Cellular Breathing

Cellular Breathing: Tool 92 - Client Exercise taken from page 191 in the Somatic Psychotherapy Toolbox by Manuela Mischke-Reeds, MA, LMFT

PURPOSE

Breath penetrates every cell and molecule of our bodies. It is the most direct method to feel our way into our basic health and well-being. Each cell in our bodies moves with breath. Allow yourself to imagine you are a single cell breathing and shifting with each breath movement. This exercise is a combination of imagining oneself as a cell breathing and sensing into the three-dimensionality of breath.

INSTRUCTIONS

• Sense into the pain or challenge that you are working with. Visit this physical place briefly: Don't dwell, just note.

• Curl up into a ball, either by bending forward in a chair so your head is facing down, or by assuming a child's pose (like in yoga) on the floor. You can have your arms by your sides or rest your head on your forearms. Only go as far as your body allows. Watch for any discomfort and pain and make adjustments that fit your needs.

• Allow your belly to completely relax. Find your natural breath and connect with it in this position. Rest your body into gravity.

• Notice what this shape is doing to your breath already.

• Imagine yourself being a single cell. Imagine that your skin

  is permeable and soft and that the breath is now streaming through the skin. Your breath is becoming three-dimensional.

• Expand your breath into all directions outward from the center of your body.

• Imagine that your "cell" is filled with fluids and that you can move this fluidity each time you have the breath move.

• Notice the sense of weight and softness in your body.

• Gently sit up and sit in stillness, harvesting the effects of this exercise.

  
  

Reflection:

Can you re-visit your challenge or pain and see what it feels like from the more three-dimensional and fluid place? Are there any changes or new perceptions?

The image of my body now is: _____________________________________________________

The feeling in my body now is: _____________________________________________________

My pain/challenge feels: _____________________________________________________