Four-Minute Mindfulness Meditation

Hello again and welcome.

This is a four minute meditation brought to you by MindfulScribe.

Owner and operator Joel Gaitis,

Licensed professional counselor,

Trauma certified therapist and certified mindfulness teacher.

So we'll begin again today here by closing our eyes gently and just settling into this seated posture.

And as we begin to incrementally increase the amount of time for the meditation sitting,

This will give us a more realistic sense of sitting for longer.

So notice what the body feels like right now,

The sensations that are coming and going,

Sounds that are around us,

Thoughts that are present,

Noticing the feelings or moods that are present,

And all the while these different experiences are coming and going.

Just bring your attention to your breathing,

Noticing your breath when it begins,

Feeling the coolness of the breath,

The sensations of the breath wherever they show up in the body.

The movement of the chest,

Belly,

Shoulders,

And from time to time the mind will wander off.

This is the tendency of the mind.

And when this happens,

Just acknowledge where the mind is at and bringing it back to the next in-breath or the next out-breath,

Using the breath as an anchor to the present moment,

Not trying to control the breath in any way,

Just letting it be natural.

One teacher says the breath breathes itself.

And again as the mind becomes distracted and wavers off into thinking,

We want to be very gentle in bringing ourselves back.

We're not trying to clear the mind of thoughts and we're not trying to make enemies of our thoughts.

This really becomes an opportunity to strengthen our capacity to awaken.

Often this is like drifting off into a daydream and then we snap out of it,

Remembering and coming back.

So just take some time to be with the breath,

Each one for the next few moments.

And when you're ready,

Go ahead and open your eyes.