Oddbean

Bubbling up this post I wrote a few months ago. You might notice that I put breathwork on par with Nostr and Bitcoin as it relates to potential for societal impact. I’m sure many of you will disagree with me. Please do. That’s why we’re here. I believe breathwork is revolutionary in that, like Nostr and Bitcoin, it’s a freedom tool. Connecting with our breath allows us to exit the matrix of suffering and small mindedness bred from chronic stress & fight or flight functioning. It serves as a vessel to unrealized expansiveness, creativity, and safety in our bodies. Breathwork created inside-out transformations. Although the science is sound, I often refer to it as magic. Without breathwork, I wouldn’t be on Nostr fighting for a healthier society. I would still be hiding from the world. That alone is enough to convince me of its power. nostr:note1060szr255duy4p9zzy5hse02w4s6mzw9dqa7mgnynjl3zl34qflscp8avq

This resonates with me (and my family) too Bailey. 🙏🏻 Breathwork, meditation, therapeutic use of plant medicines…etc. Healing our individual and collective trauma is a necessary step in moving forward in co-creating the next (infinitely healthier and sustainable) phase of humanity/civilisation. 🧘‍♀️👁️❤️‍🩹🧬🦋 Bitcoin (and all open sourced freedom tech) have a massive role to play here too. Without purifying and plugging the leaks of the system in which we ALL are able to exchange time, value and ideas (ie “money”) we have much less chance of making this coming “leap” as expeditiously as is now required. Just my gut sense. 😌

i resonate with this a lot. breathwork in the form of meditation works well to calm down and connect with the now. i’ve also found that being present in the moment and connecting with the small things around us - like how the sun or the wind touches your skin or as small as how the wind takes hold of the trees. have you looked into positive psychology?

i enrolled myself into a subject in university without really knowing what it was. turned out to be positive psychology. that subject changed my life in so many ways, and i ended up going down the rabbit hole of it but also psychology. i really love the concept behind positive psychology - the fact that it’s based upon giving people tools to conquer the everyday life, and to handle bad days or even depression and anxiety is powerful

Exactly 💯 Breathwork is a powerful tool for inner freedom! nostr:nevent1qqsgkrm6xf0p4n4nucyhcfcvl542uptkg0ccuttjf7uf24mncg5qttqppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgstkm5tw5w2f2qg2zp0tzxk9junagtrqeayyxnzggqcphgec9p37ncrqsqqqqqphc4pxg

I don't know about breathwork as a freedom tool, but it is definitely a balancing tool one can use to balance the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems, the relax/digest- and the fight-or-flight-mode. This way you may be able to prevent or to get out of burnout syndrome. So, yes, in that way breathwork may be considered a freedom tool. To me the "volatility" of Bitcoin can be seen as it's breath. It is breathing in and breathing out, sometimes with the also important pause between breaths.

In my experience, the impact of breathwork on my health & relationship with self has far exceeded balance and burnout. Not only does it allow us to shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic nervous system functioning, but it creates openings to altered states of consciousness, increased connection to our subconscious, and the creation of new & improved neural pathways. Love the comparison to the volatility of bitcoin. Specifically your mention of the pause between the inhale & exhale and the power that space holds.

Agreed, and I think it does what you describe because it can rebalance the autonomic nervous system. Strengthening the parasympathetical system implies enhancing regeneration. From my point of view connecting with the innermost self (higher self, heart, source, whatever you may call it) by means of meditation or simply healthy sleep is the ultimate form of regeneration.

I agree breathwork is awesome and help us heal us... Yet it's not the ultimate tool. I've fallen into this trap many times myself. I though "wow, if everyone just did this, they'd heal" or whatever. There are many tools for freedom. Meditation, breathwork, authentic relating, yoga, martial arts, somatic work, tantra, TRE and many many others... Depending on what you need at the moment & it will change.

Completely agree. I’m in school to become a psychotherapist, so everything you mentioned are tools I’m aware of, will leverage in clinical work, and practice many of them personally. In my work specializing in women’s health & trauma, I view breathwork as the most powerful holistic healing modality to heal. But it’s all about whatever works for the individual, there’s no one size fits all model to healing. 🩵

Love it! Best of luck to you! Many people are in dire need of all of these healing modalities! Btw, I lived on the island where we had a "women's temple" called "the Jade Temple". They lots of stuff with women over there, especially about shame, etc. Their web: https://www.thejadetemple.com/ Tagging @katewave here since she worked at the temple & could tell you more about it.

Hi 💚 yes Feminine Embodiment work is so powerful - it brought me home to myself. Its somatic practices helped me rebuild my connection with my body so I could actually feel my intuition & innate body wisdom. Modern culture (not to mention trauma and abuse) disconnects us from our bodies. F.E. work rebuilds the connection, self-love, trust, awakens numb areas... plus another 'side effect' is building healthy relationships with other women. I highly recommend checking out The Jade Temple's online community: https://www.thejadetemple.com/the-sisterhood

Breath is everything. It's a fundamental rhythm that echoes throughout nature—from the rise and fall of tides to the changing seasons and cycles of time. While specific techniques might vary, the act of breathing itself is universal. It's a tool for healing that transcends individual differences because it's scale-invariant, affecting all living beings, especially mammals, in profound ways.

breathwork is like engine braking on a car. its a para sympathetic system, so when youre hyped up, you breathe fast, but if you control the breath - it controls the CNS using the same mechanism in reverse. Basically a superpower