Forestluv

@w4read Be mindful of subconsciously accepting underlying assumptions. This limits the mind from broader perspectives and more holistic awareness and understanding. From one perspective, this is tourist porn. A wealthy tourist voyeurs people suffering in poverty and feels victimized when they approach him for money. He then films them for a mini documentary on his tourism YT channel without their consent, plays victim, gets millions of views and profits off them - and keeps all the profits. That is a form of exploitation. By assuming the author’s framing that he is a victim of racism, it cuts off seeing and understanding other perspectives. Yet there are nuances within racism. Imagine that we create a city in which there is racism against black people such that white people are wealthy in nice neighborhoods and black are poor in rundown neighborhoods. That is one for of racism. Now imagine when a wealthy white person enters a poor black area and a black person thinks “a white person. I’m going to ask him for money”. Technically, that is a form of racism, yet it would be myopic to say that these two forms of racism are the same. And in some cases, the impacts of racism is very asymmetric. Imagine that 99% of racism was negatively impacted one race and only 1% of racism negatively impacted the other race. At an individual level, it’s equally racism. Yet at the population level it is asymmetric and not equal. . . It would be similar to saying “rape is rape, whether a woman or man is raped”. This is fair to say at an individual level, yet not at a population level since many more woman are raped than men.

A deep full hour breath session with Lisa McNett. She offers a free intro course to breathing and a free breathing session every Tuesday at 8:30pm NYC time (GMT -5). https://www.breathewithlisa.com/ I'm learning so many different breathing patterns. One key is to relax on the outbreath. Just keep relaxing on the outbreath and various patterns, energetics, insights, flows arise. One of the most memorable ones in which the breath became a swing, swinging in a meadow on a warm sunny day. There was joy, love and peace. I also noticed the impact thinking about stuff has on me. At one point, I was thinking about how I need to schedule a medical procedure and find a friend that can sit there for three hours. I may trade some 5-meo for it. Yet, I only have a little 5-meo. . . Then the mind started going into story and planning, yet I was too far into the breathing session and got pulled back. I observed dynamics of self-centeredness and greed. Then that was let go of. When I came back to the breath, I realized I was no longer in the smooth, relaxed cyclical pattern. I was able to re-enter it. That was a cool realization and ability. During the comedown, she asked if our Self would like to send a message to our self. What came to mind was "Relax" and "Trust". It seemed to refer to breathing. Relax on the outbreath and trust it. Let go and trust the breathing, mind, body and spirit. Yet the message will likely arise in daily life now. It feels good to be getting the hang of breathwork. It feels like I am learning new ways to breathe and going to deeper levels. Yet some of these deeper levels seem to be somewhat normal. Today's session was a "whoa", yet almost like it was normal. It wasn't like a "OMG!! What just happened??!!" whoa. Perhaps that is part of the integration process. Today's session probably would have floored me a month ago when I was first starting breathwork.

It depends on how you define the term “valid”.

I was referring to dedicating an hour to breathwork - like rebirthing, Shamanic, somatic etc. Being mindful while doing other things has been a side benefit and that pretty cool. I was food shopping the other day and started surfing my outbreath while shopping. And nobody knew I was doing it.

In an absolute context of One Everything, Nothing changes since there is no-thing relative to another thing as a comparison for change. Yet in a relative context of space-time, there are lots of changes. I don't see there being an external, objective thing called "Enlightenment". Perhaps there is, I don't know. To me, that's asking if there needs to be an experiencer for anxiety to be possible. Well, last night I dreamed I witnessed a murder and woke up full of anxiety. The mind-body was clearly experiencing anxiety even though I was asleep. So, anxiety is possible subconsciously - when I'm not consciously awake. Yet some may not count it as anxiety because "I" wasn't experiencing it - it was just body energetics. It was sensations or body distress, not anxiety. I don't get to hung up on terms, I'm more interested in the underlying essence the words point to. If someone was under full anesthesia or in a coma, is anxiety possible? This gets into how we define "anxiety". There have been times I have been anxious and then realized this is some wild sensations going on in my body - that changed the relationship and I kind of like it in a way. For example, when I first started doing breathwork, I would get painful tetany in my hands. Then anxiety would arise. My mind-body felt/thought that I was hurting myself. Yet then I was told it's harmless and after a while I started getting used to it. Now I kind like it Some may say the anxiety left, yet the sensations persisted. I've also had experiences in which the mind-body went into panic mode, yet there was an observer in a peaceful space witnessing. Some may call this an out of body experience. Some may say it is a transpersonal, enlightened experience. Those are some nice insights within that context. Thanks for sharing them. I hadn't thought about it like that before.

I got so engaged with politics and injustices that it was corroding my mind and body. I was consistently stressed out with pains in the mind and body. I've been doing breathwork each day and it's been amazing. It allowed a catharsis to release stored stress and anger. Then I could start to go into deeper layers of my relationship to reality. It's breathed new life into my life. I also don't do well with traditional sitting meditation. Breathing sessions allow me to do something. It's a form of meditation, yet I'm engaged, actively working with my breath and observing all sorts of things happening in the mind and body. And I can change up breathing and be playful with it.

Right wing attacks and insurgencies aren’t going away after tomorrow. They will persist for a while. Being in a continuous state of worry isn’t good for the mind and body.

I can relate. I've been doing work lately to gain greater mind-body awareness. Resistance and letting go is a key factor.

It depends on how far you want to push the concept of “interpretation”. For example, I was in a bar one night with my GF and a couple of guys cornered me and threatened to kick my ass because I was dating a black woman. Here, I don’t think it’s fair to say I was just “interpreting” it as racist. They flat out told me they didn’t want me dating a black woman. Those guys weren’t intellectualizing about how racism is a social construct. This visceral actuality of racism is prior to that. They saw a white guy in a sexual relationship with a black woman. That made them angry. They wanted to express that hate by physically threatening us and physically beating us up. They were not consciously interpreting. It was the actuality of racism expressing itself. This gets into the idea of perceived racism and if we go too far with it, it puts too much of the burden on the recipient of racism - that the impact of racism is “all in their mind”. That night, I had a legitimate fear for my safety and the safety of my GF. I went into full flight or fight mode. We ended up choosing flight or fight a d were able to escape. I had pulses of stress for weeks that we would run into those guys again. That was a mini trauma that had an impact on me. I don’t think it’s fair to say that I was just “interpreting” racism. From my POV, you are only considering one side of the coin - the side of manufacturing / portraying racism from a conceptual mindset. Yet you aren’t considering the actuality side of racism. There are two sides of the coin and there is a spectrum with many possibilities bridging the two. I live in a poor, majority black area. Impacts of racism is all around me. Go live in a poor inner city black neighborhood and see what it’s like.

And if the appearance of anxiety arises, that is what is. The anxiety is ISness. By your definition, enlightenment would be the fusion with that anxiety. That would be the end of the anxiety resisting the appearance of anxiety. Yet that anxiety to resist anxiety now becomes what is and enlightenment would fuse with that. And off we go into infinity. . .

@Heaven It depends on how you define “enlightenment”. If our definition of enlightenment includes an abiding state of peace and joy, then an enlightened person can’t have anxiety by that definition. I prefer to use the term “awakening”, aw we become more awake of our true selves. Consider this example: last night I had an awful dream in which I witnessed someone getting murdered and I couldn’t help them. It seemed so real that when I woke up it took a while to realize it was just a dream. I’ve now been awake for five hours and it’s still stuck with me. I can clearly see that it was just a dream, yet my body is still bothered by it. I can still feel it. Does that make me any less awake? It depends on how we define “awake”, yet I would say no. I’m not sleeping right now and I’m certain it was a dream. In general, as there is increased awareness and awakening, body anxiety decreases. Yet neuroses can continue in the body. Yet the relationship with those neuroses can change, such that they aren’t so bothersome. There are all sorts of practices to release conditioning. I wouldn’t put all my eggs into awakening as a cure. Imagine go to a virtual reality arcade in which you get to play a random character. In turns out you get to be an elephant that has residual anxiety from trauma as a baby elephant. You are enlightened in the sense that you realize you are not actually a neurotic elephant. That can reduce some of the anxiety, yet there is still neuroses conditioned in that elephant. If we want to have a peaceful, serene elephant mind-body, we would need to do things like go to virtual elephant yoga classes and do elephant Breathwork to purify it out and heal.

@Preety_India When I saw her saying that transforming the black character into an animal was racist, my first reaction was “Oh c’mon. It’s an animated cartoon and it’s harmless. Don’t spoil the fun”. . . Yet then I considered that black people have been de-humanized and caricatured as animals for hundreds of years. And after a quick google search, it seems a lot of animated videos caricature people of color as animals. Now I can see how it can be perceived as racist. If I lived in a culture that had caricatured my race as animals, I’d likely be sensitive to that. Who gets to decide what counts as racism and what’s harmful? Is this a harmless case of a cartoon being creative with human-animal transformations? Or is it perpetuating stereotypes of black people as sub-human. Sometimes these things are in grey areas and there are different ways to look at it.

I think that's fair. As I mentioned, she looked through a lens of racism. For example, we were waiting for a table in a restaurant and noticed we were skipped over by a white group that came after us. She interpreted that as racism. Yet I worked for years in restaurants and knew that during peak hours, if a table for 4 opens up, you try to give that to a group of 4, not a group of 2 - especially if a table for 2 is about to open up. I didn't get the sense the hostess intentionally skipped us due to race. My GF often over portrayed racism. There were times I think she added it in and it spoiled an interaction. However, there were times we were undeniably targeted due to our inter-racial status. I think it would be fair to speculate that after being exposed to racism on a consistent basis, one can begin to over project it. I probably started doing it. Part of it is to maintain one's wellbeing. I wouldn't say I was over-projecting, yet I did develop a new radar for it - in part to protect us. I definitely became more sympathetic and empathetic after getting some direct experience. I'm in Michigan. We have pockets of healthy green, yet there is still a lot of underlying racism here. My impression is that Vermont is one of the most progressive states in the country. If I had the opportunity, I would move to Vermont in a heartbeat.

Being post-racist is a great ideal, yet it's not the real world. Try being black and see how far "Let's all be colorblind" gets you. Yes, there can be over-interpretation of racism - yet it's not fair to tell the people who carry the burden of racism that we should all be colorblind. A few years ago, I was in my first inter-racial relationship with a black woman (I'm white). I think she over-interpreted a lot of occurrences as racist. However, I was shocked by how much racism we were exposed to. At the time, I acknowledged racism exists, yet I never had the experience of what it's actually like to have racism directed at me, and someone I loved, on a consistent basis. And I thought our culture was accepting of inter-racial relationships and most people would with cool with it. It's not the 1950s, right? . . I was wrong. We regularly got dirty looks, vitriol, disrespect and disparaging tones of voice. A couple times we were exposed to intense hate that we were physically threatened and had to escape. There were areas and events we wouldn't visit because we wouldn't be safe and didn't want to deal with shitty racism. I was not looking through a racist lens and interpreting everything as racist. I actually thought being in an inter-racial relationship would be exotic and cool. This was actual racism and it was ugly. It increased my stress and anger level at times. It sucked. If someone told me "You are just interpreting everything as racist", I would roll my eyes and tell that person to get out of their head and go experience what racism is actually like - and then let's talk.

Yes, that is how it is happening for me. I needed to first get some basic rhythms with the diaphram and my belly. I've also found a good facilitator that I resonate with can be helpful. Sometimes it can be hard for me to get into a good state of mind on my own.

Here is Angell's webpage: https://www.thesanctuaryheal.com/ He offers a shamanic breath ceremony each Saturday at 7-9pm NYC time (GMT -5), which can be found under "events". He has a lot of experience with Shamanism in Peru, including plant medicines. He is broader than simply breathing. And he gently pushes people during the sessions to go deeper. Here is a recording of one of his sessions: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/play/TzrzetQeKx0TQ-HPtRlBpDAahW7oUPLOKmLhkPmRjXuvvV_mEf6uc0a-QIjOkPhjBMvu5bEhqP0LY2A.9Hli1teYL3qZ3QKW?startTime=1610824891000&_x_zm_rtaid=q8wMfoz4R3mgcfpXWNQYkw.1611069538387.3be37324187bad638fcf7dc6723aabaa&_x_zm_rhtaid=703 Yet keep in mind that a live session via video and with a group can have a different vibe to it. In his live sessions, he gives an intro and there is group integration afterwards.

With one of my online breathing groups, we end by dancing to a Bill Withers song. It feels so fluid to dance after breatwork and to coordinate conscious breath with dance. Lately, I’ve been integrating more conscious breathing into regular life. It’s taken my yoga to another level.

@Muhammad Jawad Trying to match a particular breathing pattern can be good structure in the beginning. Some facilitators give breath samples during a session which can be helpful to mimic and get grounded. Yet breathwork goes waaay beyond that. There is deep mind-body-spirit awareness and intuition available. There are infinite mind-body-spirit breathing patterns. I’ve discovered about 20 so far. Most of them on my own during breath sessions. And within each, there are many nuances. Imagine playing a saxophone. There are many ways to play it. Each breath is a note in the song. Also, Leo’s breathing demo is just one aspect of breathwork journeys and one pattern. For example, it doesnt have warmups, cool downs and integration.

I would recommend to try out breathwork with an online group and a good facilitator. The warm up is mostly nose breathing, or nose in / mouth out for a few minutes. It is a time to relax, activate parasympathetic system, slow down the mind and enter circular breathing. I then go full mouth breathing. Where I go with that depends on the Breathwork style and my body intuition. Yet it usually involves expanding the breath and / or picking up the pace to a peak. I then coast for a while. This can be exploring abstractions, subconscious, cathartic release of emotions, body awareness, surfing breaths or playing around with different breathing rhythms. The cool down is less intensity of physical breathing, yet can go deep. The out breaths are usually longer and slower. Sometimes I add in ujjai breath

Tetany is due to changes of CO2 and O2 in the body. It is not dangerous and ok to breath through, yet when it becomes painful and distracting it can be counter-productive for the journey. I experience tetany at times. It's usually due to pushing out the out-breath and out-breathing too fast. The out-breath should be relaxed and I slow down the out-breath if tetany gets strong. It's not just about breathing as hard and fast as you can. From what I read, it sounds like you are starting off intense and trying to maintain intensity. When using the Shamanic Breathing style, I like to imagine that I am climbing a mountain. I start off relaxed and easy and build up. As I get closer to the peak, I get more intense - like I am running to the peak - then I jump off and fly. Then, there is a gradual descent in which the breathing calms down. This is often the deepest zone of insight and experience. You may want to do a session with an online group and facilitator. Angell Deer gives a good session each Saturday at 7-9pm NYC time (GMT -5). It's free (donations accepted). I'm learning that it's a balance between technique and letting go. There is some work and effort, yet also an effortless component. Part of Breathwork is letting go and imagination. If you are feeling some tingles, you are getting under the hood of rational thinking. Give yourself permission to let go and venture into the subconscious. There is no one rhythm. I've discovered about 20 different breathing rhythms so far. For me, a better intention is to find *a* rhythm. Importantly, to relax and the out-breath and have a circular breath. Breathwork has definitely expanded my breathing capacity, yet that is just one form. I don't go into a session with an intention of maxing out my breath capacity. Starting out, it was more important to learn diaphragmatic breathing, belly breathing, lengthening breaths longitudinally, expanding side breathing and 360 degree breathing. At times there is mild discomfort and some effort, yet if it gets painful, I'm trying to hard and struggling - I pull back. When I'm working toward deeper breaths, I imagine my mid-section as a balloon expanding and deflating. I also imagine looking for a little more space on the in breath. And the out-breath is relaxed.

I've been doing two breathwork sessions per day for weeks. I would consider the length and intensity of each session. Shamanic breathing has relatively intense depth and pace. A 1hr. Shamanic session can be intense. When I do a 1hr session, I include about 20min of warm-up and 20min of comedown / integration - So the peak intensity around the mountain top is about 20min. and the comedown can go deep. I've been able to sustain this as a daily practice for a month without problems. I actually feel much better than I did a month ago. Yet keep in mind that it is 'work'. Ime, it's not the same. Psychedelics are much more taxing on the mind and body than Breathwork.

Both of today’s sessions were highly attentive to the breath and technique and imagining. I’m starting to get a sense of what breathing from the sides feels like and breathing 360 degrees. The image tonight was that my mid-section was like a balloon that expanding and then deflated. Sage is a unique facilitator. He focuses on a relaxed exhale. Sometimes he tells us to inhale like we are sucking through a straw and then drop the exhale like a rock. Yet he goes so fast, I can’t see how he is getting in deep breaths. I felt like I got a rhythm a few times then lost it. Like a kid learning to ride a bicycle. At one point doing rapid short breaths, I lost track of whether I was inhaling or exhaling. Whether I was pushing air out, sucking it in or letting it go. The breath got weird - like I didn’t know how to breath. It felt kind trippy. One nice thing was toward the end, I got into a rhythm that felt like a massage of internal organs. It went all the way down to my groin. It’s like the exhale was a massage wave that went all the way down to my groin and there was some sort of “flick” at the end. Maybe muscles. Whatever it was, it felt good and it’s nice to know I can do that. The main distraction tonight was when Sage commented about the beautiful rhythms others were in (but not me). This gave me the sense and thoughts that I wasn’t doing it right. He said something about how a couple breathers were at some type of equilibrium. I need to ask Megan on Wednesday about that. @Loving Radiance Emily’s session was recorded, yet I don’t know if they will make it available. I’ve been recording some sessions off my sound card, including Emily’s. Let me know if you want to share it. Some recordings are given on the FB page for a limited time. They can be downloaded. For those interested in a facilitated Shamanic Breathing, here is an audio of Angell Deer’s session. Yet, I don’t think it has the same “umpf” as when he is giving it live video with a group. He gives a free live session every Saturday night. https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/play/QSiUuhUllNmqMdNM23vfkvOLdHdohQfsh3-j-44eb89kFXjKDvJW31yIArvPlCONsk4BoubI1atg5Ww.r-L4vlNA6kx1pSsX?startTime=1610824891000&_x_zm_rtaid=t-tHaKdpTHqgfwWO3U72Iw.1611016647442.c88d40ac0a53d62d9faa04400cbdfcd1&_x_zm_rhtaid=889

Awesome! Thanks for sharing your experience. I missed this morning's session (It was 5am here). I'm glad they recorded it and made it publicly available. The 21 day challenge has a wide variety of breathing forms. Every session is different. This one looks pretty far out there. I'm curious. Did you do tonight's evening session with Emily Rae Henderson? She is traditional breathwork and very good. Her voice is smooth as silk and she gently guides up and down the mountain. For those who don't know her, Rebecca Coales is a record holder for underwater freediving.

❤️ ?