Hello,
It's Dr Bethany Brown and thank you for joining me for this short meditation which aims to help you focus and calm a busy mind.
This exercise can be particularly useful to use just before bed,
Allowing ourselves to calm our mind and be in as good a place as possible for drifting off into sleep.
So this meditation can be done seated or lying down and it may be one that you choose to do whilst lying in bed.
I would invite you to close your eyes if that feels right for you today but if not adopting a gaze at a neutral point is another option available to you.
And within this exercise we're going to use a couple of different techniques to focus our minds and in turn calming them by providing them with a specific anchor.
So to begin I would invite you to imagine your attention as being the lights of a stage and right now the lights might be shining on many different things you might be aware of,
Thoughts,
To-do lists,
Going over things that have happened today,
Feelings,
Physical sensations.
I would invite you to take those stage lights and turn off a few and instead have a spotlight and shine that spotlight on your breath using this as your anchor to the here and now,
Using your breath as the focus for your attention and just following each in breath and each out breath.
We're not striving for a particular type of breathing here but just going with a pace and pattern which feels comfortable,
Calm and relaxing.
And importantly in this exercise,
Any time your mind wanders,
Which it will do,
Noticing it has happened and bringing your attention back and adding in an extra element.
I'm going to invite you to count each in breath and each out breath.
So for example,
Breathe in,
One,
Breathe out,
Two,
Breathe in,
Three,
Breathe out,
Four and doing this at your own pace,
Counting each time up to ten and then restarting at one,
Saying it to yourself in your mind.
So now the spotlight is on our breath with the added reciting of the numbers,
Anchoring our attention and any time the mind wanders,
Bringing ourself back to the breath and beginning our counting,
Feeling free to change the pace of our breath to one that feels right.
If we're able to deepen it and slow it down,
Doing that.
If we wish to keep it as it is,
Choosing to do that,
Breathing and counting,
Having this clear focus for our mind,
A singular focus,
A singular task.
Anything else is simply a distraction,
Not something we need to fix,
Answer,
Get rid of or battle.
We simply notice we've been distracted and come back to the breath,
Come back to counting,
Knowing that you can do this whenever you need to,
Whenever that mind feels busy.
Perhaps if you're trying to fall asleep and the mind is going round and round aiming to problem solve,
Using this technique as a way of providing it with a singular focus and a simple task,
One which is neutral and not attached to any emotion.
I'm just finishing by doing one more round from one to ten before gently ending the exercise.
