When people ask what I do, I often say “I teach breathing.” For me my breath has been my purest and most intimate form of expression. As a child I was often searching to find my voice in a world that didn’t seem to make sense. Usually, the ways I chose to express my voice were redirected as inappropriate or dismissed as not being practical.
Early on, I found out that when I sang, I was special. My singing voice was like my soul gliding over my breath. Sometimes as a whisper, sometimes as a scream. But always ME, even if I was singing someone else’s song, it was always in MY voice.
As I begin to develop my vocal craft, my voice became something that would always be there for me. Effortless friendship. One day a few years ago I had a rupture in my one of vocal cords and my best friend became an unreliable partner. Sometimes I go out to perform and I would have all of the notes I was used to accessing. The next day I would only have five or six notes in the well. Of course, that causes stress. As one of my teachers would say, “apprehension is a form of tension.” I became embarrassed to sing and humbled by life.
Luckily, surgery and rehab and phenomenal coaches and teachers got me back to 100%.
When I look back at how I lost my voice, I had lost my connection to my breath. Breath is life, and my life was kicking my ass. In my life at the time, my voice was often the last to be heard. My body simply shut down. The purest form of me was no longer available. Once again, that kid who couldn’t express his voice showed up. This was a psychosomatic response to being “silenced,” it simply manifested physically.
I remember working with one of my voice teachers, and we were trying to access my ribs as I took a breath, and I couldn’t do it. Me as a lifetime singer and a current Yoga Teacher could not access his breath. It was mind boggling to both me and my speech therapist.
I’ve often heard the ribs described as the fingers of the spine, and mine were definitely clenched in two fists. I’m lucky to have had a good speech therapist, vocal coach, and psychotherapist to help me understand what was going on. I started shifting my Yoga practice away from breathing techniques, and more toward simply connecting to my breath. I became curious about the WHY of my breath and less focused about the HOW off my breath. That approach totally shifted my practice and the way I teach.
You’ve heard me say this before, but we come into the world on an inhale, and we leave it on an exhale. We connect to our life through our breathing. We nurture our bodies with each inhale and exhale. And as Covid taught us, we share our breath with the space around us.
Your breath can be held to recruit strength or to focus your mind. It can be slowed down to calm the body or sped up to give it energy. It can be a whisper or can be a shout. The relationship to your breath is the most intimate one you will ever have. When calm, it can caress and soothe you. When heightened it can give you energy and pleasure. When strong, it can advocate for you and be your biggest defender.
Your breath is not something you DO, it’s the thing you ARE! When you connect to your breath through meditation, music, Yoga, playing an instrument, running a mile, etc. you’re connecting to the Genesis of your being. The pilot light of your soul. Take a moment today and truly sit with that concept!