May You Breathe Deep
On what moves when you finally stop holding your breath
Of all the body's involuntary functions—heart rate, digestion, circulation—breath is the one you can also do on purpose. It runs in the background by default, and comes forward the moment you pay attention to it. This is why pranayama, the yogic science of breath, has always been understood as a gateway. Pull on the breath and you pull on everything underneath it.
Prana is usually translated as breath but it means something closer to life force, and moves through the body along pathways the yogic tradition has mapped for thousands of years. Most of us move through life breathing at a fraction of our actual capacity: the chest stays high, the belly barely moves, and the breath is kept small. We learn, gradually and without noticing, to stop it before it reaches anything tender.
Jon Orsini has guided over 3,000 people through somatic breathwork, and what he describes is the process of letting the breath do what it already knows how to do. He calls it nervous system recalibration, allowing the body to return to its state when nothing is demanding its attention. Old patterns of bracing and places where the breath learned to stop short shift through direct bodily experience rather than through intellectual understanding or instruction. The breath reaches places the narrating mind can't quite follow.
The yogic word for what tends to follow is sukha—translated as ease or happiness, but literally meaning good space. A well-opened space. That's what an hour of intentional breath, with music and good guidance, can make.
Somatic Breathwork: Activate, Awaken, Embody with Jon Orsini — Friday, May 15, 3:30–5:00pm at Infinite Space NYC. Early bird pricing through May 8. infinitespacenyc.com/events/somatic-breathwork.