Welcome to a 15-minute mindfulness of breath meditation.
First finding a position that feels just right for your body now.
Maybe that means taking the last little shifts and movements that your body is asking for.
Or maybe noticing the body asking to move and determining if that's right for you now.
Deciding if you'd like to leave your eyes open or allowing them to gently close.
Moving now from a sense of doing to being.
Maybe that means taking a few conscious deep breaths,
Allowing the belly to expand and contract.
And if you're taking a few deep breaths,
Now release control of your breath,
Allowing the body to breathe itself.
Sensing the body breathing and noticing where in the body you feel the breath the most in this moment.
Maybe it's the rise and fall of the belly or chest.
Maybe in the coolness or warmth of the throat or the nostrils.
Maybe somewhere entirely different.
Wherever you are feeling the breath the most in the body now,
Placing your attention there.
Seeing if it's available to bring a sense of curiosity and exploration at what it feels like to feel your body breathing.
Go quiet for a moment to allow for you to focus more deeply.
Where is the mind now?
And if the mind has wandered into things to do or thoughts or narratives,
It's okay.
Just noticing the mind has wandered and gently bringing it back to the felt sense of your breath in your body now.
Noticing the breath.
Noticing any attention shifting away from the breath.
And with kindness,
Bringing that attention back time and time again to this felt sense of the breath in the body now.
If the mind has wandered,
As minds often do,
Taking a moment,
Maybe even recognizing where the mind wandered to and placing here the lightest of labels.
Maybe the word worry,
Worry.
Or planning,
Planning.
Maybe even judging,
Judging.
Whatever it is your mind has wandered to,
Maybe identifying it with that light label and then carefully escorting the attention back to your felt breath now.
Recognizing that this process of attention going and coming is the practice of meditation.
No need to be concerned with doing it well or doing it right.
The mind wandering is part of what the mind does.
The practice is bringing it back gently and with kindness,
Just as if you'd bring a puppy back into the yard when it wanders.
Encouraging that puppy,
Or in this case your mind,
To return to where you ask it to be.
With a loving kindness to encourage it returning again and again.
Sensing the ebb and flow of the breath in the body happening without any intervention from you.
All on its own.
Breath is here,
Happening for you.
No need to push or pull.
It's right here.
Reinforcing the sense that any time you need to revisit the breath in this conscious way,
You can do so knowing that it'll be here.
Recognizing with some comfort that your body is doing exactly what it needs to do to support you.
Maybe as you practice meditation,
You're noticing,
Feeling difficulty or distress.
Noticing that too is part of meditation.
No need to make it easy.
No need to worry.
It's exactly as it needs to be.
A space here for you to be with what is.
Sensing where your mind is now and that attention.
Bringing it back to the breath as it's felt in your body now.
Noticing the sensations of the breath on the inhale,
Maybe a coolness,
Maybe an expansion.
And the felt sense of the breath on the exhale,
Maybe a warmth,
Maybe a contraction.
And taking the last few breaths in this way,
And when you're ready,
Opening the attention from this one location to your entire body.
Receiving the breath.
Maybe doing this by following the breath through the nostrils,
Down the throat,
Into the chest and belly.
Sensing the slight pause of the breath and following it on exhale from the belly to the chest to the throat and out of the nostrils.
Or if it feels right to you,
Sensing the very crown of your head and breathing in through the head down to your shoulders,
Your torso,
Legs,
Feet and sense a slight pause.
Exhaling from the toes of the legs,
The torso,
Hands,
Arms,
Neck and head right back out through the crown.
Inhaling through the crown of the head down the body all the way to the feet and exhaling from the feet back up out through the crown of the head.
Body breathing.
Meditator's choice here,
If you select the breath and follow it through the body,
If you breathe from head to toe,
And as you take some breaths here,
You can feel your intention to keep that attention where you're asking it to be.
And if it goes,
If that attention moves to something else,
Gently bringing it back.
Taking the last few breaths in this way,
And then finding where in your body you feel the breath the most.
Now,
It may be the same place,
It may have changed.
But placing your attention right where you feel the breath in the body the most now,
And closing that attention down to this location,
Just like a camera lens would close.
Maybe feeling ebbs or flows of energy in the body now in a little bit different way.
Maybe not.
I'm sensing the breath now.
And as we come to the end of the meditation,
Maybe taking a moment in gratitude to yourself for choosing to spend your time in this way now.
Choosing to nourish yourself in this way.
Carefully blinking your eyes open or focusing your gaze.
Thank you for your careful attention.
Be well.
