Mindful breathing: A guidepost to embodying God’s love
A couple of Thursday nights ago during our gathering, I had us pause several times and practice mindful breathing exercises. For some, it might have seemed a little excessive at how much time was dedicated to breathing while we gathered together on Zoom. Some of us joked in the chat about the silliness of all the breathing exercises: “Harbor: lots of breathing™.”
Jokes and all, let’s talk about mindful breathing and why it’s so foundational to our well-being and spiritual health.
Much of the modern Western Christian tradition (across the entire spectrum of liberal and conservative) is very disconnected from the body. Think about it. What does it mean to love God? For some, that means to read the Bible as an inerrant book with the ultimate and exclusive truth. For others, to love God means to believe in Jesus with unwavering faith. For others, to love God means to have the right intellectual thoughts and studies about God. All of these examples are happening in the “rational” or the left part of the brain. Rational thought, correct belief, or intellectualism guides many in the Christian tradition. Studying the Bible, believing in Jesus, or seeking well-informed resources about God are not bad things—they are all generally good—but we have become so obsessed with the rational that we have missed what is happening in the body.
What does it mean to love God?
My oversimplified answer is: to love others and Earth.
This past week, I helped lead a conference for pastors with a team of psychologists on this very matter: loving God means to love others. The issue at hand is that for many of us, we want to love (to care for others), but we have our own physiological roadblocks to actually loving. Using neuroscience, a team I work with helps train folks in embodying virtues (the inter-relational elements of loving) through practices that help rewire the brain.
And guess what the main method is for these virtue practices?
Mindful breathing.
Yep, that’s right. Research overwhelmingly points to the benefits of mindful breathing. Not only does mindful breathing help regulate emotions, reduce stress and anxiety, release muscle tension, and decrease pain, but it also helps rewire neural pathways to embody virtues—to grow in our inter-relational capacities to love!
As I have increased my own personal mindful breathing practices recently, I have found that mindful breathing helps me:
Tune in to my own breath, body, and emotions
Connect to Earth, land, and Indigenous ancestors
Regulate my own emotions, so I can tune in to other people’s emotions more deeply
Improve my well-being
Help me engage with Spirit
Form my own rituals of contemplative spiritual practices
Help me see injustices, feel the deep emotions, and be moved to action
Essentially, mindful breathing has helped me tune in to myself, others, land, and God.
My offering for us is to integrate more mindful breathing into our everydays so that we can continue to grow in our capacities to love God: to love ourselves, others, and Earth.
Here is a simple mindful breathing practice, from Greater Good in Action at Berkeley University, to try out.
