Breathe And Return, A Midday Pause

Take a few mindful minutes to pause, soften, and realign with your center. This meditation invites you to release the pull of the day and come home to your breath — a gentle reminder that peace is never far, only a breath away. Perfect for a midday reset or whenever you need to ground, refocus, and return to yourself.

Transcript

Welcome to your midday reset.

Whether you find yourself on your lunch break or just needing a moment in your day to pause and balance,

It will take some time to do just that.

So as you prepare yourself for this meditation,

Find a comfortable upright seated position,

Whether that's at a park bench or in your car or in a space where you won't be disturbed for a few moments.

Settle in.

Take a few moments to feel your body,

Really feeling the way that your body is settling into the seated position.

Notice the weight of your feet connected to the ground.

Notice your sit bones rooted and anchored in your seated position.

Take a moment to bring your awareness to your spine.

You might find your spine in a position where it's upright and attentive,

But still holding an energy of ease and relaxation as you rest the muscles that surround your bones,

Your spine.

And as you continue to settle into the space and feel your body being held by gravity,

You might allow yourself to take a few deep breaths.

Breathing into the base of your belly,

Up into your ribs and into the heart.

Pause for a moment at the top and you can open your mouth,

Exhale and sigh it out.

Notice the end of your breath before you take in your next big inhale.

Through the nostrils to the very base of your belly,

Let it weave through your ribs,

Spiral up the spine,

Surround the heart,

Pausing at the top for a moment and then open mouth,

Exhale,

Release,

Maybe even an audible sigh out all the way out.

Notice the pause,

Then taking another big deep breath in to the base of your belly.

Let your breath rise and expand through your entire system all the way to the top.

And sipping in a little bit more,

Pause and open mouth,

Exhale and release,

Landing deeper and deeper into your body.

And as your exhale comes to completion,

Allow your breath to return back to its natural state.

Just notice,

Notice the subtleties,

The sensations that move through your body as you breathe in a natural and organic way.

Noticing the gentle expansion and the melting,

The contraction of each cycle of breath.

Letting your breath be effortless and as it is right now,

Without trying to change anything,

There's nothing to be fixed.

Just witnessing and noticing your body breathing in this moment.

And as you continue to allow your focus to rest on your breath,

You might soften all of the muscles in your face,

And the muscles around your eyes,

Letting an ease move through the temples,

All the muscles around your lips,

Into your jaw.

And allowing that relaxation to move through your neck and the base of your neck,

Letting it gently roll down the shoulders and arms,

Through your torso,

To your hips,

And down into the legs.

Bringing in an inviting ease,

Inviting a sense of peace to move through you as you gently breathe in and out.

Notice every cycle of breath that passes,

The depth of ease that you experience.

Just by simply taking a moment for yourself,

Slowing down,

Allowing the happenings of the day,

Anything in the past,

To gently fade from the mind.

And allowing the same for future happenings as well.

Allowing the future to stay in its place,

As you anchor and root deeply into the present moment,

To your breath,

Into your body.

And notice the more and more that you relax,

You might be able to tune in to the subtle rhythm of your heart beating.

And just taking a few moments to be with your breath,

To be with your heart,

To be with your body.

And as you notice the mind starting to move a little bit slower,

And this deep connection to your body,

You might allow your awareness to fall back into your spine.

And as you do,

A sense of balance starts to move in to your body,

Each breath,

Each heartbeat,

Like a soothing balm to your body and your mind.

And letting yourself linger here,

In the simplicity of what is here and now.

Letting the excess fall away.

And as you continue to bring your awareness to your spine,

And witnessing your breath moving through you,

You might notice a gentle undulation of the spine,

A swaying with each cycle of breath.

And as you sit here in this space,

You might take a few moments of gratitude.

A few moments of gratitude for what is here,

Now,

In the present moment.

And breath,

And heartbeat,

And acknowledging and recognizing that this is a gift,

To have a heart that beats,

And lungs that breathe.

A limited resource,

Precious gift.

The breath,

The breath is the first thing that we experience as we enter in to this plane.

As we are birthed into existence,

We breathe,

We inhale,

We exhale.

And it's the last thing that we leave,

As we exit the body.

And right now,

In this moment,

You have this cycle of breath.

And what a gift it is,

To breathe in,

And breathe out.

And as you continue to stay with your breath,

You might take a few cycles where you allow yourself to linger a little bit in the spaces between your inhale and your exhale.

And letting yourself pause in the spaces between.

And as you allow yourself to pause in the spaces between,

You also might extend the length of your exhale.

When you're exhaling,

Doing so slowly,

And really staying with each exhale until it's fully complete.

And continuing to notice and linger in the pauses between.

And as you find spaces in the pauses between,

And stay with the completion of your exhale,

Really lengthening and letting the exhale fully empty your body.

And you also might start to expand the inhale,

Bringing a depth.

An openness,

A fullness.

Lingering in the pause,

And allowing the exhales to draw out.

Each cycle that passes,

That deeper and deeper connection to your center,

To balance.

Letting yourself rest in your backbone,

Your center column.

And as you continue to lengthen each part of your breath,

We'll move into a pranayama practice,

A box breathing,

Where we'll take a four count on each inhale.

A four count pause in between.

A four count exhale.

And again,

A four count pause.

So let's synchronize our breath together,

Taking a nice big deep breath in all the way to the top.

Open mouth exhale,

Releasing it all the way out.

And we'll breathe in for 4,

3,

2,

1.

Pause for 3,

2,

1.

Exhale for 3,

2,

1.

Pause for 3,

2,

1.

Inhale for 3,

2,

1.

Pause for 3,

2,

1.

Exhale for 3,

2,

1.

Pause for 3,

2,

1.

Inhale for 3,

2,

1.

Pause for 3,

2,

1.

Exhale for 3,

2,

1.

Pause for 3,

2,

1.

Inhale for 3,

2,

1.

Pause for 3,

2,

1.

Exhale for 3,

2,

1.

Pause for 3,

2,

1.

Inhale for 3,

2,

1.

Pause for 3,

2,

1.

Exhale for 3,

2,

1.

Pause for 3,

2,

1.

Inhale for 3,

2,

1.

Pause for 3,

2,

1.

Exhale for 3,

2,

1.

And you can allow your breath to return back to its natural state.

Letting your breath effortlessly move through your body.

Noticing,

After just a few moments of focusing on the breath,

Taking some deep cycles of breath,

How the body feels,

How the mind feels,

And how a sense of ease has been welcomed into your body.

Returning back to the spine,

Noticing the movement through your ribcage,

The gentle expansion and contraction of the rib bones,

And also the abdomen,

The gentle rise and fall,

The lowest part of your belly.

As we remain in the state of gratitude,

You might just take a few moments to draw from the wisdom of your breath.

A constant reminder of the impermanence of all things,

And the gift of the present,

And what you have now.

A constant cycle of receiving and releasing,

Of the new and the old.

The birth and the death.

The opening and the gentle closing.

Each cycle of breath,

A reminder,

The gift of nowness.

And as you allow yourself to continue to sit in this place of presence,

Notice how all of the excess starts to gently fade,

Becoming deeply rooted,

Grounded,

And centered in your body.

And if the mind starts to wander,

Remembering that you have this gift of your breath,

To bring you back to what is here and now,

In the present.

Where right now,

In this moment,

Everything is okay.

Right now.

A receiving.

A releasing.

A building and an erosion.

A watch,

As it moves through your body.

And if emotions,

Or repetitive thoughts start to enter into your body,

Your experience,

You might return to the breath.

And let it almost feel like a sinking below the surface of crashing waves.

Each breath allowing you to sink a little bit deeper.

And you might imagine a river or an ocean where there's crashing waves or wild rapids.

And this can be symbolic or an energetic equivalent to what it's like to be caught up in the coming and going of thought and emotion.

And the breath can be an anchor that allows you to sink deeper than the surface to the undercurrent of peace.

So as you continue to allow yourself to be with this pause,

Let yourself feel established in the anchor of peace,

The undercurrent of ease.

Feel free to give yourself as much time as you need until you feel ready to return back to the happenings of your day with a new understanding of how to anchor yourself in peace in the undercurrent and ease.