I Can't Do Yoga: Breath and the Mystical Experience

After my experience breathing and connecting to a powerful inner strength, I knew I needed to learn more about Yoga and breathing. Since then, modern-day scientific research has been booming with studies on breathing. You can study breathwork and breathing techniques, become a breath coach, and even become a master breathwork facilitator. If you listen to health and wellbeing podcasts, you’ll find topics on breathing and wellbeing, spirituality, success, and more effects of breathing. Who knew the simple airflow in and out of the lungs could be mystical? Well, the ancient yogis figured it out, and every major religion has breathing weaved into connecting with the Divine. I’m most familiar with Christianity, so I’ll start there.
Have you ever gone to summer church camp? I did; that was one of my first experiences with breathing and spirituality. Do you know the song, Hallelujah? If not, it’s a simple tune that repeats the same word for the first verse. Singing the word slowly and drawing it out uses all your breath, and between words, you breathe in. The goosebumps rise when a group sings it in a chapel or around a campfire because it sounds so beautiful. The word Hallelujah is Hebrew for praise the Lord, so singing it is a prayer. Other prayers also change our breath pattern. The Rosary is a group of prayers and scriptures said in a particular order and repeatedly using a string of beads to keep track of your progress. Saying the Rosary in a church filled with people can be mystically spiritual beyond other experiences. It seems the prayers were carefully composed to extend the exhale of the person saying them. Chanting is another form of spiritual breathwork. Listening to monks or chanting on your own can transport you to a calming state of mind, allowing the pressures of the modern world to melt away.
Ancient Yoga also embraces breath as a mystical tool for connecting with the Divine. After studying Tibetan Yoga, I realized that each aspect of the practice starts with noticing the breath. While Tibetan Yoga isn’t the original form of the first Yogis, I learned it wasn’t far off from what the first discoverers taught. I also learned that the individual practitioner should choose the pace of breath. In other words, if you don’t feel comfortable with fast-paced breath work, don’t do it! I can relate to not feeling comfortable with fast, deep breathwork.
It’s time for another story about my experience learning Yoga. I signed up for a 200-hour course at the local yoga studio in 2017. I was working full-time and earning a PhD, but I needed to learn to teach Yoga to share the experience with my colleagues and students. The classes were weekends of practice and learning. When it came to the breathwork, I faked it. Yes, you read that correctly. I faked the breathing. We were taught deep, fast-paced breathing, and I couldn’t stand it. I felt inadequate because I didn’t feel comfortable breathing in that way. I expressed my concern with one of my Yogi besties, and she said I didn’t have to breathe that way to get benefits. I later learned that the energizing breath can also cause emotional overload if you’re already overstimulated. Remember my story about the rollerblading class? I was overstimulated, to put it mildly. Before trying a breathing activity, check your emotions, state of being, and surroundings. If you want to be energized or need to relax, you can use your breath to help.
If you feel intimidated using prayer as a breathing tool, I have a meditation for you. Breathing into Calmness is a meditation I created to help use my breath to calm my emotional state. Listen to the meditation on my website and then post about your experience here on our Facebook Page.