How to Breathe With Your Whole Body
Spending time in the woods—or shinrin-yoku (“forest bathing”)—has been proven to significantly strengthen our immune system and increase our overall happiness. The forest air triggers our bloodstream to produce 40 percent more natural killer cells, which help fight harmful viruses, bacteria, and other illnesses. The tradition of forest bathing goes back a long time in Japan’s folk medicine, but it has its longest history in China and Taiwan and has been called senlinyu there for centuries.
Ancient knowledge about healing from nature is also found in traditional Chinese medicine. Numerous exercises from qigong are designed to “absorb the chi of nature” and are carried out mainly in forests or green areas with trees. Even the qigong masters of the past apparently knew that nature not only heals in the form of plant- and mineral-based pharmaceutical substances, but also by a person simply being present in a green space and breathing. In qigong, absorbing the chi of nature is always associated with breathing techniques.
Xiaoqiu Li, a two-time Chinese state champion in wushu (traditional Chinese martial arts), taught me the following exercise for “whole-body breathing.” This specific exercise helps you to take in the healthy forest air quite intensely and to release old air and harmful substances very consciously. You will especially feel the purifying effects of this exercise in your body if you are a smoker or live in a polluted city.
Look for a place in the woods that appeals to you and that has an even surface to stand on, and then follow these steps:
- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and as parallel to each other as possible, with your knees slightly bent and arms relaxed at your sides.
- “Open” your chest cavity by lifting your arms up in the air away from your body, in the form of a circle overhead, as if you were a tree revealing its mighty crown to the sky. Take a deep breath in while doing this, starting in your stomach and continuing to fill up your chest with air.
- When your arms meet over your head, guide them down in front of your body, holding them together and parallel to each other. Simultaneously begin to breathe out, making fists with your hands while squatting down.
- At the end of these movements, slowly press your elbows against your body at stomach level. This pressing of the elbows and curving of your body help your lungs to empty themselves entirely.
- Repeat these movements slowly and mindfully and try to make everything as smooth as possible.
Excerpted from The Biophilia Effect: A Scientific and Spiritual Exploration of the Healing Bond Between Humans and Nature by Clemens G. Arvay.
Born in 1980, Clemens G. Arvay is an Austrian engineer and biologist. He studied landscape ecology (BSc) at Graz University and applied plant sciences (MSc) at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna. Arvay examines the relationship between humans and nature, focusing on the health-promoting effects of contact with plants, animals, and landscapes. He also addresses a second range of topics that includes ecologically produced food along with the economics of large food conglomerates. Clemens G. Arvay has written numerous books, including his bestseller The Biophilia Effect. For more, please visit clemensarvay.com.
Buy your copy of The Biophilia Effect at your favorite bookseller!
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The Future of Spirituality – audio sessions with Ken Wilber
Have you had a chance to listen to The Future of Spirituality with Ken Wilber and Tami Simon? These historic audio sessions have been edited down into around 6.5 hours and feature a fascinating conversation regarding the evolution of spirituality, the ever-evolving ways the formless is pouring through form, and the always, already awakened nature of consciousness. The sessions are available in CDs or as digital downloads.
If the Buddha, Saint Teresa, or an enlightened shaman walked into the room today, would they find themselves in need of some serious spiritual catching up? The surprising answer, says Ken Wilber, is yes.
Integral evolutionary thinkers today are seeing a burst of accelerating shifts in human consciousness: in our emotional and cognitive lines of intelligence, our creative and moral capacities, our sense of self, and more. And as this landscape of knowledge grows, so does the potential of our own spiritual lives-in ways that even meditation and other inward practices alone cannot provide.
What is the evidence for this upward spiral in our spiritual intelligence? And if it’s true, how do we experience these shifts directly, within ourselves? The Future of Spirituality explores these emerging possibilities to help you discover their profound influences in your own life and in the world around you.
“The enlightened persons of today and of 2,000 years ago are equally free,” says Wilber. But now, for the first time in human history, we have the potential for a far more expansive, fuller spiritual experience than ever before possible. This is the territory that you are invited to explore, with The Future of Spirituality.
Highlights:
“Spirit wants to evolve”-the core of the integral vision
Emptiness and the evolutionary unfolding of form
How science and Western psychology are transforming spirituality
On freedom and fullness
Waking up and growing up, two distinct and essential processes
If the Divine is formless and infinite, who needs levels and hierarchies?
On reincarnation and life after death
The shape of things to come-emerging stages of consciousness ahead
4 Tips to Get Back to Secure Attachment
When we talk about what secure attachment looks like, it’s not unusual for people to give themselves a hard time. It seems like such a high bar, and when we look at it that way, it’s easy to feel not quite up to snuff. I can relate to that feeling, and I think it’s quite normal for everyone to feel that way from time to time.
We all have emotional reactions we’re not proud of, and most of us contribute our fair share to arguments and unnecessarily difficult conversations. And many of us simply aren’t as present as we’d like to be. We don’t feel quite here enough—either we’re distracted by one thing or another, or we’re not as attentive as we think we should be. Again, all of this is normal. Most of these things happen regularly—at least they do for me! The main point is to care enough to notice when things are less than ideal. That means having enough presence to know that things are a little off and enough compassion to want to do a retake, to make things better. There’s more wiggle room than you’d think. It’s okay to goof up, make mistakes, and be less than our perfect self. The attachment system is a forgiving system, and it makes a world of difference to register when we miss each other and mend when things go awry as soon as possible.
We can all do a better job, of course, and that’s where practice comes in. I want to offer you ways to practice fostering secure attachment in yourself and others. These are methods for boosting your secure attachment skills. The idea isn’t to ace every one of these, but pick out one or two that you feel called to work on and practice these the best you can. Hopefully, there are secure attachment skills here for everyone—skills you can offer others in your life, skills to practice mutually in your relationships, and skills to encourage secure attachment in yourself.
Secure Attachment Skill #1: Listen Deeply
Let’s start with one of the more obvious skills. We all know the value of listening, but most of us haven’t actually taken the time to develop our listening skills in any ongoing way. When we listen deeply, reflect back to the other person, and ask questions that help us understand them, we allow the other person to inform us of what’s going on with them—not in a superficial way, but in a manner that empowers them to really dive in, feel their feelings, and express them to us until we truly get them. We’re not simply listening until they take a breath so that we can jump into the conversation and say what’s on our mind. Listening deeply means that we respond with considerate questions meant to foster and convey understanding, and we always give space before explaining our perspective.
It’s important to note that when we listen to another person, we don’t have to believe or agree with what they are saying. Really listening to someone means that we don’t immediately respond to what they’re saying with denial or criticism. Instead of negating their concern or getting into an argument about it, we just listen. That’s it. And we can open up the contingency space even further by trying to resonate with them. “I understand why you’d be upset about that, and I can see that really hurt you,” for example. In other words, listening in this way means you’re offering to hold—to contain—whatever it is that they’re dealing with and be present with them, regardless of their emotional responses and reactions.
I think most of us have this in common: more than we want to be convinced otherwise or placated, we just really want to be heard on a deep level. That can be hard at times, of course, because relationships can bring up a lot of stuff for us, and it’s natural to have challenges when dealing with other people, especially those closest to us. But if we can do our best to listen, we can make the best of difficult situations, and we’ll have a much better chance of closing the gap between us and the person we’re listening to.
Secure Attachment Skill #2: Practice Presence
Listening is one of the ways we can show presence, which is one of the most important gifts we can give ourselves and others in relationships. Presence isn’t a static thing; it’s a way of being. Presence means showing up, paying attention, and letting the other person know that we’re there for them with whatever’s going on. It means we do our best to put aside our own worries and concerns and be with them in an undistracted way. This can be hard in today’s world when it’s common to be on our devices so much of the time, but I highly recommend setting your phone or tablet aside when you want to show someone else that you’re truly present for them. Of course, this is impossible to do perfectly all the time, but there are certain things we can do to practice presence in order to become more available to others, as well as to ourselves.
Committing to remain undistracted with another person in a world that is so full of distractions is a powerful and fulfilling practice
Secure Attachment Skill #3: Attune
Attunement can mean a lot of things, but in this
Being dedicated to attunement also keeps us in touch with when we fall out of attunement with others, which is crucial knowledge to have in relationships. We’re oriented toward connection, but we’re also aware when that connection isn’t quite as we’d like it to be. If you feel you are not quite in sync with someone or are concerned that you don’t fully understand their situation or their feelings, ask the person to tell you more about what they are trying to share. Ask caring and clarifying questions.
Secure Attachment Skill #4: Engage in Joint Attention
Joint attention means mutually being there for each other, no matter what you’re doing: meditating together, dancing to your favorite song, telling jokes, making meals, or exercising. Any activity can serve to foster more secure attachment with your partner, child, family member, or friend when enacted with joint attention. You could be watching a movie on the flat-screen from your couch and still practice joint attention (for example, occasionally making eye contact with each other, laughing together, or having a conversation later about the film).
Discover even more secure attachment skills to try in The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships by Diane Poole Heller, PhD.
Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D., is an established expert in the field of Child and Adult Attachment Theory and Models, trauma resolution, and integrative healing techniques. Diane developed her own signature series on Adult Attachment called DARe (Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience) also known as SATe (Somatic Attachment Training experience). Dr. Heller began her work with Dr. Peter Levine, founder of SETI (Somatic Experiencing® Trauma Institute) in 1989. As Senior Faculty for SETI, she taught Somatic Experiencing® trauma work internationally for over 25 years. As a dynamic speaker and teacher, Diane has been featured at prestigious international events and conferences. She is the author of numerous articles in the field.
Her book Crash Course, on auto accident trauma resolution, is used worldwide as a resource for healing a variety of overwhelming life events. Her film, Surviving Columbine, produced with Cherokee Studios, aired on CNN and supported community healing in the aftermath of the school shootings. Sounds True recently published Dr. Heller’s audiobook Healing Your Attachment Wounds: How to Create Deep and Lasting Relationships, and her book, The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships.
As developer of DARe and president of Trauma Solutions, a psychotherapy training organization, Dr. Heller supports the helping community through an array of specialized topics. She maintains a limited private practice in Louisville, Colorado.
Buy your copy of The Power of Attachment at your favorite bookseller!
Being Mindful of Not Being Mindful
Modern life is chock-full of habits of mind that get in the way of mindfulness. Be on the lookout for them in your own life. Steering clear of them will be part of practicing mindfulness.
Here are some of the most common things that pull people out of mindfulness:
- Thinking about the past (literally taking you out of the moment)
- Thinking about the future (ditto)
- Multitasking
- Judging, analyzing, criticizing, or evaluating
- Attaching to thoughts or observations
- Pushing away thoughts or observations
- Having a lack of intention
- Having a lack of compassion
- Being in denial
WISE MIND LIVING PRACTICE
Catch Yourself Being Judge-y
Judgment is one of the most common ways to pull yourself out of mindfulness. Whether you are judging your experience as good, bad, or ugly, it’s an obstacle to be fully present in the moment. And you do it all the time. Everyone does. The way to do it less — the way to not let judging interfere with your ability to be mindful — is to increase your awareness of when you are judging.
Try spending a few days noticing all the judgments you make throughout the day. About anything and everything: “What the hell is that lady wearing?” “Yuck, this food is gross!” “I should not be the one handling this!” Any time you catch yourself playing Judge Judy, notice it, label it as a judgment, and resist the temptation to judge yourself for being judgmental. Then try to tell yourself the same story but with neutral (nonjudgmental) language: “Her shirt is bright.” “Oh, that is bitter.” “I have a task that I do not like.” With enough practice, you’ll begin to make that kind of switch automatically — in mindfulness practice as well as in life.
Looking for more great reads?
Excerpted from Wise Mind Living by Erin Olivo
Erin Olivo, PhD, MHD
, is a licensed clinical psychologist and an assistant clinical professor of medical psychology at Columbia University. She has a psychotherapy practice in New York City. See erinolivo.com.
RITUAL: Making Magic in Your Kitchen
THE HUMAN WORLD AND THE NATURAL WORLD: ONE AND THE SAME
Nowhere is the apparent rift between the everyday and the extraordinary more evident than in the way we regard the relationship between the human world and the world of nature. The rift is ultimately rooted in the opinions and beliefs about these two realms. The natural world is full of surprises, and perhaps the greatest is the discovery that nature is everywhere. The common way nature and humans are regarded in belief and opinion does not match up with the reality. The two worlds are, in fact, one world, interpenetrated by diverse and powerful elements—not only physical forces but also holy helpers and native capacities like memory and sacred imagination. Sooner or later the search for magic brings us face to face with a reality beyond the apparent rift between the everyday and the extraordinary, as we explore not only the verdure of our interior life but also our actual relationship with the surrounding world.
Learning how to speak to these holy helpers means learning the language of nature. This is the language of the wild and natural world, the language of the wind through trees and birdsong at dawn. But it is also and equally the language of that wondrous creature called Homo sapiens sapiens, for in knowing nature, we also come to know ourselves.
All magic originates in the natural world. From the ingredients used in ritual and ceremony, to the clothing worn, the talismans treasured, the foods eaten, and the medicines taken—all of them begin among plant and fungi, animal and mineral, as do we. The role that nature plays in magic cannot be overstated, but it can be misunderstood. Magic is like a wild animal, but in the common understanding, what wild actually means tends to be a pale and shadowy reflection of what it really is.
FIELD NOTES FROM THE EVERYDAY
The experience of nature does not begin in a wild forest or rushing river valley. It begins right here. If we cannot discover the materials we need for magic already present in the everyday, then we will not find them at all, no matter how far we journey, no matter how breathtaking the scenery along the way. Noticing is a lifetime of work. For most of us, noticing will not happen in a pure and unpolluted wild place, for these places are few and far between and often hold secrets that are not meant for us. It will instead happen in our kitchens and front yards, where nature is just as present.
What is entirely familiar and known, hidden in plain sight? Where might nature be found? One answer is the kitchen and the cupboard. These are the spaces where nature has made herself most at home within the home itself. In folk traditions, magic was made in the kitchen—through cooking and making use of the ingredients found within the kitchen—from the spice cabinet to the pantry, and since the advent of the icebox and refrigeration, the fridge. For it is here in the kitchen, even within the simplest and most stripped-down kitchen, that we routinely come into contact with some of the most tangible elements of the natural world—animals, plants, minerals, earth and air, fire and water.
Go into your kitchen and pick one area: the spice drawer, the cupboard, your refrigerator. Pull everything out and set it on the counter. What comes from animals? What comes from plants? From fungi and bacteria? From minerals? Don’t limit this inquiry. Glass is formed from silica and fire. Plastic is a petroleum by-product, and what is petroleum but a product mined from the earth? Paper wrappings started off as trees. Metal appliances were once veins of ore buried within the dark ground. Dare to find one item that did not begin its life firmly rooted in nature; it is not possible. You needn’t go into a nature preserve to come into contact with the whiskers and muddy paw prints of magic. There it is, padding across the stovetop and through the pantry.
As you go through the above process in your kitchen, certain ingredients will stand out above all the others. They seem to have vibrancy, an attraction. They feel potent. As a root doctor or cunning woman might say, they have mojo.
When it comes to working, wandering, and wondering through the wilds of the kitchen, it is important to heed your own personal responses and impressions, and not be overly concerned with conforming your taste to dictionaries and lists of correspondences compiled by various sources. Meanings and interpretations are best grown from the soil of your direct experience; these are the meanings and interpretations that are just right.
A sacred artist who knows ten different ways to work with a single ingredient will make more effective magic than one who has the wherewithal to buy ten different exotic ingredients. Why? Because in the former case, there is a real relationship. In the latter, there is merely acquisition, and they are not the same. So start where you are and with what you have.
RITUAL—KITCHEN MAGIC
In response to the increasing tempo of modern life, many wonderful grocery stores offer prepared foods as a convenience. When cooking is outsourced regularly, however, we become detached from the necessities of food preparation, from the ingredients of the food, from the nature of the food, as well as from the space or nexus that holds the cooking and food in the home. We lose a sense of the alchemy inherent in all of these things. So, given this newfound knowledge based on our own experience and a desire to explore kitchen magic a little further, it is time to cook something up!
This ritual is not about releasing the inner Julia Child (although if you feel called to do so, then by all means do). It is about taking time to connect with nature hidden in plain sight, in your own dwelling space, and coming to know one aspect of it as well as possible.
TIME
- 1 hour
MATERIALS
- a simple recipe
- your Making Magic journal, or your favorite personal journal
- a door (optional)
- a special talisman (optional)
- a candle (optional)
- incense (optional)
PROCESS
Cultivate calmness both within and without. See, sense, touch, know, hear, and feel your relationship to the otherworld and your holy helpers that reside there.
Incorporate any other pieces of ritual you would like: open your “door;” touch your talisman, sharing with it your desire for this ritual; or light the candle or incense, as you like.
Begin to prepare the recipe. Take time for and give attention to each step. Pause and feel into the ingredients you are working with—where they came from, how they arrived in your home. Even boiling spaghetti in water can become a springboard. The spaghetti was once wheat in a field—where? What did its life cycle look like? What animals and plants depended on it?
Record your impressions in your Making Magic journal.
Make the serving and eating of the food a ritual as well, allowing yourself to fully savor the entire experience. When you are attentive and open to what the ingredients actually feel and taste like—and not just the idea you have of them—you discover their essence or inherent properties, qualities that can’t be taken away. Be open and curious about the differences that make garlic garlic or an apple apple.
This is an excerpt from Making Magic: Weaving Together the Everyday and the Extraordinary by Briana Henderson Saussy.
Download a free Making Magic journal here.
Briana Saussy is a teacher, spiritual counselor, and founder of the Sacred Arts Academy, where she teaches tarot, ceremony, alchemy, and other sacred arts for everyday life. She lives in San Antonio, Texas. For more, visit brianasaussy.com.
Buy your copy of Making Magic at your favorite bookseller!
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