Dark Night of the Soul: Breathwork with Dustin Alexander

So really, the technique's gonna be super simple. Alright? There's— I like to think about it in 2 phases where the first phase is we're breathing rhythmically to music. You'll hear the count in the music. We're breathing into 2-2 today. So you hear in 2, out 2. You hear in, breathe in. You hear out, breathe out. The second phase is the breath hold phase. So after we're done breathing through that, we're going to hold our breath essentially. And some really cool things can happen during this. But yeah, that's pretty much it. There will be some more details, but we'll dig into that more as we move along. Just follow my voice. I'll be here guiding you the whole way, and you're going to do awesome. And if this is your first time, there's a saying I like from this cartoon called Adventure Time, and there's this character called Jake the Dog, and he said, the first step to being good at anything is sucking at it first. So really just let go. Like, this is a new experience. If this is a new experience for you, awesome. Awesome. You don't have to do it right. Just breathe to the rhythm and hold your breath, and you got it. Now as far as the contraindications go, go through this really quick here. But so slow rhythmic breathing techniques of Soma Breath are safe to be used for anyone and can be beneficial for all individuals. Forceful mouth breathing, prolonged breath holds, and extended intense fast breathwork or hyperventilation for more than 5 minutes should not be practiced in the case of any of the following: severe or critical diseases or infections if it impairs your ability to breathe, severe uncontrolled hypertension usually after a heart attack, organ failure or late-stage terminal illness, pregnancy, or if you have epilepsy, a pacemaker, or irregular heartbeat. And all this with the exception if your doctor gives you specific permission. Some conditions like tinnitus or hernias may be aggravated by forceful mouth breathing or prolonged breath holds and prolonged intense rapid breathing or hyperventilation. So careful attention to the technique is required. Really, just follow along. If you deal with any of those contraindications, just try to avoid the, the breath holds. And that's pretty much it.

Thank you, Dustin. Yes, Dustin's going to take us through a different way this time. He says he will guide you whilst guiding. He will give us the instructions. Okay, so listen out to the instructions because sometimes we give them at the beginning and then you forget anyway, or you get a little bit, oh my goodness, what did he say? What am I supposed to do? So just listen out. He will be guiding you all the way through this. We have— so just before we start, we've spoken about Batman. Somebody has mentioned Darth Vader, and now we have X-Men asking you a question. Okay, but that is their Zoom room name. And so for this technique, X-Man asks, do you want us to sit down or lie down? Does it matter with the technique that you're— we're going to be doing today?

That is a great question. Now, I will say, if this is your first time, or maybe one of the first times that you're doing this, I do like to encourage laying down. I like to sit up personally. Essentially, you're, you're lining up your spine, and you're able to get deeper breaths. But really, it's up to you. If you're more comfortable laying down, that's awesome. If you're more comfortable sitting up, that's awesome. Really, the key here is safety. And we will be doing a little bit more intense breathwork. So if you're not used to this, please lay down. And if you are used to this, make sure that there aren't any sharp corners close by. So if you do tend to— if you do happen to leave your body, Um, in, into the astral realm, make sure that that body is taken care of. So yeah, that's, that's what I have to say about that.

Excellent, thank you. And just, I really recommend you guys— I've heard the music that Dustin's got on, uh, that for us today. Our music, it's all made by Soma Breath. It massages your brain whilst you're doing this. It's brainwave entrainment music. So please, please get your headphones ready or connect to some amazing speakers because it will just be such a deeper, more powerful experience for you. So quickly just grab those. And I think that's it. I think we've got everything ready. So we're all set for you, Dustin. Diane, anyone? Just because I know Diane chats quite a lot in the chat box. I've got Diane clocked. I know she wants to be spotlighted. She wants us all to follow her. But Diana, we'll be following the instructor here and we will catch up with you at the end of the session. All right, baby. Okay. We love you, Diane.

Thank you.

Okay, you're here with us every, every Sunday. So just people chatting to me here saying, hey, have I, have I seen that Dan is writing to me? I know that Dan is there. So everybody, are we all ready? Everybody on YouTube is ready. We have almost, almost 140 people live, Dustin, between YouTube and, and Zoom. Just get the adrenaline running for you so that you make this—

I'm not nervous at all. I'm not, I'm not nervous even a little bit.

No pressure whatsoever. Okay, we're just going across to the whole world and we are ready for you. So, Somis, are we ready? Let's just get everybody just so that you feel surrounded by everybody. Do you see us all there? We're ready for Dustin, Somis. Let's send him our love. We're ready for you, Dustin. Take it away.

All right, everybody, get nice and comfortable. So get into your most comfortable position, whether it's sitting up or laying down. Really, the key here is comfort. Now I'm going to invite you to close your eyes so we can shut down this sense of seeing Outside of ourselves so we can take a look inside of ourselves. As we're focusing within, I want you to bring your attention and focus To your breath. You don't have to change it for now. Just notice what your breath is doing. Notice how it feels when you breathe in and when you breathe out, feeling the expansion when you breathe in. And the decompression when you breathe out. Notice the cool air coming in and the warm air flowing out. Just start to notice these details. This will bring us in the present moment because we cannot breathe in the future, we cannot breathe in the past. We can only breathe in the present. So the more you focus on your breath, the more you are present. Presence is a gift. Now let's shift our breathing a little bit here. We're breathing in through our nose and out through our mouth like this. Nice and gentle. In through the nose, out through the mouth. And just slow for now. Nice, big, slow breaths. Start expanding those lungs a little bit deeper than you're used to. Now let's, uh, focus on where the expansion is happening when you breathe in. Is it happening in your chest? Or is it happening in your belly? What we want to do is shift this breath in. When we breathe in, our belly expands, so we'll make way for our diaphragm to move deeper and to get deeper breaths. So breathing in, expanding the belly, and breathing out and just relaxing.

Ah.

Just like that. Perfect. Already doing amazing. Now just keep on breathing like this as you let my voice guide your thoughts. So spiritual alchemy has 7 stages, and the first stage is calcination. And the way I like to think about calcination is that it's creating Creating the ashes for the phoenix to rise from. And the way we do that is by leaving everything that we are behind. And what I mean really is everything that you think you are. I want you to let that go, or just practice letting that go for this moment. It's not going to be gone forever, so there's nothing to worry about. It'll be there when you come back. So all these things that give us an idea of who we are— oh, I'm this type of person, oh, I do this when this happens— we're just gonna let that all go. And I'm going to ask you a question here, and you don't need an answer. This is really just a thought exercise before we start the breathwork here. And here's the question: without naming yourself, your occupation, your achievements, your relationships, gender, ethnicity, or any of these other external identifiers, who Are you? Because there's something under there. There's something under all those things. Because none of those things existed when you were born. You didn't have a job. You didn't have friends. You didn't have achievements. You were just a baby, right? So who was this person born into this world? Of which you were— still are. And there may not be words to this answer. It may just be a feeling or an idea or a sensation, or it may just be silence for now. And that's okay. But I think it's important to ask this question. So without your job, your achievements, without your name, Relationships, gender, ethnicity, external identifiers. Who are you?

Who are you?

Who are you? We are not our bodies. I have seen dead relatives in a casket. We are not our bodies. There is something that exists within our body that makes us us. And that thing, that soul, that spirit, whatever you want to call it, is connected to our breath. So as we breathe, I want you to connect deeper with this core of who you are. So you already know how to breathe, expanding the diaphragm on the inhale through the nose and just relaxing on the exhale. We're gonna breathe to this rhythm of 2-2. Just listen to the music and move along. Here we go.

In, 2, out, 2.

Breathing in, 2, letting go, 2. Breathing in, 2, letting go, 2.

In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2.

Nice and smooth, no pause. Breathing in, letting go.

Out, 2, in, 2, out, 2, in, 2, out.

Nice and smooth.

In, 2, out, 2, in, 2, out, 2, in, 2, out, 2, in, 2, out, 2. In, out, in, out, in, out, in, out.

Nice and smooth. Stay focused on your breath. Let the thoughts flow by and stay focused on your breath.

In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2.

Get ready for this breath hold. Here we go. Take one big breath in. And hold at the top. Just hold this breath at the top and relax your body. And just feel this full expansion, this pressure of the air against your ribs. Just stay in this present moment by locking into these sensations. Letting go of everything else. Let those shoulders relax. Let your face relax. Let those thoughts just flow on by like leaves floating on a stream, just rolling by. A thought comes up, let it go. Good. And a slow exhale if you haven't exhaled already. I'm gonna take a couple recovery breaths. We're gonna go right back into it. Here we go. In for 2, out for 2. Breathing in, letting go. Breathing in, letting go.

In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. Out, in, out, in, out, in.

Stay connected to the breath. Stay connected to your breath. Everybody's breathing at the same rhythm all around the world. Can you feel that? Can you feel that happening right now?

1, 2, 3, 4.

Breathing in, letting go. Breathing in, letting go. Just enjoy that music as you breathe. Let your lungs become an instrument. Let your breath become a song. See if you can breathe a little bit deeper, a little bit more on the inhale, letting go a little bit more on the exhale. Almost there. Last few breaths.

Make them good.

Bringing it on home. Good. Take one last big breath all the way in. Hold at the top for just a moment. Squeeze that pelvic floor, those muscles around your sphincter and your bladder and your sexual organs, moving this energy up. And then slowly exhaling. When you reach the bottom, hold your breath and just let your body go. Let that tension fall from your shoulders. Let your face relax. We're gonna hold here as long as we can. Whenever you get that big urge to breathe, then you can take a sip of air, let it out, keep on holding. But really just hang on. Challenge yourself here. Step into the bravery, step into the courage, and hold on. See if you See if you can relax your body 10% more.

Good.

I can feel that. Who are you? Ask yourself, who are you? Who are you? All right, let's move into this next Round. Same breathing. Here we go.

In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In.

Can you feel the shift? Can you feel the shift already as you lock into this breath, as you lock into your spirit, as you lock into your soul? You can even imagine yourself, your lungs dancing to the music as you breathe, as you breathe to this rhythm.

In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2.

Amazing. Keep on going. Let yourself feel the music. The music has a message. What is this song telling you as you breathe? Breathe to this rhythm. Expanding the belly, letting go. Expanding, letting go. Expanding, letting go. Awesome.

8.

Okay, here we go. We're really gonna ignite the fire here. Let's take one big breath all the way in, fully filling, holding at the top, locking the pelvic floor, pushing the air from your chest down into your belly, and then compressing your belly in to move this energy Up, up your spine, into your mind. Good, and let go nice and slow. Here we go, right back into it.

Let's go.

Connect to your spirit as you breathe. Let the rest go. Just let it go. Stay with the breath.

In, 2, out, 2. In, 1, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In, 2, out, 2. In.

Can you feel the electricity building up with every breath?

Almost there.

Last few breaths.

Make them.

Breathe like you mean it.

Good.

Big breath all the way in to the top, holding at the top, flexing the pelvic floor, pushing the breath from the chest down Into the belly and then compressing the belly in, moving that energy from the base of your spine to the base of your neck and even further. And prepare to let this breath go. So just relax for a moment and then slowly, slowly exhale. And hold at the bottom, letting the tension melt away from the shoulders like wax. off a candle, letting your face melt, your identity, letting it go. See if you can relax 10% more. Notice if there's any tension hiding somewhere in the nooks and crannies of your muscles and your bones and your joints and letting it go. This is your moment to completely relax. If you feel that sensation that you need to breathe, take a moment just to be curious about it. Where does this feeling start to come from, and where does it move to as you hold on a little bit And once you can no longer hold on, just take a sip of air, let it go. Keep on holding. You can repeat this as many times as necessary, just holding on. That feeling starts to build up, you notice it, start to pay attention where you Feel it where it moves. And take a sip of air. Let it go. Keep on holding. And on the count of 3, from all around the world, all of my Somis, we're going to take 3 big, quick breaths in, holding at the top of the third. So just follow me. We're gonna do this all together, charging up, moving this energy all together. On 3. 1, 2, 3. Big breath in. Big breath out. Big breath in. Big breath out. And here we go. Big breath in and hold.

Hold.

Lock in the pelvic floor. Push the air from your chest down into your belly and then compress this energy in with your belly. Move it up your spine and follow it up with your eyes, rolling your eyes back into your third eye. This Space in between your eyebrows and connect these 2 points from the pelvic floor to the third eye. Become the hollow bone. Become the bridge from earth to heaven. Let go of who you are and become the hollow bone. Good, and relax your body. And as you start to relax, gently let that breath go.

Good.

And just bring yourself back to a normal state of breathing. We can just let our breath be as I guide you on a final meditation. Now that we're here, now that we're here with our vibes high, feeling good and protected, feeling that higher intelligence coming in with new ideas and better perspectives. And I want to step into this alchemization, taking these sad, depressing, traumatic moments in our lives that we've already gone through. We don't have to go through it again, but what we can do is go back and alchemize How can we turn this lead of a situation to a golden idea, to a golden perspective? So taking this term of the dark night of the soul, which goes way, way back, This could be a moment where nothing makes sense anymore, feels like there's no purpose to anything. A lot of things can cause this. Maybe nothing happens and you just find yourself In a space of dangerous apathy, of just not caring about life anymore. And I want you to conjure this moment up, because right now we're all safe. We're in a beautiful space. We can call this up. I want to remind you, you're completely safe right now. So as you conjure this moment up, I want you to ask yourself, what did you let go in order to move forward? What was that moment when you were just like— you stopped caring, you stopped feeling that anxiety, you just let go? But what does that mean? What did you let go? What is that thing? What is that feeling that you shed from your life? What is that That thing that you thought was benefiting you, but you realize it just wasn't working for you anymore, that you let go of so you could move on. And whatever comes up for you, I want you to dig deeper. I want to encourage you to go deeper. There's a deeper meaning to this. There's this moment where you awoke into something deeper, which was no longer based on the concepts in your mind. This was a deeper sense of purpose. A kind of rebirth. The dark night of the soul is the kind of death that you die with your ego, this idea, this construct that you built up over many years. I am this, I am that. And then it wasn't working, so it died. Of course, death is always painful, but nothing real has actually died there, only an illusionary Identity. Even when we have somebody close to us who have died, it's really the person who spent time— that person being you— who spent time with that person no longer being available anymore. There's this amazing thing that happens when we go into breathtaking mountains. Or look past through the unending ocean, or when astronauts look down on Earth, where we realize that all these things that we gave so much importance to is just an illusion. It's just a speck of dust in the hourglass. Rolling through time. We are meant to arrive at a place of conceptual Meaninglessness. One could say a state of ignorance, where things lose the meaning that you'd given them, which was all conditioned and cultural and so on. Then you look upon the world without imposing a mind-made framework of meaning. It looks, of course, as if you no longer understand anything. That's why it's It's so scary when it happens to you. Instead of you actually consciously embracing it, it can bring about the dark night of the soul. Go around the universe without any longer interpreting it compulsively, as an innocent presence, like a child. You can end up looking upon events, people, all these other things with a deep sense of aliveness. Now, I want to, for a moment, just speak personally about this, because I had a moment where my mentor and my best friend And my spiritual brother died, just died. He's gone. We don't even know how. He just died. And I won't lie, it was the most painful moment of my life. But what ended up happening is I looked at all these things that I was doing, all these habits, all of these things in my life that I was participating in. And with this idea of just like any day we could just go, we could just not wake up. What, what was important to me? What really gave meaning to my life? And it reshaped the entire way that I live. It was the most tragic moment of my life, but the most important shaping. It was devastating. But by looking at this with bravery and courage and not turning away from it, not pretending it didn't happen, or just burying it and distracting myself, I was able to To live a life I truly love.

Memento mori, my friends.

Remember, you must die. This is important because once you realize this, you will find the best way to live. This is alchemy. Don't shy away, my friends. If the world became better because of praise, we'd be in paradise. We need to look at At the shadows. And I promise you, when you do, your life will have so much more meaning. And that emptiness will fade away. You will find that love. Who are you? You are love. Everything else is an illusion.

You are love.

Good.

Let's take one last big deep breath. And let it go with an audible sigh. I find a good meditation is like a good movie. It's not always happy-go-lucky and bright and bubbly. A good movie is one that leaves you thinking about it for days. And the same goes with a good meditation. So If this was difficult for you in any way, I want to encourage you that you are on the right path, my friends. You are shining light on the shadows, and the world will thank you for it. One last big deep breath.

Ah.

Good. And you can start to come back to this space and this place. Bring yourself back to your surroundings, wiggling the toes, wiggling the fingers, really taking your time here, taking a drink of water, having a stretch. And you may feel a bit— well, for lack of a better term, you may feel high. And that's great. You did it just with your breath. How cool is that? Thank you, everybody, for going on this journey. Thank you, everybody, for being open to going on A little bit of a different path of meditation. You all did amazing.