So today I want to introduce you to the coping breathing space.
The coping breathing space is a three-stage breathing space like the breathing space I've already taught.
It's designed particularly for when you're feeling upset,
Overwhelmed,
When you've got difficult experience.
How do we actually creatively relate to difficult experience?
So what you're going to do in the coping breathing space is go through the three stages,
And I'll take you through that in a minute.
And you're mainly trying to just feel what's going on without any automatic judgments about that,
Without narrative about that.
You're just trying to get very close to the actual feelings rather than what you think you feel or what you think you should feel or narratives about what you feel.
And this can open up a space so that a new perspective can open up a bit.
So if you can feel things more directly that can open up a space for something to change.
You have to be careful not to do the coping breathing space with that intention because you're bargaining with your experience then and that doesn't work.
What you're trying to do is you do the coping breathing space if you're having a difficult time,
Perhaps you've just come back from a meeting,
You're a bit overwhelmed,
You can do this breathing space just to feel it more.
And let's see that might open up a space.
So the coping breathing space.
So if you can close your eyes.
If you're not in an environment in which you can do that,
That's fine,
You can leave your eyes open.
And in this first stage you're just trying to be aware right now of how you are.
And how you are isn't a thought,
It's not a narrative about how you are.
It's how you're feeling in your body.
Are you feeling comfortable or uncomfortable?
Tight or relaxed?
And I particularly want you to see if you can be aware of uncomfortable sensations.
Our instinct is to turn away from them and that makes,
That can make them worse.
See if you can open up to the direct experience of discomfort just now.
You might even say to yourself,
It's okay,
Whatever it is,
Let me feel it.
Just opening up your mind,
Opening up your sense to how you are in the body just now,
Especially turning towards discomfort.
And then in the second stage we move on to gathering our awareness once again around the breath.
So you feel the breath come in and you feel the breath go out.
And see as best as you can if you can gather your awareness around the sensation of breathing.
The difficult sensations can still be there,
You're not trying to get rid of them,
But your breath is there as well.
So you're just feeling the breath in the body coming in and in the body going out.
And then see if you can start to expand your awareness from the breath,
From the sensations of the breath here and now.
See if you can expand your awareness to include more and more of your body.
See if you can include the weight of your body on the chair if you're sitting down,
Your feet on the floor,
What are your hands doing,
What are they touching.
Try to include more and more of your physical sensations whatever they are,
Good,
Bad or indifferent.
And then start to tune into the sounds around you.
Let them be there.
And then when you're ready opening your eyes and again just trying to,
As much as you can,
As best as you can,
Just stay a bit more in this sense of direct contact with your experience in this sense of direct contact with your experience rather than spinning off into stories about it.
Just see if you can take that sense of your body and a willingness to feel discomfort even though we don't want to feel it.
See if you can take that sense of the discomfort in your body into the next activity.
