A Fully Permitted Exhalation and an Open House For Your Breathing

By: Charlotte Selver

…Being as busy as we are, with one activity heaped on top of another, our heads have lost their elasticity and freedom. Often this lack of freedom is created through the holding of too much inhalation inside of us, which doesn’t permit the cleaning out, the sweeping out, the renewing that is needed. Only fully permitted exhalation can do this. It would be helpful to give yourself plenty of time to find out whether you allow exahling as needed; that means whatever time exhaling wants to take when you do not do it, but allow it until you have, so to speak, a feeling of satisfaction, of completion.

It is also possible that, having permitted a satisfactory exhalation, nothing further seems to occur immediately in breathing. Don’t be upset by this. At one point breathing will start again. There is no need to worry if inhalation does not come immediately after the exhalation; and please listen to me as I say once more, if it comes, not if you inhale. Who can feel the difference? You know, some people take a breath. Wait until it comes by itself! And allow it to distribute in you as it wants to. In other words, be an open house for your breathing, and don’t manipulate it.

All this is a question of sensitivity, and when you orient yourself, you become a fine disoverer. It is much better when you find out about things for yourself, when you trust your own sensations and learn from them and do not have to be told everything. That is truly “exploring.” And you will be delighted at how clear a language the organism speaks.

Allowing Breathing

By: Charlotte Selver

…breathing comes by itself, spontaneously—if we allow it. Therefore, it is the allowing—the possibility of becoming more permissive—that we want to explore.

When we become more sensitive for what being permissive means, then the whole day is full of opportunities for exercising this possibility of becoming more permissive—or, if I might say it differently, more loving in the way we contact whatever we may contact. As soon as we become more open for something we do, we find that the first thing in which we can recognize this increased openness is our breathing.

…Exploring breathing really needs to be a practice, but a practice which is absolutely new each time—not a repetition of old ways, but a finding out what is going on in the condition and activity in which you happen to be at a particular moment. No moment can be compared with another; in wach there is something new to discover.

Breathing Is Always as the Person Is

By: Charlotte Selver

…Breathing is always as the person is. It is the clearest index of what is happening in the person—unless it is made up. Many people think they should breathe “properly.” Forget it! It is no use, because there is no “proper” breathing. Your breathing indicates very clearly what state you are in. When you are more reactive, your breathing is more reactive; when you are more habitual, your breathing is more habitual; if you are pushy, your breathing gets pushy too, or stops.