Fully Exhale to empty the cup of your nervous system – the Second Wellspring / Second Pillar

We must first empty out before we can absorb new breath, new experiences, new knowledge, new techniques, and in order to have bandwidth in our nervous system to play, to heal, to transform, to synthezize, to create…

Full exhalation is tied directly to vagal processing of stimuli and emotions in our nervous system. If we breath shallowly, or try to inhale deeply without first exhaling fully, our system holds on the previous sense perceptions, which accumulate until we are in a state of overwhelm, triggering fight, flight, freeze, and/or fawn responses – anxiety, agitation, and emotional reactivity.

Only through repeated full exhalations can we achieve a calm relaxed state, a social state, a connected flow state.

Emptying of breath helps us to empty the nervous system of signal noise, to let go of stasis patterns of thought, and mental detritus.

This process of emptying the cup is vital for efficient breath, for relaxation of the mind, for cognitive and emotional clarity, for learning, transformation, and inner alchemy, for releasing trauma (autonomic fight/flight/freeze/fawn patterns).

Practice seven to twenty-one long, full, relaxed exhalations in a row, done once or twice daily as a deep-reset.

Then try to notice throughout the day if you are shallow breathing or holding your breath unconsciously. Interrupt the pattern by doing a few full exhalations.

Folding forward from the hips during seated exhalation in a chair or on the floor, as is done in the yogic complete breath, can make this full exhalation easier and more physiologically efficient.

Another option is hugging the knees to the chest in supine wind-release pose, or in prone child’s pose.
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