meditation and the importance of taking those first few breaths

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“It’s kind of like an internal conversation that I have with myself… The first is: take a really long deep breath — and then take another one. It begins by the calming of the nervous system. The meditation practice is not just a spiritual practice but a philological response as well. The fight-flight- or-freeze mechanism of the nervous systems is at the very base of our lungs. It’s almost like there’s a little person down there. Which is why when we start taking shallow breaths when we’re freaking out, we start taking more shallow breaths and we feel more freaked out, and more shallow breaths and more freaked out. When we do this it’s like we’re telling that little person at the control unit it has a right to be freaked out. Whereas when we take that really long deep breath its like it massages that little person’s shoulders and head and we can tell that little person, ‘it’s OK. Things are intense but you might not have to run or beat somebody up. There might be another way through this.’ So that’s the first thing. And without that, it’s not possible, not physiologically possible, to be present when we’re triggered if we don’t take those deep breaths.”

From Awakening Joy — Conversations with the Wise, with James Baraz, published March 2018

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