Magic breath and how to use it

Just breathe.

Oh how magical it is to return to breath to calm ourselves down, deal with stressful situations, feel into our emotions without reacting, and even birth a child in natural flow.

The power of the breath is phenomenal, after all it's our life force that keeps us alive, and when we use it properly it promotes incredible inner peace, connection with the whole, and longevity.

This current solar eclipse is a turbulent time for many of us. It could feel like your world is falling apart, or you're trapped in the same habit cycles over again, or perhaps you feel stagnated and are unsure how to move forward. Yet in this turbulence we are given a greater opportunity to grow and strengthen, and it all starts with our return to the breath.

But just how easy is it to breath properly? And what is the correct method that you should adapt in not only these times of uncertainty but as an everyday practice? I've been asked about how easy it is to sit and just "feel" by one of our Instagram followers today, and it certainly is a fair question. Many healers and astrologers will advise us to sit with the breath over the next few days, combined with writing down our manifestations and intentions for the next six months to truly take in the energy of the eclipse. In particular, writing about how your manifestations will make you feel will have a much more profound result than simply jotting down a list of things you want to do or achieve.

So back to the breath. Where the hell do we start? Well first, let's look simply at what is happening to our mind-body connection when our life is suddenly filled with turbulence. On the physical level, we are likely to see an elevation in our heart rate, or for a better word, we start to feel anxiety. Most of us react once we reach this state either in fight or flight mode, but it doesn't have to be this way.

Learning how to stimulate your vagus nerve, which acts as the mind-body connection and controls your relaxation response, will serve you wonderfully in life. The vagus nerve is the most important element of the parasympathetic nervous system; the one that calms you down by controlling your relaxation response. The vagus nerve connects your heart's emotions and gut instincts, and by activating the calming nervous pathways of the parasympathetic system you'll learn a valuable skill in managing your mind state and anxiety levels.

Ujjayi breathing

Some might know this technique from yoga classes, and it is most certainly a breath associated with many yoga and Taoist practices, as well as some forms of Taoist Qigong. You are able to stimulate your vagus nerve with Ujjayi, and it has certainly become my turbulence "go to" breath - I am the first to admit that I don't use it enough but this eclipse has brought up situations in my life where I've had to dig deep into my Ujjayi breath and the results are somewhat magical.

Ujjayi breath begins as you first fill the lower belly with breath through the nose which activates the first and second chakras, then move the breath up toward the lower rib cage activating the third and fourth chakras, and finally move the breath right up into the upper chest and throat.

Also known as the "ocean breath", both inhalation and exhalation are both done through the nose and as your glottis in the throat passage is narrowed as the air passes in and out a deep "ghhhh" sound is expelled.

Here's the time and speed that I like to practice which will have profound results on calming your body and mind and strengthening your diaphragm:

Breathe in for four counts;

Hold for four;

Breathe out for four.

Repeat for 8 rounds.

I find the best time to turn to this breath is when you start to feel your heart beat rising and emotions churn inside your body. Before you react, go immediately to the breath. A round of 8 counts of Ujjayi will calm you down to a place where you can then continue for more rounds of 8 and sit in inner peace until the turbulence subsides. By bringing this practice into your daily routine you will learn how to not only apply it in times of stress, but also you'll notice your daily levels of calm increase. This is the beginning of your path of ultimate surrender, living in tune with your body and not being overwhelmed by your thoughts, thus allowing you to act out of love and not reaction.

Dive Deeper

So now you have a simple tool to use whenever emotions arise and you feel your thoughts taking control. But what about diving deeper? Last year I was first introduced to the charismatic, inspiring and brave soul "The Ice Man" Wim Hof thanks to a great special by VICE.

With a swag of Guinness Book of Records for withstanding extreme temperatures, Wim has become somewhat of a household name, having climbed Everest and Kilimanjaro in only shorts and shoes, stayed comfortably in ice baths for hours, and run a full marathon in the highest desert (50 degrees celsius, 122 Fahrenheit) with no water or food.

The key to his daredevil successes is through the use of a breathing technique that allows you to control the autonomous systems of the body. He dubbed it: "The Wim Hof Method,"

An incredible aspect of Wim's breathing method, discovered after he suffered extreme trauma following the suicide of his wife who suffered greatly from depression, is the ability for the practitioner to consciously control the immune system to fight off diseases. Our immune system plays a significant role in almost all devastating diseases plaguing the modern world, and finding a way to improve it can help us discover new avenues for medicine.

Whilst Wim has studied yoga and meditation for many years, The Wim Hof Method is something else entirely, and is a gift, he believes, from "cold hard nature." By subjecting himself to the bitter conditions of nature, he learned to withstand the extreme forces of cold, heat and fear. Wim has been working hard with scientists and university students to prove beyond any doubt that this method and its results are available for anyone.

The first part is a breathing exercise which can be likened to controlled hyperventilation, but rather than this breath pattern being involuntary, The Wim Hof Method invigorates and makes us high on oxygen without being triggered by stress or circumstance. The result is complete oxygenation of your blood and cells.

The easiest way to learn and practice this on a daily basis is by downloading The Wim Hof Method App.

So there you have a little bit more knowledge of the breath and the magic it can add to your life. I hope you'll bring these practices into your daily routine and remember that a clean vessel will only raise the sensitivity of the connection between body and mind making it easier for you to become aware of when you're feeling overwhelmed with thoughts, stress, and turbulence. A plant-based diet will enhance this sensitivity and help you come home to the breath more frequently and effectively.

Angie Richard (Davis) 11/26/16 Angie Richard (Davis) 11/26/16

Extended fasting – popping the cherry (with a side of emotions)

I will open with a confession: I have never considered fasting as a routine health maintenance program. It’s not that I have had the fasting blinkers on, but rather that I’ve always struggled with weight-gain and thus presumed fasting would be dangerous to my skeleton frame. More recently my partner Daniel, vegan professional Muay Thai athlete, began diving into fasting articles online, and dappling with a monthly water fast routine on the New Moon, so the topic was hot on our ‘pillow-talk’ menu when a Facebook post promoting Tyler Tolman’s fasting seminar in Adelaide sprung up on my feed. We bought tickets, and joined over 700 health-conscious Adelaidians at the Adelaide Convention Centre to hear Tyler’s energetic talk filled with eye-opening information about the correlation between emotion and disease, and fasting and healing.

If you’re new to The Anicca Way, you’ll learn here that I am a domestic violence survivor. Whilst having always been an active, sporty and adventurous girl and woman with a fairly rounded awareness of health and nutrition, I have over a decade of stored emotional trauma from domestic violence that I have been working tirelessly to ‘heal’ over the past two years. My initial period of ‘freedom’ included a solid year of partying, triggering a roller coaster of emotions from complete sadness to ecstatic joy to boiling anger. Realizing I was pushing myself further into a vortex of toxicity, whilst simultaneously noticing some severe symptoms of candida overgrowth (ceaseless cough, restless legs, nightmares, red and white skin spots, constant bloating, and, the elephant-in-the-room…thrush), I finally declared enough of the bullshit and vowed to turn my life around. Daniel, being a vegan athlete who had given up alcohol some time before, was, and still is, a major rock supporting my transformation.

So this day we walked into Tyler Tolman’s seminar, I was celebrating six-months in since turning vegan, and almost a year without alcohol consumption. My ears, and stomach, were finally ready to listen seriously about fasting for healing.

My first 24-hour fast went off without a hitch, finishing my last meal at 3pm, flushing my system with water only, and breaking the fast with a green smoothie the following afternoon before a clean, wholesome meal. My second fasting experience went for 48-hours, and proved to be nothing like the first, and I’ll share what happened with you here.

Again, I finished my last meal at 3pm after a solid two days of ‘vegan gains’ at the Adelaide Vegan Festival. Daniel and I committed to this extended fast together, and his job was to prepare multiple litres of boiled rain water for us to consume throughout the fast. The first 24 hours went off without a hitch, and similar to my first fast I went this entire period frequently urinating, failing to pooh, and experiencing no hunger pains even when cooking the kids’ dinner on both evenings. On the second evening, so around 27 hours into the fast, my calm state was challenged with some unpleasant emails from my ex-husband, triggering defensive, angry emotions from deep within my belly – what happened next fascinated me.

By 9pm I was in tears in my mother’s arms, opening up to her with untold tales of the violence I endured in my previous marriage, weeping like a baby in between angry rants. In bed by 10pm, I couldn’t sleep, feeling restless and passing the time aimlessly on my phone flicking through social media. Just past 1am, a surge of nausea swept through me, and I woke Daniel complaining of intense stomach pains and restless legs, and explaining how I felt it would be safest if I broke the fast first thing the next morning. Daniel, ever the optimist, reminded me of the body’s sensitivity during extended fasting, particularly with releasing stored emotions that have perhaps been evolving into physical disease, and opened a Tyler Tolman article on fasting and emotions (https://www.tylertolman.com/health-articles/dealing-with-emotions/), quoting:

“When you do a fast, you can’t stop dealing with your emotions, you can't suppress your emotions through food anymore. As the detox process takes place and fat is broken down and used for fuel, these old emotions are gonna come up and come out. Many people during a fast find themselves breaking down and crying…It’s a very humbling experience, and a beautiful time of release.

The important thing here is to be CONSCIOUS that the fast is going to bring emotions up and that’s a good thing. A lot of times people are unaware of this. If you don’t know that emotions might come up you might start thinking, "Whoa! This fasting isn’t good for me! I need to eat! I can’t do this. I need to break this fast”. And the reality is when you push through these emotions you will get the real rewards. It’s like layers of the onion opening up, and you are truly digging deeper to the essence of who you are.”

These were exactly the words I needed to hear. I began to focus my attention to the physical sensations sweeping my body. Warm, tingly energetic vibrations covered every inch of my skin, and were exceptionally active around my fingertips. I visualized my emotions leaving my body through my fingertips, awed at what was happening as a result of my fast and the timing my ex-husband’s emails had come into my life, feeling joy (despite immense stomach pain) to be releasing emotionally-fueled toxins from my body. The stomach pains turned into a pooh alert and I made it to the toilet just in time to excrete, three visits in a half hour, but with little relief. Another half hour later, I felt the rising sensation of vomit creeping up into my throat, and again I made it to the toilet with little time to spare, this time spewing up liters and liters of yellow-ish, acidic bile, a fluid produced in the liver and passed to the small intestine to help us absorb fats from food. Returning to bed, my throat was burning from the violent vomiting, yet I felt elated. This feeling lasted barely moments, however, and next thing Daniel recalls is me curling up into a little ball, sobbing like a five-year-old girl: “You were crying in a voice I have not heard before, high pitched as if a child.”

I finally fell asleep around 4am, exhausted. The next morning I felt physically weak, but emotionally cleansed; a sense of calm hovered like a ray of sunshine projecting down to Earth through scattered rain clouds. Around 10am we switched from water to a liter each of coconut water, and by noon I was breaking the fast with a smoothie followed by a plate of vegan rice noodles and veggies at the Adelaide Central Markets. In hindsight I should’ve avoided an oily noodle dish, but I could only stomach a third of my plate and took the leftovers home for dinner. It took around 24 hours to build my appetite back up to normal, energy levels following suit, but the mental clarity and motivation that proceeded this extended fast astounded me.

There is no doubt in my mind that during this fast I expelled built-up toxins fuelled by deeply stored emotional trauma. I feel incredibly grateful for this experience, and look forward to regular fasting and its incredible health benefits. In fact, we are launching into a 3-day water fast, followed immediately by a 7-day juice fast, out here in La Mesa de Los Santos in Colombia, where we have just recently relocated, on this upcoming New Moon on November 28th. We'll be documenting the fast and look forward to sharing our experience with you soon.

Disclaimer – fasting can be dangerous if you are ill informed and unprepared. Be sure to consult a professional like Tyler Tolman, or start with light fasting programs such as intermittent fasting. For more information on Tyler’s fasting a d health programs, visit: https://www.tylertolman.com

Have you fasted before? How was your experience? Share with us in the comments below.