(If you could, please take 3 or 4 minutes and do this with me.  I promise you will feel something.  Maybe you can share what you feel after. I would really like to hear about it.)

Sit in a comfortable position.
Place your left hand on the center of your upper chest, and press your right hand down on top of it.
Softly close your mouth and take a deep breath in through your nose, and a deep breath out of your nose.
As you breathe in follow the energy of the breath down through your body, as you breathe out, follow the breath up and out.

Notice the feeling of your breath flowing in and out of your nose. Take your attention to the place just outside of your nose.
Focus all of your concentration on the air just outside of your nostrils. Focus your attention on that space right in front of your nose where the air is.
Focus on the place where the outside air is waiting to become your breath.

Feel yourself take that outside air into your nose.
Feel that outside air as it moves inside.
Feel those external molecules as they enter your nose and begin moving through your body.
Feel the air from the outside world that is now inside of you.

Feel the energy of the air as it flows through your entire body and becomes a part of you.
Feel the elements moving through you, the nitrogen and the oxygen.
Feel the energy. Feel the force of the air.
This is the force of life, the life-force, the prana.
The breath.
Feel the breath that gives you life.

Press your hands down on your chest as you feel the breath moving through you.
Feel the energy of your breath as it lifts and lowers your chest.
Feel the energy as your lungs rise and fall.
Feel the energy swirling inside your ribcage, and surrounding your heart. Feel your heart filling with the energy.

Feel your heart energized by the oxygen in your blood stream.
Allow your heart to fill with this energy.
Allow your heart to fill with gratitude for this energy, for this life force.   Feel your heart as it fills with gratitude for the breath that flows to it.
Feel your heart fill with gratitude for the air outside of your nose that flows in to your heart.

Release your hands down and relax.

Continue to breathe deeply.

Inhale deeply, hold your breath for 1 second, then release it.
Inhale deeply, hold your breath for 1 second, then release it.

As you do this, bring your attention to the inside of your nose. Focus on the air that is in your nose just before you exhale.

Focus on that energy, that life force, those elements that have been inside you, that are now a part of you.
This part of you will now go out into the air in front of you.
Focus on that moment just before the air is expelled.

A part of you is about to be released into the universe.

Return to that feeling of gratitude. This time expressing gratitude for your role in bringing energy to the outside world, with your breath.

You are releasing nitrogen, oxygen, carbon monoxide into the world.

You are releasing energy into the world, breathing life back out to the world.

You are sending something that was inside of you,
a part of your self,
out into the air, out into the world to be shared,
to be breathed in by the people around you,
to become a part of the universal energy right outside of your nose.

The molecules that were once inside of you will swirl around with the outside molecules.
These molecules that were once your breath will make their way into someone else’s nose,
Your breath will flow through someone else’s lungs,
It will energize someone else’s heart.

One breath at a time,
one person at a time,
the elements, the energy, the life-force.
The breath, that we all share.

As you inhale be aware of the energy you are taking in.
Allow that energy to turn into gratitude when it finds your heart.
Release that positively charged life-force back out into the world,
for someone else to use.

We breathe the life-force in,
and we breathe the life-force out.

Be grateful for the breath that gives you life.
Be grateful for the breath that binds us all together.

Namaste.

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The music in my head while I wrote this…

“Breathe, breathe in the air. Don’t be afraid to care.” Pink Floyd’s “Breathe”

“Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe…”

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