When you’re breathing and taking that breath to the belly, you are energizing the belly area. What’s happening is that you’re not only energizing the digestive system, but you’re also energizing the immune system. You are affecting the nervous system and every other system within the body as a result.
Here’s the deal, if the body isn’t at rest, the mind will never be at rest. In the same way, if the mind isn’t at rest the body can’t be at rest. The breath facilitates that process. The breath is what brings you that sense of stability, that sense of peace. When you’re taking the breath to the belly, the breath is finally going where it wants to go. Where it would naturally go and the body recognizes that. That is where the body can rest. You are now taking the breath deliberately to the belly and the body recognizes this. The body says “oh wow you‘re giving me what I need.” The body settles down there. And there is this rhythmic breathing that starts happening unintentionally, you don’t need to try to do it, because the body takes you there. So you do this, and now the mind starts thinking “wow this feels really good. I’m feeling a sense of balance and harmony; a connection with this body and how it’s breathing.” I can’t emphasize enough how important it is when the body can finally feel like that. The sense of balance and stability and harmony that happens when you do that, no medication, no exercise, nothing can give the body that in the same way. If you’re on medication it enhances the medication. If you’re exercising it enhances that process., because the body is tuned into what it’s doing in a natural way. You’re allowing the body to be who it wants to be in the same way as when you’re lying down resting. When you’re lying on your back you can experience how your body wants to breathe. As you breathe in, the stomach rises and as you breathe out, the stomach deflates. That is how your body naturally wants to breathe. So what will happen when you’re giving it that throughout the day, all day? Well, what you’re going to have is a body that responds to this in such a way that it wants more of that. What does that mean that it wants more of that? It wants more health. It wants to produce what you’re giving it. You’re making the space for the body to be able to be in its natural state. What’s the natural state of the body? The natural state is health. If you can lead the body to that state where it is most comfortable, where it is in its natural state, then what will happen is that body will start acting in a state of “ease.” And the “dis” will disappear. That is why breathing through the belly is so important and so effective. If you practice, you alone will feel it and I won’t have to tell you that it works. You will feel how the body feels it, the mind feels and they start becoming one unit. They start becoming allies and there is no fear the mind is running off and creating unrest, because it has slowed down along with the body. The two are now becoming synergistic. They’re there for each other, they operate with each other and that’s where you want to go. When the environment is created for health, health happens.
I will be covering the chapter on Breath in Transcending MS for the next week or two. I will guide you to learning to breathe through your belly. It is what I learned to do in my process of healing. I believe that it is the most powerful tool we have to create health.