Category: Breathwork

“This is what my breath looks like”

11. October 2018
Breathwork, Featured
by Nicola Caroli

In a post for the Life of Breath Project Blog in 2015, I wrote about my breathwork with children. The title was “This is what my breath looks like”:

“This is what my breath looks like and when you have no breath you can no longer live,” wrote Maya, 7 years old.

I met Maya in a children’s recreational facility in Berlin where I offered an introductory “Creative Breathing” session. The participants were between 7 and 12 years old. Maya didn’t, strictly speaking, take part. She just wanted to know what we were doing and I told her we were exploring breathing. That was sufficient information for her to go off and spend the next hour doing her drawings. She started out drawing blood vessels, then added the heart, which looked like the lungs and later the lungs, which looked neither like the lungs or the heart. I asked her if she wanted to write something about what she had drawn and she went off to do some writing. (See Maya’s drawing above)

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Breath Token September 2018

16. September 2018
Breathwork
by Nicola Caroli

A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.

Breathing is variable I

Breathing adapts to everything we do, sense, think and feel. We can directly experience this by making any movement, while small, simple movements are best to begin with.
Generally any movement stimulates breathing palpably. When we allow the breath to adapt to the stimulus and don‘t interfere, our breathing supports the movement. For example, if we gently lift an arm and lower it again, our breathing, in its own time, responds to the opening on that side of the body. Read More

“Earth Salutations”

10. August 2018
Breathwork
by Nicola Caroli

I’d like to share the latest video by Yoga teacher Laila Sell in which she focusses on connecting to the earth. Laila really understands and implements natural breathing and somatic movement in her teaching. I went on a Yoga retreat with her myself a couple of years ago and would like to highly recommend it. Thank you Laila for being such a wonderful teacher.

Breath Token July 2018

15. July 2018
Breathwork
by Nicola Caroli

A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.

Stability

One of the wonderful aspects of natural breath work is the sense of stability it can bring. There are many ways in which touch and movement create a sense of stability but the breath by itself can also create that.

While sitting, standing or lying down, let‘s place our hands on the torso. We can sense our hands resting on the body walls and the breath movement beneath them. The shape of the torso is continually changing and yet it stays the same. Read More

Breath Token June 2018

15. June 2018
Breathwork
by Nicola Caroli

A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.

Moving the spine

One way of getting out of the head and into the body, which also gets us in touch with our breathing, is by only moving the spine. We can imagine the body being one entity like a snake’s body. The limbs and the head are completely passive and relaxed. While moving the spine, almost imperceptibly or more vigorously, we let the breath flow freely in and out through the nose.  Read More

Breath Token May 2018

16. May 2018
Breathwork
by Nicola Caroli

A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.

It is how it is

Last Tuesday I went to the monthly breath class of my teacher Erika Kemmann. After arriving in our sitting position – sensing the soles of the feet on the ground and the sit bones on the chair, Erika invited us to meditate on „how it is“.  „It is how it is“, she said. Whatever comes up „It is how it is. I am who I am“. So we sat there in silence repeating „It is how it is. I am who I am“, devoting our time and attention to accepting ourselves physically, emotionally and mentally at that moment. Read More

Breath Token April 2018

15. April 2018
Breathwork
by Nicola Caroli

A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.

Rotating the shoulders

While sitting or standing, let‘s bring our attention to one shoulder by touching, stroking and holding it while we allow the breath to flow. In our own time, we let go of the shoulder and feel the effect of the exploration.

Now we rotate the shoulder backward very slowly from the round bony structure where the clavicle meets the head of the humerus (the main bone of the arm). This might feel quite unusual, at least, it did to me. Let’s take care not to push the shoulder blades together or initiate the movement with the arm, which usually happens with rotating the shoulders. It‘s really a very fine and slow movement. The slowness of the movement helps the breath to flow freely because it’s more difficult to control it. Read More