STATE-LEARNING: breathing
through consciousness
State-learning is
about learning to breathe through consciousness. It is about good breathing behavior 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 pleasant environment,
relaxation techniques, or prophylactic breathing prescriptions, e.g., six
breaths per minute. 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 CapnoLearningä is on embracement physiology, where
breathing is regarded as a behavior, directly regulated by learning in ways
that may be dangerously harmful or immensely beneficial. Breathing is behavior rather than manipulated
physiology. State-learning involves the
following:
(a) It means exploring
the effects of self talk, imagination, and thought on breathing behavior, and
how they may determine the experience of breathing and assist in its
modification. Clients learn to align
their breathing behavior 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, socializing, 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, defendedness, 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/or reversing dissociative state changes,
by reconnecting to the mindfulness of their 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 behavior. 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,