James Crader
Hello and welcome. I'm James, and I love moments that combine multiple things into 1. And I'm here to steward you through something that does just that. The heart hug practice. It's a breath work technique and it's a body based meditation that's gonna help you connect with your heart, your lungs, and yourself. So here's the only thing you need to do. You need to get comfortable, whether that is lying down, sitting down, walking around, because this is a practice that, again, can be done anytime, anywhere. So let's walk through it, and then afterwards, we'll kind of talk about it a little bit.
Pick your favorite hand. Make a little fist with it and place it right over where you believe your heart to be. Take the other hand and place it on top. Now if this feels comfortable and secure to you, great. Continue to do this. If you're like, nope. Don't like this thing. Just have your hands wherever they may fall.
They can be by your side. They can be on your lap, whatever works best for you. I'm highly visual, so this works really well for me. It's like an embodied visualization. What are we doing here? Well, my right hand, my favorite hand, is representing my heart, and the other hand is representing a lung. Now as we take in our inhale, we're just gonna open the lung hand, and then as that inhalation gets a little bit bigger, maybe the other hand gets a little big. On our exhalation, the heart hand gets small. The other hand gives the heart a hug.
Now in real time, it may look and sound a lot like this. You got it? You can have the other hand. Representing the heart and the lung respectively. Again, this can be done with absolutely no hands. And if you really feel inclined to do it, you could have both hands kind of closed fist. Now before we jump into a few repetitions of practice, let's talk about why and what. Why is this important and kind of what's happening with this? Well, if I take my favorite hand and have that be my heart and the other hand be my lung, as I inhale, that lung gets bigger and it almost kind of pushes the heart forward in the chest. Here's the magical thing to me, at least.
As I exhale, the heart gets a little bit smaller, kind of pumps that blood and my lungs quite literally give my heart a hug. Again, inhale, everything kind of blossoms open. Exhale. Everything kind of gets smaller and gives itself an internal hug. Now, again, because we're kinda working with a breath work technique here, it doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be small. The breath work doesn't have to look like anything, really. You take the breath that you are comfortable taking today.
It's gonna look different than it did yesterday, and it will likely look differently than it does tomorrow. If it's helpful to have these kind of kinesthetic visuals, these body based visuals, by all means, do that. If it's not helpful, you don't have to do it again. I love doing this practice even when I'm in conversation with people. If if I'm having a stressful moment, a down moment, or I just feel like I need that internal hug. Now to finish this off, let's do a few repetitions together so that you kinda know what this feels like in your body. So pick whichever variation works best, whether that's a hand, in representing the internal organs, or it's just your arms rested by your side. I'm gonna choose this for today.
Take your inhale. Feel everything kind of blossom open. Exhale. Let your posture change and see if you can feel into that internal hug. You get to determine how much you blossom open and how tightly you hug your heart. That's the beauty of the practice. It can look a lot of different ways. Just remember, inhalation is a blossoming open and exhalation is quite literally you giving yourself a hug through breath.
Now think about when you might need this, what that might look like. And again, make it your own practice. Why? Because you're strong. You're resilient. And small little moments like this matter. Thank you so much for joining me, and I'll see you soon.
