Here's a really quick grounding technique that you can do anywhere.
It's called finger breathing.
You take your hand.
You can do it with me,
Or you could watch me do it maybe the first time,
And then we can do it together.
And the first time I'll use my other hand and then the second time I won't.
But the other hand can kind of be helpful to get a sense of what the practice is.
So finger breathing,
What we do is you're going to trace.
The sensation of your hand up the thumb,
Down the thumb,
Up.
The index finger,
Down the index finger,
I had to think of what this finger was called,
Up the middle finger,
Down the middle finger,
Up the ring finger,
Down the middle finger,
Up the pinky,
And then all the way to the other side.
Along with your breathing.
And you can count.
So the inhale will be inhale up one.
Exhale to.
.
.
Inhale three.
Exhale,
Four,
And you'll do that all the way to ten at the end of the pinky.
And the practice is.
.
.
To start back over whenever you notice that you might have moved somewhere else,
When your mind has moved back into planning,
Worrying,
Rumination,
Whatever it might be.
So it's a nice technique to just help you to slow down.
And I think of it as briefly.
.
.
Allowing presence into your mind.
And your body.
And when you allow presence into the mind,
It naturally will purify the quality of your mind.
And then you can re-engage,
Re-enter life,
Whatever it is that you might be facing or doing.
And this is nice because it's portable.
It can be done anywhere.
So let's try it once.
Maybe I'll talk about it a little bit more and then we'll try it again.
The first time we'll do it is with the other finger tracing the hand.
Okay,
So you can take a couple inhales.
And exhales.
Maybe relaxing tension in the body wherever you might notice it.
Becoming a little bit more Maybe as if we just started this video just right now.
Okay,
And then on the next inhale,
Let's begin.
Inhale.
Exhale to.
.
.
Inhale,
Three.
Exhale,
Four.
Inhale,
Five.
Exhale,
Six.
Inhale,
Seven.
Exhale eight inhale nine exhale 10 It was a nice practice for me too,
Because I.
.
.
Noticed my mind wanted to go into making sure I was doing it right.
Making sure you're understanding it and wondering what I'm going to say next.
But as long as there's something to really pay attention to here,
Then I can keep bringing my mind back to just what's here,
Just what's here.
And the power of that is that I now feel more relaxed,
More present,
More grounded.
So certainly there's a nice quality to doing it.
With the other hand.
It just kind of feels nice to touch the hand with your other hand.
Maybe even in a sort of embrace kind of way.
But it can also be interesting and uniquely.
.
.
Useful to do it without the tracing hand and to just internally feel the energy.
In the hand moving up with the inhale and down without actually tracing it just feeling the energy rising and falling along with your sensation of breathing called interoception.
I N T E R O.
Ception c-e-p-t-i-o-n the ability to sense inside the body and that sense actually becomes in enhanced with mindfulness meditation practice.
So we'll do that here in a moment.
I guess one other piece of guidance would be to not try to force your breath to be any certain way but just follow the natural rhythm.
Breathing kind of like in tai chi practice like a movement just following the natural rhythm of the breath following it like letting the breath guide you not forcing the breath to have to be deep or contrived in any way.
If it's fast,
You could just let it move with whatever is the rhythm of your breath right now.
And maybe just by tapping into the breath,
It might naturally calm down or release or soften,
But you don't have to force it to be that way.
So maybe a couple more deep breaths,
And then we'll do it once more together without the tracing finger.
Take a couple more deep breaths maybe just noticing if you're restricting the breath in any way And by becoming aware of that,
Maybe the restriction can release or soften.
I often notice I might be restricting the exhale a little bit somehow in the lower belly.
So releasing whatever's holding on down there.
And just letting the breath go completely on the exhale.
I like to think of that as like a door opening.
Letting it go,
And then when the door is open,
Presence,
Whatever is the energy that's actually just here can come in when I allow the door to be open every time I fully let the breath go.
And allow the body to relax again.
It's probably continually tightening up in some way.
There's this term chronic neuromuscular tension,
This chronic tension of the neuro mind muscular body.
That's like always tightening up under the surface.
And then every time we notice it,
We can allow it to release again.
That's my constant practice.
Just release,
Release,
Release.
And so here,
Maybe I'll do it with this hand this time.
This time we'll just sense inside the hand.
Movement up and down each of the fingers so starting at the base of the thumb on the next inhale.
We can begin.
Breathing in,
One.
Exhale to.
.
.
Breathing up the index finger,
Three.
Down for.
.
.
And breathing,
Feeling up the middle finger,
Five.
Down,
Six.
And up,
Seven.
Down 8.
And a little pinky up.
Nine.
And down 10.
This can also just be a portal into curiosity.
What is the hand,
Really?
Hand is a word that I have to describe this,
But that is just a word.
I can't really describe what it is,
But I can feel what it is.
I can experience it.
Anytime I come into that sort of curiosity,
I am purifying.
The mind that thinks it already knows what everything is,
It doesn't really.
What is it?
I can't answer it,
But I can feel it.
I can become.
You might take that into your life or just do this practice with me if this felt good for you.
Come back to this if it feels useful,
Helpful or play with it.
Your life it can be a useful tool at any moment to just take a little while to Do some finger breathing.
And maybe you breathe one,
Two,
And then your mind is wandering again.
So stop here.
Start back at one.
One.
Two.
Three.
Mind wanders again.
Start back at one.
Not in any way that's frustrating or like you're failing,
But that's great.
Just keep starting back over,
Starting back over without any judgment.
Or without any notion that that is a bad thing.
That's great.
Just each time you notice,
Start back until you make it all the way to 10.
And you will have purified the quality of your consciousness.
You can also do it even with your hand in your pocket.
You don't have to be staring at your hand.
That way,
In public,
You can easily do this just feeling into the hand,
Feeling it,
Tracing it up and down until you make it all the way over to the end of the pinky.
Okay,
I hope that's helpful or useful for you in some way.
And.
Thanks for joining me.
