From Stagnation To Motivation

Breathing is one of the easiest ways to bring change to the energy of stagnation and apathy. Breathing elicits a physical movement through the body, consciousness of actual movement and flow - which is of course the opposite of stagnation.

Work with this exercise:

Breathe in slowly and deeply. Imagine yourself breathing from your stomach area. Of course we don’t actually breath from the stomach but allowing the muscles there to initiate the movement of the diaphragm is what we’re looking for.

*As a note - breathing efficiently means we take less breaths per minute, one of the advantages of this is that we use less energy to get more energy. Practitioners of breathing such as qigong or pranayama will commonly learn to breathe at a rate of 4 or 5 breaths a minute. Efficient breathing in itself will allow us to channel more energy into motivation as well as bring this energy deeper into our cells.

Breathe deeply and work with the intention of easy, effortless breath.

Look for the genuine feeling of energy and flow within the deep breath.

We want to imagine this feeling flowing through our cells, muscles, brains and organs.

Don’t struggle with the feelings of apathy or stagnation. Just let them be. Save your energy for infusing the feelings of flow and energy moving.

Let your mind follow the energy to the deepest reaches of your cells.

Listen for the feeling and level of deepest nourishment within the breath.

You should start to feel a vibrancy echoing in your body. It may start small or it may be dramatic. These are the embers of movement that we start with. Continue to breathe and focus this energy into the body until you feel that the energy has surpassed that of stagnation and apathy.

Eventually we can bypass the breathing altogether and simply connect to the exact same feeling that we get. It is after all the mind that is connecting to the energy. This is interesting because it is proven that the body and brain need oxygen for energy, but it is through the connection of the mind to specific frequencies of energy such as the one we’ve worked with here that it becomes possible to connect and maintain a sense of energy signatures without using breath as a conduit. One of the advantages of using mind over breathing is that the mind learns to transcend reliance on the breath for mind states. It learns to become flexible and move at the direction of our will.

An extension of this exercise is valuable for developing the mind/energy connection:

Take a few slow, full, deep breaths.

Listen for the genuine feeling of energy within the breath. Feel for the aspects that nourish the body and mind.

Breath in. Hold you breath for a few moments and imagine that feeling of energy is still being inhaled into your body.

Exhale, and when exhaling imagine that the feeling of energy is being inhaled into you body. Feel it infusing your mind and cells.

Externally the breath is the usual inhale and exhale. Mentally the breath is continuous - it is a steady, effortless stream of energy.

Practicing this exercise continuously for 5 minutes can feel like total nourishment and refreshment for the mind and body.

The advantage of using breath is that we are physically coordinating our body and mind. This coordination gives us an object to focus on which is tangible. The breath allows connection to energy. The mind learns to imagine and through imagination to infuse with energetic properties. We then learn to move past the external limitations of inhale/exhale by drawing continuous streams of energy.

Practice working with this exercise for a few minutes the moment you wake in the morning, it will bring new energy and motivation to your day. If stagnation and apathy has been a long-standing practice, then great benefits can be had from keeping 10% of the mind focused on connecting with the breath and particularly the energy within the breath from morning until evening. Usually a dramatic shift will be experienced in a few days of doing this.

Hieu Doan