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breathing
through consciousness
State-learning is about learning to breathe through
consciousness. It is about good
breathing behaviour during times of rest and
relaxation, while facing difficult tasks and relationship challenges, and
during times of gymnastic breathing while communicating or exercising. It means embedding awareness of good and
bad chemistry in the multiple contexts of consciousness. It’s about taking good breathing with you
wherever you go. Good breathing is regulated based on how YOU feel on the inside, rather than what IT looks like from the
outside. It is not bound to
specifically arranged circumstances outside of ourselves, such as music, a
safe environment, relaxation techniques, or prophylactic prescriptions, e.g.,
slow breathing. These are only half
way measures, measures that may be useful in assisting learning while
transitioning from bad breathing to good breathing. The successful transition from awareness of
the outside to awareness from the
inside, involves learning how breathing alters consciousness. This consciousness is about arousal,
attention, presence, emotions, thoughts, sense of self, and relationship to
people and environment. Healthy
breathing is about learning to breathe inside-out, intuitively, rather than
outside-in, prescriptively.
Good breathing is ultimately about “embracing” instead of “bracing.”
It is about engaging life challenges, rather than “defending from”
them. Embracing means “being present,”
connecting, and learning, where defending (or bracing) means armoring,
isolating, and disconnecting. Breathing reveals the psychological
nature of physiology, the “meaning” contained within physiology. Traditional focus of breathing training is
on fight-flight physiology and its management, where breathing is a
prescriptive exercise for relaxation.
The focus of CapnoLearning™ is on embracement physiology, where breathing is regarded as a behaviour, directly regulated
by learning in ways that may be dangerously harmful or immensely
beneficial. Breathing is behaviour rather than manipulated physiology. State-learning involves the following: (a) It means exploring the effects of self talk, imagination, and
thought on breathing behaviour, and how they may
determine the experience of breathing and assist in its modification. Clients align their breathing behaviour with their internal dialogue. (b) It involves weaving good breathing into the fabric of emotion
and motivation, and discovering first hand how breathing can trigger,
exacerbate, redirect, diminish, eliminate, or change experience: excitement,
passion, humor, anxiety, tension, disorientation, arousal, aggression,
frustration, depression, euphoria, relief, and safety. Clients learn to come into these feeling
states with good chemistry through being present, through embracement. (c) It involves folding good breathing into performing tasks,
mentally rehearsing actions, active listening, focusing, resting,
communicating, socialising, fitness training, learning new information,
thinking, and remembering. Clients
learn to engage these activities through the consciousness of good breathing
chemistry. (d) It involves changing breathing chemistry and observing its
effects on sense of self, including self-esteem, defensiveness,
self-confidence, social competence, and alternate personality styles. Clients learn to respond with good
breathing to challenging experiences. The experience of breathing becomes a
navigational guide to preventing and reversing dissociative state changes, by
reconnecting to the mindfulness of physiology and becoming available to
themselves and others. Ultimately, breathing is experienced as shifts in
consciousness rather than as simply changes in physiology. We learn to breathe with our whole bodies,
not just with our lungs. The Japanese “word”
for “breath” perhaps best describes good breathing. The word is a picture of “self” and “heart.”
It expresses the essence of our
message about breathing behaviour. The consciousness of the union of self and
heart is embracement. And, good
breathing is vital to the integrated consciousness of self and heart. Copyrighted by Behavioral
Physiology Institute,
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