This mindfulness practice is your breathing anchor practice.
A meditation where you route your awareness into the present moment like an anchor that routes the ship to one place.
This practice may help you to dissolve anxiety,
Decreases stress and allow you the body and mind to experience peace and relaxation.
So to begin,
Adopt as comfortable a position as possible.
It's often best to be sitting but you can do this meditation in any posture,
Standing,
Lying,
Sitting or even walking.
My guidance will assume you are sitting but adopt the instructions to whatever posture you have chosen.
Sitting with your back upright,
Get relaxed with your spine following its natural curves.
See if you can establish a position that feels dignified,
Alert and yet relaxed and allow your body to settle,
To rest down into gravity,
Letting be supported by the floor beneath you.
And gently close your eyes,
If that's comfortable.
This will help your awareness to settle by listening external instructions.
Gradually allow your awareness to gather around the sensations of your breath in your body.
Be curious about your actual experience,
Letting go of what you think should be happening and being with your experience without judgment.
Now very gently rest your awareness with the whole torso.
Can you feel your belly swelling on the in-breath and subsiding on the out-breath?
Gradually inhabit your body a little more deeply with a sense of kind curiosity towards whatever you are experiencing as you breathe.
Remember to be accepting of whatever is happening,
Holding your experience with gentle awareness as it is.
See if you can cultivate a precise awareness of the sensations and movement of the breath in your body,
Moment by moment,
Being careful not to strain.
Allow your awareness to be utterly receptive as it rests upon the natural movement of the breath in the body.
Now become aware of any thoughts and emotions.
Remember that mindfulness isn't about having a blank mind,
It's normal to think.
Mindfulness is the training where you cultivate awareness of what is actually happening,
Physically,
Mentally and emotionally.
With increased awareness you can gradually change your perspective and feel you have more choice in how you relate to your life.
See if you can look at your thoughts and emotions rather than from them.
Can you be aware of what you are thinking and feeling without either blocking the experience or getting overwhelmed by it?
Use awareness of the moment and sensations of your breath in your body as an anchor for the mind over and over again.
As thoughts arise,
Know that you are not facts even though we often think that they are.
As you develop perspective on your thoughts and emotions,
Including undermining ones,
Can you let go of being so caught up in them?
Notice how they are continually changing one moment to the next,
Exactly the same way our breath is always changing.
Your thoughts and emotions are not as fixed,
As solid as you perhaps thought.
Each time your awareness wanders,
As it will,
Simply know this and return to the breathing anchor time after time after time,
Moment by moment,
Making sure you are very kind and patient with yourself,
Even if you have to start again a hundred times.
Starting over and coming back is perfectly ok,
This is what the training is all about.
And remember that each time you notice your wander is a magic moment of awareness,
A moment where you've woken up from a distraction,
A moment of choice.
So when you catch yourself having wander off,
You are succeeding in this practice.
What's happening now?
What are you thinking?
Just know this without analyzing or letting on,
And guide your awareness back to the sensation of your breath in your body,
Over and over again.
And now gently begin to bring the breathing anchor practice to a close,
Opening your eyes,
Slowly and in your own time,
And become aware of the sounds around you,
Inside and outside the room.
Feel your whole body and gradually,
Gently,
Begin to move,
Feel your whole body and gradually,
Gently,
Begin to move,
Making sure you give yourself time to make a smooth transition from the breathing anchor practice to whatever you are doing next.
Thank you for being here in this mindfulness practice.
