A Meditation To Support Concentration
In this 15-minute meditation, we will explore ways to support our concentration. Beginning and ending with the breathwork, we explore breath awareness, presence, sound tracking, and visualization; guided with moments of silence for practice.
Transcript
Welcome to this meditation to support you in improving your concentration.
When you're ready to begin,
Find your favorite meditation position,
Get comfortable,
Take any last little movements that you feel you need before you settle in,
And then close your eyes,
And we'll begin.
Concentration is defined as the action or power of focusing one's attention or mental effort.
And that can be such a challenge these days with social media,
Phone notifications,
Computer notifications,
Family matters,
You name it,
Our mind is always going.
And then we end up forgetting simple little things like what we went to the store for,
Where we put our car keys,
We feel like we're not being productive enough,
Our memory recollection is challenged,
And we just sometimes need to stop and meditate,
And there's things we could do to support ourselves in improving our concentration.
So we'll start today's meditation with three cleansing breaths.
Cleansing breaths are fantastic.
They increase oxygen to the cells,
They energize and clear the mind,
And they focus our attention.
We're going to inhale through the nose,
And we're going to exhale through the mouth.
It's that simple.
Let's begin that.
Inhale through the nose.
Exhale through the mouth,
A gentle,
Soft sigh.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Let's do two more.
Inhale.
Exhale.
And once more.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Allow your breath now to just flow naturally.
And as you allow the breath to flow at its own rhythm,
Its own pace,
Feel the air as it enters and leaves your body.
Feel how the air is expanding inside you.
And notice on the exhale,
Does your body relax a little into that?
For the next minute,
Practice saying the word,
Inspiration,
In your mind as you inhale.
And then feel the body relax as you exhale.
But just notice the breath.
Stay present with it.
No forcing the breath.
It's just doing its natural thing.
Inhaling inspiration,
And then exhaling,
Feeling into the body relaxing more and more.
And I'm going to give you,
Again,
A minute to just play with that.
And if the mind wanders,
No worries.
It's a play in concentration.
If you notice it,
All good.
Just bring it right back to that inspiration inhale,
That relaxation exhale.
Now we're going to exercise our focus and concentration.
So listen for the sounds around you without judging the sounds or thinking about the sounds too much.
Just observe them.
Notice them.
And really tune into the sounds.
Really listen for the sounds.
You might hear something in your space you've never heard before.
Focus on sounds near,
Far,
Maybe way far away.
So let's tune in and listen.
Truly listen.
And if the mind starts to chatter,
No worries.
Just bring it back to the sounds around you.
And if you need a little support,
I'm going to guide you a little bit before we conclude this exercise and concentration in our meditation.
So what do you hear within your room right now?
Only in your room.
What do you hear going on in your house or office building but not in your room and not outside?
Focus on that.
And now what do you hear outside?
Meaning not inside a building.
What do you hear going on outside?
Listen.
Now let's turn our attention back to our breath.
And gradually observe with curiosity your natural breath again.
The inhales and exhales.
How they feel in your body.
Have you ever really tuned into your natural breathing?
Do you know if you're more of a shallow breather or a deep breather?
Let's find out.
Tune in right now.
Concentrate on your breath.
And do you notice are your inhales and exhales long or are they very short?
Or somewhere in between?
Keep observing the breath.
It's nothing more than an observation.
Observe.
Alright,
We're going to play just a little bit more here in our meditation on concentration.
We're going to practice a basic visualization that supports our concentration.
We're going to now imagine with our mind's eye a deep clear blue sky.
And in the center of the sky you see the sun.
Experience the blue sky in your mind.
Hold the image.
And now imagine the sun that you see up there in the sky.
It's pouring light all over you.
Experience the rays of the sun.
Feel the sun.
Hold that vision of the blue sky and the beautiful bright sun.
Notice all you see.
Notice all you feel.
Now for a little moment of silence.
I'm going to invite you to really put yourself in this experience of just expanding the mind into the sky,
The sun.
And be present with it.
That's all.
But you know what?
Sometimes those little creepy thoughts will pop in.
And I invite you to just stay with the image of the sky and the sun.
Give it a try.
And it can be hard for some of us.
So no worries.
No judgment.
The more you practice this meditation the easier it will get.
And then outside of the meditation you'll find your concentration gets easier.
It's a practice.
So give it a try.
Just experience and see and expand your vision to the blue sky and the sun.
And if those pesky thoughts come in,
No worries.
No judgments.
Bring your vision just to the sky and the sun.
Give it a try.
Alright,
Bring yourself back here for a moment with me.
I'm going to share a little bit about concentration in our brain.
And then we're going to conclude with two more things that are really going to round out this meditation beautifully.
So you can always come back to it when you need a little support with your concentration.
So,
Concentration,
Attention,
Focus all involve thought and the thought processes.
Our cerebral cortex is the outermost layer of our brain.
Its surface has many folds giving it kind of like a wrinkled appearance.
And it consists of six layers of nerve cells that contain between 14 billion and 16 billion nerve cells.
Yes.
And that part of the brain is what's associated with our memory,
Thought,
Attention,
Awareness,
Consciousness and concentration.
That's cerebral cortex.
It is a magical thing,
Right?
So,
Two more things I want to do here.
We're going to practice a little gratitude because we all have heard how gratitude helps our brain.
And then we're going to conclude with three more cleansing breaths.
So,
Let's go for it.
So,
We're just going to take a short moment.
Bring to mind three things you're feeling grateful for about your brain.
Ha!
So,
I bet you've never done that little exercise in gratitude before.
So,
Take just a moment.
Gratitude for your brain.
Alright,
We are so grateful for that magical part of our body.
Actually,
Our entire body is magical.
But the brain is super magical.
Alright,
Let's conclude with three cleansing breaths.
Same as we started this meditation with.
We're going to inhale through the nose.
Gentle sigh through the mouth.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Let's do one more of those.
Inhale.
And exhale.
Alright,
Let's start to bring ourselves back from this meditation.
And as you bring yourself back from the meditation,
I invite you to leave here feeling present and focused.
And with some tools now that you can use whenever you're feeling a little challenged with your concentration.
When you're ready to take on the day once again,
Slowly open your eyes.
And I thank you,
Thank you,
Thank you for joining me for this meditation.
Have a wonderful rest of your day.
