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  • The 4-8 relaxation breath

    The 4-8 relaxation breath

    I’m sure you have heard of the fight or flight response. That’s when your adrenaline spikes, sending superhuman power to your arms and feet and razor sharp focus to your mind set to one thing: survive. Your breathing speed and heart rate go up. Blood flow is redirected from some of your organs to your extremities. You are alert and your body is tense, ready for action any moment.

    The relaxation response
    Now compare that to the other, less well known but equally valid state: the relaxation response. In this state, the body rests and digests. Muscle tension is low, blood flows to the digestive organs, energy levels are replenished and cells are being restored. Our heart beats slowly and the breath is slow, gentle, sometimes hardly noticeable.

    Using the breath, we can induce and/or sustain both these states. The 4-8 relaxation breath induces (you guessed it) the relaxation response.

    There are multiple methods for relaxation breathing. I like this one because it doesn’t require a holding of the breath. We can do this type of breathing in one continuous flow, which has its own amplifying benefits by shifting our consciousness to a more expanded awareness.

    Pain free birth
    The 4-8 relaxation breath is the breath that carried me painlessly all through the 13 hour birth of my daughter. Needless to say I am in love with it. The power I felt was grand. The surges were deep and consuming and had me moaning, yes, but I didn’t create any resistance in the process. My body was overflowing with love hormones and I was in full surrender to the contractions. I believe it was the 4-8 breath that carried me (and us) all the way through, along with the strong, loving presence of my beloved and the competence of the midwife.

    The 4-8 relaxation breath technique
    It’s very simple: breathe in for a count of 4 and out for a count of 8.

    On the in-breath, relax the jaw and shoulders. Use your diaphraghm for a nice and full chest-and-belly breath. Soften your belly, solar plexus and heart area.

    On the out-breath, make sure that some air remains in your lungs. Don’t press. Explore how to use your belly, chest, throat and lips in a healthy way to guide the duration of the breath flow.

    I like to breathe this breath to the count of my heartbeats. One thing I notice within two or three breaths is that my heartbeat slows down, an immediate effect of this breathing pattern. When you notice this, you also know that your blood pressure is dropping and your body is entering the restorative relaxation response. This also means that the breathing will take longer and longer every time.

    Stay connected with what feels right for you and don’t hold on to the counts when your body tells you otherwise. For example, when I was pregnant, breathing out for a count of 6 was often better than 8. It’s your body, your breath. The wisdom of you being alive in your body in this moment is infinitely greater than any range of numbers will ever be.

    Book tip
    From Harvard University’s Institute for Mind Body Medicine, there is a wonderful book about inducing the relaxation response and handy guide on how to apply it for healing various ailments: Relaxation Revolution.

  • Conscious connected breathing: technique and effects

    Conscious connected breathing: technique and effects

    If you are familiar with breathwork, you have probably heard of the conscious connected breath. You may know it by a different name, but the basic technique is this:

    1. Relax your jaw, open wide and breathe through the mouth
    2. Breathe into the belly and chest
    3. Simply relax on the exhale
    4. Consciously connect your breathing, so no pauses between inhale and exhale

    (A gentler version can be practiced by breathing in and out through the nose.)

    Practicing 10 minutes of conscious connected breathing at a time can already induce remarkable results. You may experience deep peace, heightened present moment awareness, more aliveness in (parts of) your body, as well as strong emotions and outbursts of laughter or crying. 10 minutes of conscious connected breathing is also a great way to start a meditation or creative session (keep paper and pen at hand!).

    Breathing the conscious connected breath for a longer time will bring you even deeper, but be wise and start your journey into the breath with a breath session under guidance of a breath coach. Seriously, this is strong stuff.

    Physical effects of conscious connected breathing
    On a physical level, breathing the conscious connected breath will bring more oxygen to your cells, stimulate the vagus nerve connecting many body parts, spur on the reptilian brain and impact the autonomic nervous system.

    You may notice all sorts of sensations, ranging from cold, heat, tingling and itching to ticks, trembling, pain or surges of energy and waves of ecstasy. These are all natural bodily impulses which we tend to suppress. Create a safe space and let these movements come. You will feel more alive than ever before.

    Emotional effects of conscious connected breathing
    On an emotional level, all sorts of feelings may arise. Bliss, laughter and joy or fear, anger, and grief. Allow them to arise, and deepen your breath to go into the experience or return to a normal breath to simply witness the unfolding of emotions stored in your body.

    Don’t go into stories now; the body doesn’t speak this kind of language and it knows nothing of your life drama. It’s enough to just let your emotions bubble up, play out and leave as they like.

    Spiritual effects of conscious connected breathing
    You may feel a sense of oneness or wholeness. The sense of separation between your body and the ‘outside world’ may disappear partly or completely. You may experience a strong intuition and inner knowing. Thoughts may cease to exist or loose their importance. You may experience unconditional love and recognize the nature of all of existence, including yourself, as deep peace.

    And this is all available to anyone, simply through breathing! Pretty cool, right?

    On the other hand, experiences like the above may lead to confusion and disbalance when we don’t have the mental framework or life circumstances conducive to healthy integration. This is why again it is advisable to take it slowly and take your time to explore this terrain wisely, with healthy intent, integrating as you go and seeking guidance where needed.

    Any questions, put them in the comments and I will be available to respond.

  • Parenting with Presence (book tip)

    A little while ago, a friend had been cradling our then 13 month old daughter as she was struggling to sleep.

    “She required nothing but complete presence,” he said afterwards, “or she would cry.”

    Indeed, when he picked up a book, she would wake up and cry. For her to sleep, he had needed to sit with her in perfect stillness.

    Now how’s that for a Zen practice?

    But good parenting requires more. Perfect stillness at some times, creativity and strong action at others. And especially in those moments when it gets really hard, that’s where the magic happens: we either plant the seeds for further drama, or cut the chord connecting generations of suffering and set ourselves and our children free.

    In Parenting with Presence (Nederlands: Opvoeden in het Nu, Deutsch: Kindererziehung im Jetzt), Susan Stiffelman helps parents find peace, joy and transformation through the everyday encounters with their children. She gives many examples of how we can raise our children and ourselves to be conscious, compassionate and centered human beings.

    I loved this book. It made me even more aware of how connection is so important in any relationship – with myself, my child and my partner. It gave me a sense of lightness about parenting teenagers, which is not the phase that I am in yet but it will some day. And it is just super practical, going beyond wishful thinking pseudo-spiritual blabla into the knitty-gritty of real life parenting and its challenges.

    Recommended by Eckhart Tolle.

  • Chocolate Mango (beans & carrots!) No-Bake Cake

    Yesterday was my birthday. I spent the whole day in the kitchen before moving all the dishes over to my mom’s place who had graciously offered to host the family birthday party. It was a perfect day with some of my favorite people :).

    This no-bake cake consists of 3 layers plus a fruit topping. It is very dense- rich and filling, so be sure to serve tiny slices. The layers should be distinct in taste: fruity for the top and robust, full and indulgent for the chocolate middle layer.

    The beans make for a thick, fudgy chocolate cream. Be sure to add plenty of vanilla to get the richness that cacao deserves. Also, vanilla creates a sweet sensation so you’ll need less dates. You won’t taste the beans, I promise! People have been amazed at how well this works and… beans are good for you!

    The crunchy muesli makes for a great dough, especially the nuts one thanks to the healthy fats in there which make it rather buttery, but vegan and good for your heart! We happened to have two kinds of crunchy and it worked out great but if you have only one (preferably the nuts), that will work as well.

    I have only roughly estimated the amounts, I’m sure that when you’re in the kitchen getting your hands dirty and tasting lots (yay :P), things will sort themselves out.

    Recipe for Chocolate Mango (beans & carrots!) No-Bake Cake

    1. For the bottom layer:

    1-2 cups crunchy muesli with 4 red fruits
    dates to taste
    1-2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted

    2. For the chocolate layer:

    3-4 cups nut crunchy muesli with nuts
    2 cans of cooked black beans (rinse well)
    1 cup of cacao
    10-20 dates
    1 tablespoon vanilla
    2-3 tablespoons coconut oil
    pinch of salt

    3. For the carrot layer:

    1-2 cups crunchy muesli (either nuts of red fruits)
    2-3 carrots
    pieces of mango
    lemon juice and (part of) rind

    4. For the fruit layer:

    150-200 gr frozen mango pieces (or fresh if you’re in the right climate)
    handful of blueberries

    For layers 1, 2 and 3: for each layer separately, combine the ingredients in a food processor. Taste and adjust to improve taste and consistency. They should be sticky, sturdy and chewy.

    Press the bottom layer in the bottom of the cake form. Use a spoon to smoothly spread the mixture. Next, add in the chocolate layer. And finally, add in the carrot layer.

    Top off with a full layer of fruit, which you lightly press into the carrot layer. Enjoy now or refrigerate until shortly before use.

  • Water pouring into water

    Pondering the unspeakable

    And how to speak of it

    A thought comes:

    Life gave me life

    Water pouring into water

    Snap

    Visionary imagery

    Curtain radiant with being

    Then stillness –

    Timeless unity

    One an instant

    Eternal minute

    Mind no more

    Everything I

    Blissful smile

    Then back online:

    Hey, I should really write a blog about this.

  • The Presence Process (Guided Online Journey)

    The Presence Process (Guided Online Journey)

    I wanted to share something with you which has changed my life and could change yours.

    Have you ever heard of The Presence Process? It’s a book. And more than that, (you guessed it) it’s a process. It is a 10 week process that will make you feel happier, healthier and whole, creating unimagined shifts in your life.

    Its daily requirements: 2 x 15 minutes of breathwork, reading a few pages and emotional housekeeping. You’re going to meet every challenge you face during the day in a new way.

    It was invented by the author, Michael Brown who suffered from intense pains until he found his path to freedom and created this method. It offers a structure that will help you systematically identify the emotional patterns that underly all of your experiences.

    According to Michael, our earliest experiences create an imprint that keeps on repeating throughout our lives. This imprint shapes how we perceive everything that happens to us and everyone who comes across our path.

    Do you get it? This is very simple and very profound:

    Life may look like a multitude of happenings, people and circumstances, but these are actually many messengers presenting the same few messages – over and over and over again.

    The key to living in the moment and being happy is this: focus on the message (not the messenger) and feel it without resisting it. And as we start living in unconditional emotional responsability, present moment awareness shines as never before.

    It’s as simple as that. And it’s a total game changer.

    It’s very simple, but because of our wiring and conditioning, it can be hard to do. We’re so used to making stuff difficult, right?

    In my own life, The Presence Process has lifted a lifelong weight off my shoulders, freed up energy and literally brought in thousands of euros. That is the kind of change this process can bring. I wholeheartedly recommend doing it- not to change your circumstances (although they may), but to radically shift your outlook on life, moving from chasing after things to deep gratitude and abundance.

    Presence Process group

    With Presence as our facilitator and staying true to the book, I offer Presence Process groups 2-3 times per year, called The Presence Process Guided Online Journey. This guided online journey adds to The Presence Process: personal online breath guidance, group support, two live breath workshops, weekly summaries and reminders, tips for further exploration and more. Check it out here: The Presence Process Guided Online Journey or find me on Instagram.

  • Breastfeeding and the circle of life

    “It is pretty wonderful, this life cycle. I always found it interesting, how food is made and seeds grow and sunshine and rain become nutrition and we can eat and poo and seeds grow and so on. But now my body is taking that and making a whole new product and there is another little human being joining in my loop of life. I can’t get my head round it all. This brilliant earth. My brilliant digestive system.

    Baby, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to feed you
    Feet up in a dim-lit room, nothing but life between us
    Milky silent gulping, face a blissful rest
    Tiny fingers tapping on the spaces by my chest
    Bellies beat together, slowly in and out
    Heartbeats storm through tiny chest, tinted lips and mouth
    As I sit and wait, I gaze again at our cherry blossom tree
    As light to leaf to the air we breathe, now that system flows through me
    And as I gaze upon your face, pressed upon me
    I see the cycle,
    Our food recycled,
    As you gulp down sunshine energy”

    – Hollie McNish, from her wonderful book Nobody Told Me – Poetry and parenthood

  • Breastfeeding in mindfulness

    Breastfeeding is a beautiful moment between me and my baby. A precious moment to rest, connect, and exchange. During breastfeeding, there is a direct energy connection between the baby and mother. Skins touch, hormones soar, reflexes act, milk flows. It is a deeply intuitive process that taps into the most ancient parts of both our brains.

    It matters how we spend our time
    As nursing mothers (and actually this goes for all baby feeding parents) we spend up to several hours each day sitting with our little one. In stead of browsing social media, checking messages or watching Netflix, why not spend this time with them consciously connecting, breathing or meditating? It’s a great opportunity! You are here sitting still anyway ;).

    Your baby, whilst drinking from your breast, is very much in tune with your body (and you with hers). She unconsciously and immediately picks up on every signal: your heart rate, sweat response, muscle tension, and breathing rhythm – to name a few.

    Just imagine the difference for your child when she looks up to look at you face and sees you either distressed by the news/consumed by a screen as opposed to lovingly/playfully looking at her or your eyes closed gently in silent meditation. She probably won’t remember consciously but the vibration of these early experiences will be stored in subtle layers of the body-mind.

    A gift to mother and child
    Nursing my baby has become a daily recurring practice of playfulness and mindfulness in the months since her birth. The time spent with her at my chest is so incredibly precious.

    The sensation of her tiny chubby fingers stroking, squeezing and tapping my chest (causing oxytocin to soar and milk to flow) – oh! delicious miracle of nature.

    Her giggles as she playfully turns my face away and back again with her hand.

    Her deep blue eyes looking up at me, sometimes smiling, sometimes focused, sometimes drunk with milk.

    Watching her fall asleep, breath becoming deeper and deeper, as she drinks or suckles.

    Sacred and natural
    The more attention I bring to the process, the deeper and more subtle are the layers I start to notice and I realise the intricacies of our humble role in the circle of life. Nothing is more normal and yet nothing is more sacred than this moment between me and my little one. Consciously breastfeeding like this is a gift to us both.

    Read this wonderful poem for a much more poetic account of nursing.

    And of course, in a different yet also very much the same way, much of the above applies to parents and caretakers bottle feeding babies as well.

    Mindful breastfeeding/nursing exercise

    Try this:

    While nursing your baby, become silent. Breathe deeply and relax. Soften your belly and feel it rise and fall as you breathe in and out. Sense the breath of your baby and the movement of his or her belly and chest as s/he breathes.

    Gently notice what comes to your attention: sounds, feelings, thoughts. Simply gently notice and let it stay or pass, like a white cloud in the clear blue sky. If your attention has drifted away for a moment, gently bring it back to the awareness of the breath and the sensation of your baby’s body and yours touching.

    Your baby may soon relax into your caring presence. By your breath alone, she knows she is safe. Also, if she is very young, her natural breath will still be arythmic and through sensing your rhythmic breath, she learns to regulate hers.

    If you are not used to this kind of practice, know that you are not just sitting still. You are ‘holding space’ for your child, that means: providing a safe container for her to move through all the phases and experiences of being a baby. The quality of your presence is worth so much for her.

    If you choose, you can now proceed to practice the 4-8 relaxation breath to invoke the relaxation response which is very beneficial for both you and your baby, or possibly even the conscious connected breath if you are free of emotional charge. More about that later :).

     

  • Liberated from prison

    Liberated from prison

    One of my teachers, the beloved Ananta Kranti, was liberated while doing time in a Japanese prison. The intense regime and extremely limited freedom led her to finding peace within herself, a limitless place underneath the experience of severe deprivation.

    Another friend woke up in the storm of heartache after losing the (then) love of her life.

    An acquintance has found her freedom through the death of her nine year old son.

    Michael Brown suffered from excruciating headaches, healed himself through a combination of breathwork and mental/spiritual discipline and delivered The Presence Process to the world.

    Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie and Marianne Williamson were depressed on the verge of suicide, woke up from their nightmare and became three of the world’s most recognized teachers in self realisation.

    Viktor Frankl wrote the iconic Man’s Search for Meaning thanks to his three years in Nazi concentration camps.

    We are so much greater than anything that can happen to us. Our prisons are mind made. Even – no, not even: especially in the midst of the deepest suffering lies our opportunity to break free from it forever.

    And writing those words, this now brings home Byron Katie’s statement, already understood but now realised in an even deeper way:

    “Until you can look forward to all aspects of life without fear, your Work is not done.”
    – Byron Katie

  • Suffering and the meaning of life

    Suffering and the meaning of life

    A couple of days ago I read Sacha Post’s post about asking yourself your Most Important Questions. In it, he recommends intentionally asking the Most Important Question (MIQ) that is alive in you right now, then get into a relaxed state for the remainder of the day and revisit the question first thing in the morning.

    I liked the idea and found my own MIQ rather quickly:

    Why is there suffering?

    In my earlier inquiries into this question before, I hadn’t been able to find a satisfying answer. Yet I knew deeply that there was more to this subject. And now that I have found my answer, it seems to obvious I can hardly believe it wasn’t this clear before.

    The next day after intentionally setting my MIQ, as soon as I revisited the question, a book title came to my mind. It’s a famous book that I had never before taken the opportunity to read. The title is Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl and it is the personal and professional account of a Jewish psychiatrist who lived in Nazi concentration camps for three years and survived.

    As soon as I started reading, page after page, the book took my question to a higher level and answered it with countless examples.

    Reading it, I have come to rephrase the original MIQ to:

    What is the meaning of suffering?

    In his book, Viktor Frankl states that the meaning of our life can be found through 1) work, 2) love and 3) suffering. (Not that suffering is desirable: as long as it can be avoided, we should find meaning in changing our situation for the better.) But when suffering is unavoidable, even when everything has been taken away from us, the last of our human freedoms that can not be taken away is this: the freedom to choose one’s attitude in any set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

    This turns around the perception of suffering from something inherently bad into something possibly beneficial. I myself have lived through trauma, transformed it and lived with the fruits of this inner work for years, but I always kept thinking: what would happen in the worst of the worst of circumstances?

    Never have I found such a clear explanation of the value of suffering as in this book, coming from the mouth of a survivor of the Holocaust – the epitome of suffrage. Paraphrased, what he argues is this:

    Suffering helps find the meaning of life

    In Frankl’s view, the will for meaning is our deepest drive (not the will for sex or fear or power, as some of his predecessors have proposed). Responding to suffering is an opportunity to give meaning to our life, and true meaning can only be found in self-transcendence.

    And there I found the answer to my MIQ, in my own understanding:

    Suffering is a means to awakening

    If we let it.

    And that is essential: we have to let it. Frankl’s invitation is to take responsability in our approach to life, where we have the opportunity to show human greatness, and to never stop making that brave choice.

    Instead of asking, “what is the meaning of my life?” we should recognize that actually life is asking this question of us. We can give our own answer by responding to our life’s circumstances in the best way we possibly can:

    “In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning up to the very end.”
    – From Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

    The psychiatrist acknowledges that not everybody in the Nazi camps has been able to transcend this amount of suffering, in fact – most weren’t. Yet the examples of some of them who did, even if only a few, are proof of our natural and true human potential.

    I would like to end with the final sentences of Man’s Search for Meaning, words that brought chills all over my body and tears in my eyes:

    “Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”