When Leonard went back to India to be taught by Babaji, he was taught about the elements and the deep philosophy around this work. This is just one of the reasons that I was so drawn to this lineage of breathwork. I absolutely adore it.
One of the amazing teachings from this lineage, he was taught by Babaji, is that we actually create ourselves in the womb.
We create ourselves from the elements – Earth, Air, Water and Fire, and Ether is the spirit substance which brings it all together. From this perspective, the mother is just like our first landlady she just keeps the temperature right and make sure the food is happening.
This is really very helpful because we can carry so much baggage around our parents and our ancestry. “They created us and they are responsible for any bad hands that we may be dealt with, our trauma and our wounding”. This is not a perspective of us, as sovereign beings – feel into the possibility that you created yourself in a womb, then you can come back to more of an understanding that this is your creation – and you are the creator. And you have the ability to start creating the life that you want. You are not subject to who your parents are and what lineage you come from. We think we are – of course – we take on a whole lot. We will be dealing directly with that in this training.
(ADDED) Reflection & Meditation Exercise: Go into the possibility that you created yourself in a womb. Explore the idea that you are the creator of yourself and you have the ability to create the life you want – (ADDED) because it this is an inherent ability you have, and this is why you can create the life you want, whoever your parents are or were, whatever your ancestry, whatever the characteristics of your birth mother.
The beauty of this work, is that when you look at what you are made up of during your lifetime as these 5 elements….During our lifetime the elements of which we are made can become toxic. They can become heavy and dense.
(ADDED) In different individuals the elements will be affected differently.
For me, working with Air, Fire and Water feel natural – The Earth element is where I got stuck. Earth is the element that I’ve personally needed to do more work on. I’m like a mermaid who would be most comfortable living in the water and I’m more awkward on land. I need to focus on the Earth element which is food, looking after my body, exercise and things like that.
Emotionally I feel quite healthy and balanced – and that is the Water Element and the Fire element too. Doing a lot of breathwork stabilises the mind. In our culture today there is a lot of mind related problems. That is why when you come and do breathwork, it brings out the sickness in your mind.
When you do breathwork you can experience what is going on in your mind in an amplified way. You are letting the Air Element purify your mind and your thoughts, and before they can be purified, the breath is going to bring out and separate what is toxic from what is not .The breath can do that.
You will also be working with the water element in this training. The water element is your ability to trust surrender and flow. We all need to learn to surrender, and trust and allow ourselves to get into the flow. So working with the Water Element is important. It is the strongest element. It can erode earth and even mountains, you can’t breathe under water and it puts out fire. To be able to be soft and surrender like the earth does to water is to have the utmost strength.
Water is stronger than Earth. Even the most hardened rock will be eroded by water. The water element teaches us that you don’t need to be strong and rigid and earth-like or firefly, directed like the fire, to be strong.
You will also be working with the Fire element in this training. Sitting by fire is a sacred place to process things and to bring in your life purpose.
And to bring in your life purpose you need to acknowledge and let go of everything that is not it. That’s why you will be writing things down – and throwing them into the fire to be burned.
When something comes up that you know isn’t serving you any more. Write it out – and then chuck it into the fire. That is how you will start to work with the fire.The forgiveness exercise is something that, once you have completed all 7 days 70 x 7 – You can just chuck in the fire – and hand it over to the Fire element. The smoke in traditional Native American Indian lore has the ability to take things away to the spirit lands of the ancestors. The fire does the same thing when you throw your forgiveness in and offer it up to Grace. You give it over to Grace because you can’t usually make it happen yourself – you need Grace to help you.
Spirit is Grace. Grace is just spirit. If you sit with someone in suspended breath you can feel this incredible grace come into the room. It’s beautiful energy that comes to you, and you didn’t do anything to deserve it – it just comes. It is the most beautiful energy and experience that you can have.
When you are really tuning into someone who is breathing you will start to feel grace. You may even get a physical shiver; there is an energy here that is far greater than anything I am. I can trust this energy and you can allow yourself to hand over to it.
If you really connect with Spirit and completely trust, you will be supported. To develop this trust, there is no other way than to do your own work – and this is actually more important than learning the technique of breathwork.
With each of the 5 elements we will often be working with them separately, but we are always working with Grace.
Exercise: What is Grace to you and for you? How do you connect with Grace? How could you start to call it in when you are holding space? Especially when faced with fear when you are starting out in holding space. How much trust can you have in Grace? How supported can I feel by spirit and grace.
The earth element will be working with embodiment practice, starting getting out of your head and into your body. Noticing how you feel about being in your body. Do you want to be in your body? Or do you not want to be there? Feel into your physical body and when you are eating – eat consciously – and start to tune into your body. Do I need all this? Is this what my body is wanting right now?
As part of working with the Earth Element there will be a fasting practice. Fasting allows more dense energies to come up to the surface. These are energies that we may be constantly suppressing with comfort eating and overeating.
