First of all, you can meditate in any position, which is comfortable for you. People can meditate when walking. Others, when washing the dishes, or ironing the laundry. I keep meditating when riding the scooter. Anything which is comfortable for you is good.
The nice thing about the Lotus seat is, that it is a little bit uncomfortable, and the likelihood that you fall asleep is quite small. But the even in Lotus seat, you should make it as comfortable for you as possible. But still, it should create a little bit of stretching for the legs. Because it's a nice stretching exercise, which opens your hips. And open hips are the physical representation of your body of an open mind.
But there is another common misunderstanding about yoga: Lots of people in the Western World consider it a sport. And as you already experienced, it's physically challenging. And so, one can easily consider it a sport. But this is not the intention of the inventor! You can use a hammer to nail a nail in the wall. That's the intended use case. But you also can use the hammer to hit on your left thumb and say: That creates a lot of fun for my right hand. But, that's not the intended use case of the hammer!
So, the intention of the yoga physical exercise is, to support opening your min, and connecting your mind to the universe. And also the breathing exercise shall connect you. And the physical exercises shall support the breathing.
So, the first layer, or the lower layer, is the physical exercise, to support breathing. And on the second layer, breathing shall support opening your mind, to connect with the universe. However, you want to call it:
- The universal field of energy and information,
- the cosmos,
- holistic thinking,
- higher self,
- Allah
- Shiva
- God, whatever, ...
People have a lot of names for it, but it means all the same. To open your mind to this holistic way of thinking is the intention of yoga. Meditation is a part of yoga. And is an exercise to open the chakras and connect.
I guess you're already setting in the Lotus seat, and it looks good. Yeah, you have a pretty straight spine, do you? Let's see, how we can improve the Lotus seat, to make it more comfortable. First of all, one can sit on earth. But, what makes the backbone even straighter, is to roll up your yoga mat to support the back of your but. That already tips the hip a little bit forward and helps you to sit more straight. And if you experience stretching tension in your legs, that it's a little bit uncomfortable, it's okay. It gives a growth impulse to increase flexibility, and open your hips a little further, which opens your mind and your chakras towards holistic thinking.
But it's not a mistake to support yourself with the block under the knee. So that the stretching doesn't become really painful. Slight stretching pain is okay, but it shouldn't become painful over time.
My favorite meditation pose is laying down. Even if I fall asleep occasionally.
Okay, let's sit comfortably and close your eyes. Just try to observe your breath. Only observe it without changing the breath. That's a big challenging exercise because as soon as you concentrate on it, you usually already might influence it. How you're breathing? Observe how the air flows in and out.
Now, the first thing we want to concentrate on is our heart center. That's the point at the center of your chest. It helps to concentrate there if you touch with your fingertips slightly your heart center. Don't press it hard. Just touch it with the middle and ring fingers with both relaxed hands. So that you feel the touch between your fingertips and your skin, or your T-shirt. And then release the pressure, move your fingers a few millimeters away from your chest. Maybe you already can feel an energy flow through your fingertips. That yous fingertips are getting warm, maybe even hot, or they start tickling a little bit when the energy starts flowing.
And now, we come back to think about your breath. And while breathing in you are leading the breath energy to in your heart center. So at the same point, you focus on your fingertips. Breathe in on 4 heartbeats, focus your breath energy on your heart center, and then, slowly breathe out on 6 heartbeats. And after breathing out, you give yourself a little break. Just this long as it's comfortable with you. At the moment your thoughts calm down and may come to stand still.
And then, breath in on 4 heartbeats. Breath out on 6 heartbeats, and hold again for a moment, with the focus of your heart center. Let the breathing stop for a moment. Breathe in for 4 .eartbeats. and out on 6. Take a little break. In on four, out on six, and take a little break. Keep on breathing this pattern for some more breaths. And imagine in your heart center an air balloon.
Each time you breathe in, it becomes a little bigger. Then it remains that size, while you breathe out and hold your breath. And with your next breath in, imagine that the balloon increases its size even further. Imagine, how this air balloon increase in size, each time you breathe in. Until it's as big as your chest. And it fills your upper body completely from the inside.
Go one step further with the next breath, and extend the air balloon's size beyond your body. Now it's bigger than your upper body. So, your chest is inside of the balloon. See, if you can make it even bigger with the next breath. This exercise is a nice heart opener.
So, now we move our hands and focus on our third eye, a little bit above the center of our eyebrows. Once again, touch your third eye slightly with your ring and middle fingers, as we di it as we did before. Feel the location and you start feeling the energy flow from your fingertips into your third eye. Release the touch and put a little bit of distance between your skin and your fingertips. Probably once again, you feel your fingertips getting warm, maybe tickling a little bit. And you feel the energy flow.
Now we are also focusing our breath energy on your third eye. When you breathe in for 4 heartbeats, you let the breathing energy flor right into your third eye. And breath out for 6 heartbeats. Take a little breathing pause. Breath in on 4, with the focus of your breathing energy onto your third eye. And breath out on 6 beats, focusing the energy once again. Now, we imagine having an air balloon there. And we keep blowing it up each time we breathe in. We blow up the balloon a little further with each inhale. Take some more breaths. on your own speed, and each time you breathe in you blow it up. At least from the inside.
Maybe your balloon is now as big as your entire head. So with the next breath, you can go beyond the size of your head and make the air balloon even bigger than your head. So that, your head is inside of it. Yeah, keep on stretching your mind. And open your third eye by blowing up the balloon. Make it even bigger. see, how far as you get to open your third eye.
Maybe, you want to take your hands down for a moment, to relax your shoulders. Then we put our hands on the top of our head. Touch the crown chakra, which is located at the highest point of your head. And once again, just touch it softly with your fingers, until you got the point. Doing this, you already know the procedure: feel the flow of energy through your fingers into the crown chakra. And now, focus also on your energy flow from the air you breathe into this point. Slowly breathe in on 4 heartbeats. Where your hands are, this is the place of the air balloon at this time. And imagine you blow it up each time you breathe in. See, how it's getting bigger and bigger, each time you breathe in on 4, and out on 6 heartbeats. Feel, how the balloon is getting bigger. and how it opens your crown chakra. Let it open the crown chakra even further and feel the balloon there.
Now, we're gonna combine this balloon with the balloon in our heart center. And we make them merge together. Maybe you want to concentrate again on your heart center. Maybe you touch it for a moment to get the point. and imagine the balloon around your chest. The next time you breathe in, it merges with the balloon above your head. And both of them become one balloon. So, your entire head and your chest are inside of that balloon. And with each breath, it becomes a little bit bigger.
And now we focus on our third eye again. Maybe you want to touch your third eye again. Think about that balloon, which surrounds your head. And with the next breath, and also merge into the big balloon, and make that one even bigger.
each breath You open up further and further. Keep breathing into the big balloon. And let it grow. As you combine now, the energy of your heart, the energy of your third eye, and the energy of your crown chakra.
You are now one step further towards the way of holistic thinking. This is a nice exercise, to open your mind to become able to think more holistically. Just let it grow a little further with each breath you take. And if you want to, just remain in this state. Most meditations end with: Come back into the here and now. And then, people stop thinking holistically. Because that is what you actually should learn and practice during meditation.
Instead, I would recommend saying this: Remain connected, continue thinking holistically, and whenever you're ready, you can open your eyes. If it feels good for you, remain connected, and remain thinking holistically. It is your choice. Take all the time you need to do so.
Maybe you want to enjoy it a little longer increasing the size of the air balloon. Maybe you want to start slowly moving your fingers and your toes. But while doing so, remain connected, until you feel that you want to open your eyes.
Observe yourself: Do you feel energized now or rather relaxed?
If you feel very relaxed now, and want to become more energized, let's continue with a deep breathing exercise from Wim Hoff, which you probably already know. It's basically deep inhaling and then letting go naturally for exhaling without force. You just breathe in fully. And you let the air flow out until neutral. For this breathing exercise, you breathe through your mouth. You can do it through the nose if that's more comfortable for you. But it's more intense if you do it through the mouth.
The intention of it is to overload your blood with oxygen. And that gives a lot of energy. I will give you the Rhythm. And tell you a bit about, how we do it, and what it is about. And in the end, after about 30 to 40 breaths within five minutes, after the final exhales, you breathe out until neutral, and then you hold your breath, as long as it's okay for you. It can or should come become a little bit uncomfortable. When it becomes uncomfortable, you just breathe in once fully and hold again. So we have two stretch exercises. The first one is breathing out and holding the breath with little air in your lungs. Which stretches our minds, how long we can stop breathing without getting into a panic. So that mind-stretching creates a growth impulse for our stress tolerance.
And then you breathe in fully and hold your breath as long as possible. So that you feel a little bit of stretching inside of your chest. And if the stretching goes away, you may want to pump a little more air into your lungs. And after a while. You pump in a little bit more air in your lungs, so that you can feel again a little bit of stretching sensation. This will cause a growth impulse to increase your lung volume. The bigger your lung volume is, the less often you need to breathe. And the less often you need to breathe, the easier breathing becomes. This is a long-term effect if you do this exercise frequently. But the instant benefit of this exercise is, that you feel really powerful. And after that's what you will experience. You'll be surprised, first of all, how long you can hold your breath, And second how much energy you have, and how energized you will be. I would recommend you to lay down on your back. It will about 7 to 8 minutes.
- Breath in, letting go.
- Breath in, letting go.
- Breath in, letting go, not fully out. Just letting go.
- Breath in, let go, don't hesitate, give it!
- deeply in, letting go
- Breath in, let go, you are doing great!
- Breath in, letting go.
- Deeply in, letting go
- Breath in, letting go.
- Deeply in, letting go. We are changing the chemistry right now in your body.
- deeply in letting go
- Deeply in letting go, feels good?
- Breath in, let go. Take a man
- Breath in, let go, no hesitation!
- It is about changing the chemistry right now in your body.
- Tamp down smoke deeply here letting go
- Deeply here letting go. Deep here letting go. deeply in letting go deeply and letting go deeply in letting go. Okay, five times more. deeply in letting go deep layer letting go
- Breath in, let go
- In, and let It go.
- deeply in letting go
- 10 more times: Breath in, let it go.
- Breath in, let go.
- Breath in, let go, no hesitation!
- It is about changing the chemistry right now in your body.
- deeply in, letting go
- Breath in, let go
- Breath in, let go
- Let it go and stop.
- Breath in, letting go.
- Breath in, letting go, not fully out. Just letting go.
- Another 5 breaths: Breath in, let go.
- deeply in, letting go
- Breath in, let go, you are doing great!
- 2 more times: Breath in, letting go.
- Deeply in, letting go
Just stop, now. And without air in the lungs you are able to stay much longer than normally. Why? Because we change your Chemistry:
- Carbon dioxide went out
- Oxigen wend up
- you filled up all the cells with oxigen,
- and the pH level goes up.
Then we are able to access the central nervous system. and at its end, we got the brain stamp. And that's the place of the pineal gland, hypothalamus, and pituitary gland.
And the pineal gland makes the secretion of adrenaline in dangerous situations. Normally we do not get into it, because of our shallow breathing. But this is the way to stimulate the most primitive part, the Reptilian Brain. It fends off bacteria. We are activating the endocrine systems in minutes.
And you're still on? That shows, that the capacity to fill yourself up with oxygen is a lot more than we normally use. And as we do not use it, we are not making the best use of the full capacity of our physiology. Now we found out we got different layers, and we never use them. But this is the way to learn to use them, to stimulate the primitive brain and the systems immune systems, the way Nature has meant it to be. Everybody is able to do so. Whenever you feel the urge to breathe, you don't need to force it, it is only learning, how to energize the body and our cells. You're doing great.
When you feel the urge to breathe, you breathe in fully, and keep it for as long as you can.
That's one round. fully in, until you feel a little reaching sensation, and keep it.
letting go
Keep the host the breath of the breathing out as long as you are comfortable with you if it becomes uncomfortable It's time to breathe in then you take a full breath in and hold again with your lungs filled with air and to keep holding that then as long as you can do it. comfortably Okay.
I hope you felt a nice stretching during breathing in. And after you held the breath just come back to your normal breathing pattern.
