Meditation Breakthrough

I discovered how to breathe.

I’m trying to make daily meditation a habit to help me deal with anxiety. My new routine is to spend five minutes first thing in the morning meditating before I do any other activities. It’s simple, it’s easy, and it’s short which helps too because I’m the type of person who likes to check the box “done” and accomplish tasks (I too realize I need to let go of that need a bit).

Breathing or “breath-work” is a big part of meditation. It sounds ambiguously wholistic to newcomers. One needs not to overthink it. There is no right way or wrong way. The point is simply to focus on one’s breath and allow thoughts to come and go without judgment or attempting to control them. Just accept them and let go, returning to focusing on one’s breath.

I also do Tai Chi. Breath-work is a core component of Tai Chi and Qi-Gong. Those two disciplines are closely aligned. Each one feeds the other. Oversimplified, Tai Chi is about forms and movements whereas Qi-Gong is about active meditation and focus.

There is a movement in Tai Chi called “double push”, it is repeated many times throughout the forms. With a double push, one turns your body about 45 degrees to the right, steps forward with your right leg, and extends your arms out in unison to full extension and then pulls them back to the chest in a continuous motion. This repeats three times without pause. When I first started Tai Chi I would do this movement very mechanically and deliberately. It was a straight “push out-pull in” motion. As I practised, this changed to more of a flowing and rolling motion incorporating a more circular whole-body movement. The three “pushes” become one. And, with Tai Chi, there is another motion that leads into double push as well as another motion that follows. These three different motions, in time, become one. Eventually, the whole Tai Chi form of 108 movements becomes one.

There are different Tai Chi forms, most less than 108. They all have basically the same movements. The forms or “schools” of Tai Chi differ more in the aspect of how many times specific movements are repeated, how fast or slow the movements are conducted, how aggressive the transitions are made, and in their historical origin.

This morning when I was meditating and focusing on breathing I had an unexpected breakthrough. It just happened. I didn’t create it or force it. I realized I was breathing with a different intention. My breathing had become like the double push in Tai Chi. It was a whole-body movement or experience. Rather than my breath being an “in-out” isolated action, it became a connected “rise and fall” rolling experience. It was an incremental but connected circular wave of movements. An analogy is it was like being in the “zone” such as runners high. I had the distinct sensation that the air was moving through me in rolling waves, and up and downflow rather than an in and out the action; it was my body, my breath, and my find being in sync.

I just realized it as I was writing this — I was present! I was experiencing mindfulness.

It was pretty cool. Hope it happens again.