S2E22: Grounding Practice with Metztli Lopez-Torres: The Importance of Breath
About this episode:
In this Grounding Practice, Metzli Lopez Torres—founder of Luna Mamá Healing Services, intends to return to traditional and indigenous ways related to childbirth, motherhood, and care of the female body—shares with us how traditional Mexican medicine emphasizes the significance of breath as energy exchange. She shows us how we can connect with the air we breathe in as a reminder of our aliveness and the purifying power of breath.
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If you want to listen to the full episode that accompanies this Grounding Practice, check that out separately here.
Full Episode Transcript:
Emily Race-Newmark: [00:00:00] Welcome to This is How We Care, a podcast where we look at what it means to embody care, not as an individual practice, but a collective one, and to see what kind of world emerges from this place.
Thank you for being here. I am your host, Emily Race.
This grounding practice is brought to you by Metztli Lopez Torres. Please check out our full interview at that separate episode, wherever you tune into our podcast. If you're able to, please take the next couple of moments now to transition into a space of receptivity, perhaps finding a spot in your environment where you can get more comfortable, allowing yourself the next couple of minutes To shut out any external distractions.
Feel free to pause this if you need a bit more time to get settled.[00:01:00]
And with that, I'll pass it over to Metztli to guide us through this practice.
Metztli Lopez Torres: I usually like to remind, myself and everybody when I'm In my appointments with my clients, the importance of, breathing and for us, breathing you know, in traditional Mexican medicine, breathing comes with an energy because we believe that everything around us has energy and air has energy, too.
When we are breathing in, we're actually breathing a very specific energy that we call Ehecatl. That's the Nahuatl word for it. It's that air that brings you to life. So I think I just, putting the mindset in this and just thinking about, breathing and bringing this energy inside us.
This energy that will not only give us life, but also purify our body and it will take whatever we don't [00:02:00] need out.
Maybe just, a couple of breathings like this. It can be any kind of breathing, a deep breathing or a, light breathing. the most important thing is be aware of the air getting in, feel that in the lungs, and then when we exhale, just how it removes what we don't need.
This is a very easy practice and I, it's something that really Remind us that we are alive and that we are energy and that oxygen is not just only oxygen, it's actually energy of life.
Emily Race-Newmark: If you want to hear more from Metztli and our conversation, you can head over to that full interview. We hope to see you there.