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The first goal I always set up with my clients during our Feminine ReWilding program or personal coaching sessions is the foundation. Which means to connect back to their inner Wild Woman, or with other words: their essence.
For me the only way to release the inner Wild Woman is through building a connection with her first. This might be challenging if you tamed her for many years and hid her away in the depths of your soul, locked under 7 lockets.
To connect with your essence, with your true Self is through connecting to the body. This is in my experience, easiest done through breathing. When I went through my own awakening, I was completely disconnected and lost. Yoga, meditation and pranayama helped me to first build a connection with my body and through it rebuild the connection to Soul.
But what the heck is Prāṇāyāma?
Prāṇāyāma (प्राणायाम) is an ancient breath technique that originates from yogic practices in India. It involves controlling your breath in different styles and lengths. It is known as the fourth anga, or limb, of yoga. Prāṇāyāma is regarded as a science. It’s believed that you can control the power of your mind through regulating your breath.
The word Prāṇāyāma deries from two separate words: prāṇa and ayāma. Prāṇa translates to breath, while ayāma has many different meanings including expansion, length, and rising.
In yogic beliefs, it is thought that you can control your inner force, your prāṇa, through a prāṇāyāma practice. We are all made of prāṇa, but we hold a different amount depending of our life habits and the amount of prāṇa-based practices we do — how we cultivate it. The stronger our charge, the more health and vitality we radiate. It manifests in the outer world through one’s charisma, light, leadership, dynamism, enthusiasm, ability to take action and share the stoke.
We normally breathe automatically —we don’t have to think about it for it to happen — but we can also decide to take control of it and that gives us the opportunity to impact our levels of vitality (oxygenize/ detoxify the body, move energy) and influence our mental state (in terms of: calm, levels of courage, learning capacity, creativity, ability to generate new ideas.). The breath is the easiest gateway to access, explore & rewire our subconscious.
A Prāṇāyāma cycle has three phases:
- Puraka, or inhalation
- Kumbhaka, or retention
- Rechaka, or exhalation
Our body reflects our past. The breath (prana) connects us to the present. The mind (chitta) is what projects us in the future. It all moves together but the body, and the breath, from being denser and more tangible, are easier to manipulate.
Yoga integrates Prāṇāyāma: we use the movement of the body together with breath, we control our breath to cultivate presence of the mind, a clear and spacious mind to drop into what exists beyond physicality — which we call, perhaps, spirituality.
However, Prāṇāyāma can also be practiced on it’s own. Whether you have 2 or 30 minutes, it doesn’t matter. It can be practiced on your mat, but also it in the queue while waiting for your turn at the counter in the grocery store, before a stressful conversation, or even on the commute to work. Really, anytime fo the day.
Let's connect to our Wild Woman with a few basic Prāṇāyāma techniques!
सवितृ प्राणायाम Savitri Prāṇāyāma
Savitri or rythmic breathing is one of my go-to pranayama practices. It it can be done anytime, anywhere, you can even synchronize it with your footsteps while walking but it’s best performed in a upright sitting position. It is a super accessible and the one technique I would recommend if you only get a few minutes to yourself and have no desire to move your body.
Count slowly and breath deeply!
- Inhale for 8 counts
- Hold in for 4 counts
- Exhale for 8 counts
- Hold out for 4 counts*
Twenty minutes of practice in the 8:4:8:4 rhythm can yield the deep relaxation and rejuvenating effects of several hours sleep. It has the capacity to calm and rebalance the nervous system, relieve stress and strengthen the cardiovascular system.
*If ever this ratio is to hard at the beginning, you can start with a 6:3:6:3 ratio. You can eventually build it up to 10:5:10:5.
कपालभाति प्राणायाम Kapalabhati Prāṇāyāma
Breath of fire or Skull Shining breathing. My favorite of all the breathwork techniques I learned so far. It is a very powerful excercise to connect to your inner Wild Woman by ignating your inner fire.
It stimulates the solar plexus to generate heat and release a large dose of energy throughout the body. It purifies your blood with oxygen and makes it circulate through your body in a fast and effective manner which is very helpful in removing toxins and buildup of other substances. Kapalbhati exercises the muscles in the abdomen, and also strengthens the magnetic field of the body, aka physical aura, and literally makes you radiant (hence the name shining forehead or skull shining).
- Sit comfortably with your spine straight. Place your hands on the knees with palms open to the sky.
- Take a deep breath in.
- As you exhale, pull your stomach in. Pull your navel in towards your spine. Do as much as you comfortably can. You can keep your right hand on the stomach at the beginning, to feel the abdominal muscles contract.
- As you relax the navel and abdomen, the breath flows into your lungs automatically.
- Take 20 breaths to complete one round of Kapal Bhati.
- After completing the round, relax with your eyes closed and observe the sensations in your body.
- Do two more rounds of Kapal Bhati.
Don’t worry about the pace, as you get better with practice it will get easier and faster.
दीर्घ प्राणायाम Dirgha Prāṇāyāma
Also called “three-part breath”, Dirgha Prāṇāyāma utilizes the three major parts of the lungs to breathe deeply and fully. Dirgha Prāṇāyāma stimulates the sacral, solar plexus, heart and throat chakras. This breath is especially useful for chest breathers who may be limiting their fullest lung capacity. In dirgha, it is important to expand the belly, ribs and chest as you as you inhale to create more airflow to the lungs.
- Come into a seated position with your spine tall.
- Relax your abdomen and place one hand over the belly.
- Inhale through your nose and feel the belly press against the palm.
- As you exhale, bring the belly back into the spine and expel all the air out through the nose.
- Repeat several times to expand the lower lungs.
- Next, place both hands on the right and left rib cage.
- As you inhale, expand the entire abdomen from the lower belly to the solar plexus.
- Fill the both the lower and middle part of the lungs, then exhale out all of the air.
- Repeat several times.
- Finally, place one hand on the chest right below the collar bones.
- Breathing in, expand the belly, ribs, and chest. Fill up the lungs completely, then gently contract the lungs on the exhale to squeeze all of the air out.
Dirgha breath should be practiced for at least 5 – 10 minutes at a time to achieve relaxation and peace of mind.
सिंह प्राणायाम Siṃha Prāṇāyāma
Simha pranayama is also known as “lion’s breath”. This energetic breathing technique improves circulation in the body and also relieves facial tension.
- Begin in vajrasana, sitting on your heels.
- Take a few deep inhales and exhales to cleanse the lungs and sinuses.
- On your next exhale, open your mouth and stick your tongue out as you make a “haaaa” sound with the back of your throat.
- Bring your eyes up to your third eye and stretch all the muscles in the face as you exhale.
- Inhale deeply again without stretching the face, and exhale while sticking your tongue out and stretching the face again.
- Perform lion’s breath for 5 rounds then pause and notice how you feel.
