Our teachers, Masters Donald and Cheryl Lynne Rubbo, have founded World Takes a Breath Day with the intention of sharing the profound healing benefits of deep, diaphragmatic breathing with the entire world.
Could it really be possible for you to automatically feel more relaxed, increase your mental power, boost your energy, strengthen your immune system and feel happier with one easy-to-learn exercise? In a word, YES!
The Extraordinary Breath practices intentionally influence the biological and chemical changes in your body and brain, and bring instant relief from stress, anxiety, depression and low oxygen intake.
Join us in celebrating the second annual World Takes a Breath Day as we breathe as one world!
On Friday, November11 at 11:11 a.m. take several Extraordinary Breaths and help us create a moment of peace, joy and healing that ripples out across our planet.
World Takes a Breath Day – A Global Event
Date/Time: Friday, November 11, 2011 at 11:11am.
Place: Across the globe!
Why is deep, natural breathing so important?
Shallow breathing results in hyperventilation (rapid breathing), breathing out too much carbon dioxide (over-breathing), and an oxygen deficiency in the organs and tissues. Symptoms include feeling jittery, nervous, an increased heart rate, dizziness, disorientation, and a feeling of being disengaged from your life.
Deep, diaphragmatic breathing, the type of breathing we did when we were infants, will calm your nerves, slow your heart rate, reduce pain, bring clarity to your thoughts and an easing of your overwhelming emotions.
The importance of deep breathing for body, mind and spirit cannot be emphasized enough. Download the free Extraordinary Breath free eBook (translated in several languages), to begin practicing the Extraordinary Breath now!
“An extraordinary breath is when our intention and our breath are one; with every long, deep and even breath we consciously balance mind, body and spirit.”
Click here to learn more about World Takes a Breath Day, the Extraordinary Breath practices, the benefits of deep breathing and to download the free ebook: http://extraordinarybreath.com/
The following piece chronicles my own experiences with deep breathing and is excerpted from the book, Extraordinary Breath: Making the Power of Deep Breathing Work for You, by Masters Donald and Cheryl Lynne Rubbo.
CREATING SACRED SPACE
“We create a sacred space within ourselves; and then all things outside ourselves can hold that sacred quality.”–Donald Rubbo
When I first heard my beloved teachers speak of creating sacred space, my heart jumped up; this is what I had longed for.
As a child, I had felt a strong connection to the divine and the immutable qualities of grace. I had been born with a sunny outlook and an even sunnier disposition, but over time and with the experience of loss, injury and illness that connection grew less tangible and my life became burdened by struggle and uncertainty.
My journey with Sifu Donald and Shirmu Cheryl Lynne Rubbo began in the spring of 2000. One of Sifu’s first instructions to me was, “Breathe!”
It seems strange to think of it now, but at the time deep breathing was a thing that was almost unnatural for me. I had been challenged with asthma for most of my life and then a long, life-altering illness further compromised my respiratory system. My situation was grave and our doctors could not be certain that I would recover; my husband and I continued to search.
In 1997 we were referred to a Traditional Chinese Medical Practitioner, and under his care I began to improve; the hope in our hearts was kindled. After two years of steady improvement, I sensed there was still something more I could be doing. I asked in prayer to be shown the next step and over the course of several months the words ‘Tai Chi’ came to me. My brother, a life-long martial artist, referred me to Master Donald Rubbo.
In those early months of study, I learned the importance of the breath. Even though I had been an accomplished athlete, I had for years—forever—tried to ignore my noisy lungs and persistent cough, but Sifu helped me to see that I needed to treat my injured organs with the same love and nurturing quality that I would show a baby.
Every day I practiced the exercises and forms that he and Shirmu taught me, and before long I began to see improvements in my energy and strength. My breath became smoother, more expansive and my lungs less irritated. I was also sleeping better because the crushing weight of what I had described throughout my life as ‘the elephant sitting on my chest’ was now gone.
And there was something more, much more. . .
The Extraordinary Breath practice helped me to penetrate the physical and emotional distress of asthma and chronic bronchitis, and gain entrance to a calm and luminous place at the core of my being. It was in this luminous place that I could rest in the sacred, beyond the constraints of fear or pain or illness. The more I rested in this sacred space, the more my everyday life took on that same luminous quality.
Sifu had shown me that the sacred space within is just a breath away.
