Build Positive Traits & Habits Through Mindful Breathing - by Mark Bertin

COURSE

Build Positive Traits & Habits Through Mindful Breathing

With Mark Bertin

Breathing meditation may seem like a simple and specific activity to undertake yet in reality it offers layers of meaning and depth for our exploration. Making mindfulness practice a habit, we build far more than only focus. We influence many varied mental traits through that effort and repetition. We become more resilient, precise in our actions, and feel more at ease. Our practice of mindfulness is a marathon, not a sprint. We aim influence our daily lives without expecting an instant miracle. We’re not specifically aiming to be relaxed, calm or happy. Instead, with each breath we take, we build valuable traits that change how we live. Attention and awareness. Staying settled when uncomfortable. Proactively managing our habits and assumptions. Compassion, and more. For this class we will stay with our breathing practice throughout. As the intention for this course is to provide straightforward guidance while exploring your breathing practice, it contains less theoretical explanations. It is designed so that you can listen to the sessions daily and begin practicing right away. Each week (or however long you choose) the intention for the practice shifts, exploring different aspects of our meditation and cultivating a broader depth of practice. Listen to each session to set yourself up with the instruction. Then once a day, use either the recording of the session itself, or a mindfulness-based breathing practice of your choice to explore the session instructions. Trust yourself. Choose where to put your effort and intention. Reveal your innate resilience and wisdom, one breath at a time.

PerformanceStressStress & AnxietyClarityHappinessHealth & HappinessMindfulnessSecularConcentrationMindfulness MeditationSecular MindfulnessBreathing Meditation

Meet your Teacher

Mark Bertin
Pleasantville, NY

Dr. Bertin is a developmental pediatrician and author of How Children Thrive, Mindful Parenting for ADHD, and Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Teen ADHD, all of which integrate mindfulness into pediatric care. He is a contributing author in Teaching Mindfulness Skills to Kids and Teens. Dr. Bertin is in the faculty at NY Medical College and the Windward Teacher Training Institute, and on the advisory boards for Common Sense and Reach Out and Read. He also contributes regularly to Mindful Magazine and Psychology Today.

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8 Days

5.0k students

4.7 stars

12 min / day

Performance

English

Lesson 1

Basic Breathing Meditation Instruction

The intention of mindfulness isn’t stillness nor perfection, but working with how we relate to our experience day to day. It’s meant to be practical and understandable to anyone. We settle ourselves when our mind gets caught up in thoughts or emotions, past or future, and return to something neutral like the feeling of one breath. Through that process, we learn to manage our lives more intentionally and less reactively. When we practice regularly, we see long-term changes – and in the moment, we better settle ourselves when our mind gets caught up in stress too. The practice is, on the one hand, simple and straightforward, trusting in the practice having value without striving or self-analysis. We aren’t aiming to be always calm or to quiet our mind specifically. Breathing practice and mindfulness develop a multitude of traits and abilities that help us relate to our lives with more skill, compassion, and precision.

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Lesson 2

Breathing & Concentration

Most of our lives are filled with distraction. Without effort, we’re here but not really here - caught up in thoughts of past, future, rumination, doubt, and far more. Research shows the ability to give aware, full attention to our experience – even when it’s intrinsically pleasant – increases our happiness. As we meditate, we build focus by attending to what’s actually going on during this one breath.

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Lesson 3

Breathing With Intention

Everyone's moment of mindfulness practice, every time we come back to the breath, is a chance to return to our best intentions. Practicing mindfulness, we set out on an impossible task. No one can focus their intention fully on the breath or anywhere else for long. The same is true of the rest of our lives, where we inevitably lose touch with our best intentions and efforts sometimes. With awareness cultivated through mindfulness practice, we more easily realign ourselves when needed with our best intentions for ourselves, our families, and the world. We learn to settle, see with clarity, step out of reactivity, and come back to what we know best. Letting go of self-criticism and perfectionism, we notice our minds have wandered, and then, return to our intention for ourselves right now by focusing on the next breath, over and over again.

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Lesson 4

Breathing With Self-Compassion

Breathing practice intrinsically encourages self-compassion. No matter how much or little we practice, our mind gets distracted. Our job is to notice when it does and come back to the next breath without self-judgment. It’s easy to get caught up in self-criticism ("I’m miserable at this, I can’t ever do it, I wasted ten minutes daydreaming"). Where else in life do we so directly practice the ability to set our intentions, lose track of them, and then resolutely but without self-criticism, come back to them again? We observe each breath (or when we get distracted, the next one or the one after that) with resolve and kindness, working toward self-improvement without excessive harshness and building an attitude of resolve balanced by self-compassion.

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Lesson 5

Breathing & Thought

As we practice, we build a fuller awareness of our world - both the world around us and our inner worlds. There may be aspects of our life we barely notice, and others we actively avoid. We often act or think under the influence of unconscious habits, preconceived notions, and assumptions. We get caught up in negativity or self-criticism, past or future, in ways that complicate and escalate our challenges. To step out of our mental ruts, we must first recognize them. Guiding ourselves around each breath, we become more familiar with the full complexity of our physical, emotional, and mental experiences.

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Lesson 6

Breathing & Compassion

Any mindfulness practice includes compassion. We see our own challenges (like our utter inability to focus our mind where we want for long) with care and patience, instead of self-recrimination and frustration. And then, aiming to see with unbiased clarity how the world around us works, we can recognize that even the people we find difficult face many of the same, unavoidably human challenges and crave happiness and health in their own ways.

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Lesson 7

Breathing With Uncertainty

Every breath, every moment of mindfulness practice builds our ability to stay patient and strong through all of the uncertainty and change in our lives. Meditation is often difficult and that’s the point of practicing. Our minds stay busy and our bodies get restless. Challenging thoughts arise, and emotions come and go outside of our control. We aren’t trying to be calm or to quiet the mind all the time. For a few moments of mindfulness, we notice our full life experience and choose not to react and not to get caught up in habit. We aim for clear-sighted awareness and build our capacity for patience and resolve.

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Lesson 8

One Unforced Breath

There’s nothing mysterious about the practice of mindfulness. There is nothing we can force to happen. Our mind gets caught up somewhere, and we guide it back. Almost soon as we start, our thoughts may wander off again. That’s normal. Continue to breathe naturally. When you notice thoughts or emotions, or anything else taking over, come back to the next breath. For all there is to explore in the practice, it’s not meant as an intense intellectual or analytical exercise. In an unforced way, trusting in our own wisdom, we come back to seeing with clarity and acting with precision and care - one breath at time.

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4.7 (134)

Recent Reviews

Martha

August 22, 2025

Perfect. Loved the words and simplicity. Will return to this course for reminders of the practice. Downloading it too for availability when traveling.

Martin

February 25, 2025

Thank you, this helped

Rachael

April 14, 2024

Simplicity and compassionate breathing instilling feeling grounded.

yarrow

March 24, 2024

I really benefit from Mark’s offerings.

Isabella

September 19, 2023

I loved this practice! It was short and simple enough for it to stay approachable in my mind the entire course. I rarely finish these but I'm proud that I did. I've felt more mindful and patient in my daily life because of it.

Wisanlaya

May 10, 2023

Very good session

Terri

January 9, 2023

Very Easy

Tilda

October 10, 2022

Great thank you

Grady

September 30, 2022

Was fortunate enough to stumble across a guided meditation from Mark via an internet search earlier this year. His insights and general wisdom regarding mindfulness continue to help me understand and improve my own practice.

Donna

June 17, 2022

So very helpful!

Joely

December 19, 2021

Thank you!

Katherine

December 3, 2021

Excellent. Best tip: meditation is not analytical or intellectual activity! Wish I’d heard that earlier. One breath at a time over and over. Like slower pace if talking.

Craig

September 5, 2021

A simple guide to a potentially life changing and profoundly deep practice. Thank you sir!

Sarah

June 1, 2021

Great course fir a refresher or beginner. I will repeat it and Hope to see more. Thank you

Toni

May 19, 2021

Very informative and keeps you participating in aware of what you’re doing! Looking forward to his next class

Kert

April 23, 2021

Practical

Antonio

April 13, 2021

Thank you for creating this course. I would like to do a second time and make notes to study it closely

Nina

March 23, 2021

Perfect for beginner, intermediate, and advanced practitioners! Very smooth, clear, and tool providing course coupled with the essential understanding behind it all.

Kelly

March 20, 2021

Very helpful!

Kate

March 15, 2021

Hi, thank you so much for this Course and for your Breathing Meditations on IT. I’ve been practicing meditation for many years but my monkey mind still needs work - you help me to treat myself with patience and compassion, your gentle guidance and all important silences combine to guide my mind back again...and again...and again... Thank you, I shall continue to follow your guidance and would recommend this course to others. 🙏🏽

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