Using your breath as an anchor for your wandering mind.
This mindfulness practice is using your breath as an anchor where you root your awareness into the present moment,
Like an anchor that roots a ship to one place.
This will help you to dissolve anxiety,
Decrease stress and allow your body to relax and to heal in a peaceful,
Calm state.
So to begin adopt as comfortable a position as possible.
It's often best to be sitting but you can do in any posture,
Standing,
Lying or even walking.
My guidance will assume you're sitting but adopt the instructions to whatever posture you've 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 very gently and calmly just allow it to settle,
To rest.
To allow gravity just to be here in the moment,
Being supported by the floor beneath you and gently close your eyes very slowly.
This is going to help your awareness settle by lessening external distractions and just very gradually allow your awareness to gather around the sensations of the breath in your body.
Where do you feel the breath most strongly?
Is it in your nostrils,
In your tummy?
Can you feel your body breathing in and breathing out?
Be curious about your actual experience but just let go of what you think should be happening and being aware of what is happening,
This experience without judgment.
Can you very gently rest your awareness within the whole of your torso?
Can you feel your belly swelling on the in-breath and subsiding on the out?
Can you feel any movement and sensations of the breath in the sides and the back of the body?
And gradually inhabit your body a little bit more deeply with a kind sense of curiosity just to what you are experiencing as you breathe right now.
Remembering to be accepting of whatever's happening,
Just cultivating a precise awareness of the sensations and the movements of the breath in your body as they happen moment by moment.
Just being careful not to strain but allow your awareness to be utterly receptive as it rests upon the natural movement of the breath in the body.
Allow the breath to be saturated with kindness as it rocks and cradles your body soothing any stress or any pain or discomfort that you may be feeling.
At this moment you may become unaware of any thoughts and emotions.
Remember that mindfulness isn't about having a blank mind.
It's quite normal to think.
Mindfulness is the training whereby you cultivate awareness of what is actually happening physically,
Mentally,
Emotionally,
Spiritually.
So you can gradually change your perspective and feel you have more choice in how you relate to your life.
And can you look at your thoughts and emotions rather than be them and open them and expand them?
Can you be aware of what you're thinking and what you're feeling without either blocking the experience or getting overwhelmed by it?
And remember thoughts are not facts even though we often think they are.
But as you develop a perspective on your thoughts and emotions including undermining ones,
Can you let them go?
Can you let go of being caught up in them?
Notice how they continually changing one moment to the next.
Exactly the same here.
Your breath is always changing.
Your thoughts and your emotions are not as fixed and as solid as perhaps you thought they were.
And using the awareness of the movement and the sensations of the breath in your body is a great way to anchor your mind over and over again.
Just follow the breath all the way in and follow the breath all the way out.
Each time your awareness wanders as it will just simply note it but returning back to the anchor,
To the breath time after time after time,
Moment by moment.
Making sure that you're very kind and patient with yourself even if you've had to start again a hundred times.
It's okay.
This is what mindfulness training is all about and remember that each time you notice you've wandered it's 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 wandered off you're succeeding in the practice just as you're succeeding when you manage to stay with the breath.
In fact check in what's happening now.
What are you thinking?
And just note it and guide your awareness back to the sensation of the breath into your body over and over again.
And now gently begin to bring the breathing anchor practice to a close.
Taking in a deep breath wiggling your fingers,
Opening your eyes.
Be aware of the sounds around you inside and outside your space.
Feel your whole body gradually,
Gently beginning to move.
Making sure you give yourself time to make a smooth transition from mindfulness practice to whatever you want to do next.
Thank you for listening.
Be live and give love.
Goodbye.
