I’m pretty obsessive about my breathing practice and I tend to over-analyze every session. “Why did it feel harder today? Was I breathing light enough? I need to increase my CO2 more…” It goes on and on.
Recently, however, I heard something awesome in a “+1” from Brian Johnson. He quoted a great passage from Herbert Benson in The Relaxation Revolution:
“Most of us are concerned to one extent or another with dental hygiene, but we don’t dwell on the tooth-cleaning process. We just work away with that brush every day. Almost no one evaluates the brushing, to say, “That was a good brush!” or, “Too bad—that was a bad brush.” We simply do it!”
I love that. When is the last time you analyzed your tooth brushing skills? Probably never. Yet, we count on it for dental hygiene. We trust that it’s working, whether we brush “good” or not.
In some ways, that’s what we have to do with our breathing practice. (Or any integrative health practice, such as meditation, yoga, or physical exercise.)
We can’t spend too much time worrying if we did it exactly right. Instead, we just have to do it. Every day. And know that it’s working.
Of course, we want to start with the right principles and not jump foolishly into something. But, once we’ve committed, sometimes we just have to trust the process without over-analyzing it.
Here’s to treating our breath/meditation/yoga practice more like brushing our teeth.
In good breath,
Nick
P.S. Here’s another gem from Herbert Benson on the same topic (my bold for emphasis):
“Similarly, if you’re taking a pill your doctor has prescribed for your cholesterol or blood pressure, you probably don’t wonder, “Am I putting this pill in the proper side of my mouth? Am I swallowing it correctly? Is it really going to work?” Again, you just do it—and that should be your approach to mind body treatments.”