First off, I am being seriously playful when I call myself a breath master.
I use the term because I recognize that my level of breath practice is beyond the ordinary, and through this writing, you’ll get a glimpse into the extraordinary feats of conscious breathing that I have undertaken.
So….does that mean I can hold my breath for a long time? Meh.
So…does that mean I have incredible cardiovascular endurance? Meh.
Then, what exactly have I mastered in terms of breathing?
Conscious breathing.
The average human breaths between 22,000-26,000 times per day. Most humans, most of the time, are not conscious of this basic breathing process. This breathing process is the silver thread that enables your body to sustain itself. Between birth and death, there is a continuous flow of breath. Without breath, you will die within minutes.
Therefore, I, and countless others through history have recognized the importance of the breath and have devoted their awareness to maintaining and making the breathing process more refined and conscious.
How we breath is how we think and feel. Meaning every mental-emotional state has a corresponding breathing pattern.
To shift our perception, we need only shift our breathing – the answer always is within.
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Some context:
I practice mixed mindbody arts. From martial arts to yoga. In terms of breathing, I practice conscious connected breathwork, which denotes a specific style of breathing where the breath continuously flows without pause. But, I also practice breath awareness, which is a mindfulness practice of meditation where one witnesses the breath, without changing it’s rhythm and flow. Between consciously breathing as an effortful process, and effortlessly witnessing the breath, there are thousands of styles of breathing, and I play with them all.
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Can I share a quick story?
I had a traumatic birth wherein my cord was wrapped around my neck. It left me with mental-emotional disturbances for over 20+ years. I recently wrote a post explaining this whole process you can find on my blog. I mention it here because I relived my birthing experience, and had a re-birthing. Re-birthing is when the nervous system goes back to the memory of birth and completes the experience. Completing the experience means fully moving through the emotions of the experience, releasing them, integrating the bodymind, feeling safety, and moving forward. For 20+ years I carried the legacy of that initial trauma and I held a fear of death that blocked my emotional availability. Till a single session of conscious breathing released it and I became reborn.
I immediately recognized the power and potential of the breath.
I was ripe to dive deep into the world of breathing, being an avid meditator and (at the time) having already done considerable work with plant medicines. I was primed to upgrade my practice with this new tool.
Over the next year or two I would quickly amass my 10,000 hours of practice.
I would go into the forest for 3, 4, 5, or sometimes 14 days or more. I would often fast. I would practice 10+ hours of yoga and meditation and day, and for the entire experience, I’d focus on my breathing. As I mentioned, most people breath 22,000-26,000 times per day, but most of them are unconsciously. Through my practice, I trained myself to make most of these breaths conscious. At times, while I was deep in meditation, I could even witness my body sleeping, but I still maintained a sliver of awareness of my breathing process.
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Conscious breathing = awareness of the present moment. When you are fully engaged in the breathing process, the mind stills. I could go days without thinking a thought on my personal retreats. Just pure being. This process of becoming radically present enhanced my awareness, it facilitated my intuition and higher psychic gifts to come on-line, it allowed me to heal, to direct my life energies, to master my sexual energy, and to reach a level of contentment that has helped me to live in the world, yet not be of the world.
When one breaths into the body, they become more aware of what their feeling. We have an epidemic of disconnection, from each other, and especially from our own mind, body, and heart. Conscious breathing allows us to integrate all aspects of ourselves into one whole. Conscious breathing allows us to release stored and blocked emotion and karma. The breath, is not simply the breath. The breath contains a subtle energy, some call it life force, others call it prana or chi. This subtle life force creates and sustains the bodymind, and when one has such a sensitivity to their breath, they develop an enhanced capacity to work with this subtle energy for healing, growth, evolution, and manifestation.
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My evolution has been accelerated because of the time and place I live.
There has been spiritual traditions and practices from around the world that evolved in local regions. And now we are in an age where these traditions can be synthesized and brought into harmony with one another. I am a yogi, meditator, trantrika, plant medicine guide and psychonaut – and other labels. The point here is to express the synthesis of several intelligent systems of evolution that when combined together create a catalyst for accelerated growth.
My methods have evolved, and through my training and studying with medicine men and women and healers from around the world I have refined my process. I still go out in nature, in fact, nearly every week I will put aside my worldly duties and spend 2 days in nature. My level of practice has accelerated and my skill with medicine is growing.
For example, I am no stranger to working with 10, 20, or even 30 grams of mushrooms. The breath teaches us to surrender, as do plant medicines. And at a certain level of surrender, that is, when one has truly surrendered their fear of death, they may take as much medicine as they please and allow their consciousness to expand as far as they wish. The warning I’ll offer is that expansions are great, but then one must be able to integrate and accommodate the new level awareness into their contracted human form. This is why I call it accelerated evolution, because it did not take me long from going from being a regular human, raised in a small city, attended a Christian school, worked a 9-5 job, to holding ceremony and guiding 1000’s of individuals into altered states of consciousness and holding space for individuals as they prepare to pass from this life, or as they lose loved ones, or as they step into their medicine role, etc.
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It’s all about the breath. As a conscious creator of my reality, what I breath life into, is what manifests. My experience of existence is the result of my conscious and unconscious choices. By learning to breath consciously I was able to redirect my evolution out of unconscious and into a pathway of authentically creating my existence, both the conditions of my life, and my moment-to-moment mental emotional state.
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At a certain point of my process, I surrendered my separate identity, and became identified with the breath, and spirit of the breath. With it’s constant ebb and flow, there is a freedom of the breath, and when the breath moves effortlessly through the body, there is ease and grace.
How we breath is how we live.
I have done my service, I have surrendered the control I once had over my life force, which is a metaphor for the control my individual ego had over wanting my life to go and certain way, and I have learned to surrender to the will of the breath. Have a perfected this process? Fuck no. But I’m at a point in my process where my energies are all moving in a good way. When the majority of stored regret, grief, shame, guilt, resistance, self-hate, jealously, and other lower emotions have been cleared from the system one becomes lighter. This is the enlightenment process. Gradually, over enough time, all lesser emotions begin to lose the dominant stage for consciousness and love, compassion, gratitude, and equanimity take root in the being.
The secret to liberation is right under all of our noses. It is nothing out of reach. In a sense, there is nothing we must do to release ourselves from suffering, our natural state of being is perfect. And yet, it is a process that we must learn to surrender into. But, like the breath, it is never far. It is simply the process of learning to integrate the breath (pure spirit) with the body, and to align all the actions, intentions, and emotions in alignment with the breath or pure spirit. This takes a deep listening and relationship with the breath. The beautiful thing is, every breath is an opportunity to align, or to re-confirm your relationship with spirit. The truth is, if you are breathing, you are doing life right, you may not realize it, but you are supported. The spirit of life moves through you, as it does all beings.
You too are a breath master.
I understand that my story is not relatable for most people. In this lifetime I have chosen a mystical existence, I have chosen to work with the most powerful medicines on the planet and expand my consciousness to the farthest reaches it pleases to flow. But, let this not be a barrier for what is possible. The teachings of the breath, and medicine it carries to offer liberation, clearing of emotion, fears, and hesitation is for all beings. You need not work with fasting, plant medicines, or spending weeks in the forest to arrive at equanimity, love, compassion, and gratitude.
One of the principle teachings of the breath is to surrender the now. You are innately perfect, and life is as it should be, always and forever. Our task is not to earn our salvation, but to remember it. We remember ourselves when we have the space to set aside all the 10,000 things we ordinary do and think, and just be, to simply be with the breath.
That is enough. You are enough. Enough for today.
Reach out and learn to breath from me.
zkcoaching.ca 