, with any props that you may need to support you. I chose to have a bolster under my knees and blanket on top to keep me warm. Once you are situated we start to breathe. This is a Three-Part Breath — Dirga Swasam Pranayama (DEER-gah swha-SAHM prah-nah-YAH-mah) — and is often the first breathing technique taught to new yoga practitioners. The “three parts” are the abdomen, diaphragm, and chest. During Three-Part Breath, you first completely fill your lungs with air, as though you are breathing into your belly, ribcage, and upper chest. Then you exhale completely, reversing the flow. You sort of make a little swishing sound if you can imagine as the parts of the breath come and go from the body.
Dirga Swasam comes from two Sanskrit words. “Dirga” (also spelled “Deerga”) has several meanings, including, “slow,” “deep,” “long,” and “complete.” “Swasam” refers to the breath. Therefore, this practice is sometimes also referred to as “Complete Breath.” It is also often simply called “Dirga Pranayama.” Dirga Swasam also helps us open up energy blockages we may have in the body. We start down low at the root chakra and through the breath lift and move the energy all the way up to the crown chakra.
Brigitte guided us during the 60 minutes to keep focusing on the breath. She added in some cues along the way, such as giggles or laughing, or yelling into your hands, moving when we needed to, and she applied various essential oils to the throat, chest, misted in the air to help us open up our chakras.
About halfway through the breath work I started to feel like someone was choking me. Tight hands clenched around my throat making it feel impossible to breath. I just kept the breath as steady as I could in my attempt to work through it. Enter Throat Chakra blockage! Where in the world did you come from? This Chakra is also called Visuddha, it is our bodies way of having a voice. It is the 5th Chakra and is the 1st of the 3 spiritual Chakras. It is positioned in the throat, it rules our thyroid, jaw, neck, mouth, tongue, parathyroid and larynx. When our Throat Chakra is in balance, we can speak and listen with confidence and express our higher selves in a completely authentic way. Expressing yourself like this is not always easy and there is a real line between being honest and remaining diplomatic. This is the pressure valve that releases energy from all the other Chakras to be distributed and expressed. If it is out of balance it can affect the health of our other energy centres, it is really important to balance it so we can fully express from our higher self.
Well, well, well, Ms Taegan Marie, what in the world do we have here. What are you hiding deep down, that you can’t find the words to express? This is the thought that crept into my mind while I felt like devil hands were gripped on my throat, and I was gasping for breath — okay so it wasn’t so dramatic, but I couldn’t figure out why there was a blockage at that moment, and I knew I would look into it after class. So, I continued to breath. Just focusing on the breath and with each cycle the sensation became less and less.
We finally slow down the complete breath and move into a meditative breath. Easy inhales in and out of the body, just letting our body relax even more onto the mat. As Brigitte encourages us to move our hands from the floor to our heart, I can’t move. My hands feel like a ton of bricks and tingling sensations all throughout them. So I decide to just lay there and breathe and then all the tears start flooding in. I cried and cried, gently as the tears streamed down the sides of my face. I suddenly became flush with heat and was burning hot. I saw images of people and things flash into my mind. Again, not sure why those very specific people or things came to me, but I decided not to analyze at that moment. This went on for what seemed like 20 minutes, although I’m sure it was much less. By the time Brigitte encouraged us to slightly move our fingers and toes and breathe deeper I calmed down and the tears had stopped. It took me a bit to move, again that sticky like feeling and tingling was all throughout my body. As I came back to the present moment, I felt very calm and at ease albeit a bit exhausted. We all shared our individual experiences and it was amazing to hear the various feelings, or emotions, and sensations that each person had experienced. All very similar but very different. This type of energy work is different for each person and will vary each time you do it. I proceeded home to rest and hibernate for the evening. I slept wonderfully and woke up beyond refreshed to teach my 6 am class this morning. I will absolutely be back to continue to work on the energy blockages in my body. One hour can be truly transformational if you give yourself the time to let it happen.
If you’re looking to experience deep healing and to shift around blocked energies within your body I highly suggest getting into a session with Brigitte and allowing yourself the time and space to heal and move your prana. Schedule below:
Sunday's
Location: One Big Roof
Time: 4-5pm
Fee: $15.00
*Pre-registration required.
To RSVP or for info, contact Brigitte 518-275-5653 or peacewithin19@gmail.com
First Monday of the Month
Location: Hannah’s Healing
Time: 6:30-7:30pm
Fee: $15
*Pre-registration required.
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Practicing pranayama helps to regulate and purify your vital life force energy or prana. In yoga, it is believed that when your prana becomes unbalanced, you become susceptible to illness and disease in body, mind, and spirit. By bringing awareness to your body and consciously practicing breath-control exercises, you can bring positive changes to your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.
