08/13/2025
Why are yogis so obsessed with breathing?? Pranayama, the breathing exercises we practice in class, is all about moving prana. When you can steady your breath, or prana flow, you can steady your entire life.
Let’s break it down 🤓
Prana is the energy that fuels and moves all of life. It’s forward motion, the force that ensures things will always change and never return exactly to how they were.
When you inhale, you feel this prana entering you, fueling every cell with oxygen created in the world around you. The same prana that draws in the oxygen delivers it to your cells, trades it for carbon dioxide, and sends it back out on your exhale.
It’s the same prana that fuels the exchange of carbon dioxide back to oxygen in plants, that pushes and pulls the wind through the trees, that calls snowmelt from the mountaintops down the valleys and into the ocean.
Yoga is the practice of becoming an active participant in this exchange. It teaches us to direct energy so our lives become purposeful and meaningful. We stop being bystanders and become co-creators.
The next time you see pine needles swaying in the breeze or water bubbling down a creek, remember: this same prana moves through you. With steady awareness, you can guide it in ways that nourish and enhance your life.
