10-Minute Centering Spine Breath Meditation

In this quick 10-minute meditation, we work with our breath up and down our spine, or our central channel/shushumna. This is a balancing and centering meditation that will quiet the mind and bring you quickly into a state of tranquility.

This is a great practice to help you prepare for silent seated meditation.

Transcript

If it's okay for you,

Close your eyes.

If not,

You can have a soft gaze,

Which would mean your eyes maybe a quarter of the way open,

Just taking in the light without any particular images.

And feel your seat,

And then rise up from your seat and feel the crown of your head move towards the ceiling,

So your torso and spine get long and your belly is free,

So that the breath can flow freely.

And begin to take slightly deeper breaths in and out of the nose.

Feel your belly expand a little on the inhale and contract on the exhale.

And then the next time you feel yourself inhale,

Follow the breath in through your nose,

Down through your central channel,

So right in front of your spine,

All the way down to your root,

Which is the pelvic floor,

Or you could think about it just as your pelvis or your seat,

But send your awareness down as you breathe in.

And then as you exhale,

Just trace that breath back up the same channel,

Up the front of your spine,

All the way up to the crown of your head.

You can imagine the breath exiting at the crown of your head.

That might work for you.

And then as you inhale,

Follow the breath down again,

All the way to your root.

And maybe with a slight contraction of the belly,

Follow the breath all the way up.

So that's our spine breath.

And for most of us,

We're going to have an easier time paying attention if our breath is slightly deeper.

So you can continue that as long as you like.

At some point,

Just let the breath be natural,

And see if you can follow the breath down and up without enhancing the breath at all.

And you might sort of play back and forth between those two things,

Enhancing the breath and just letting it be natural,

Eventually finding a nice easy flow to the practice where your awareness moves down and up that central channel with the breath without much strain or too much effort.

Now quiet for a little while while we practice that.

Slowly and gently deepen your breath into your abdomen,

And then a nice long slow breath out.

Take a couple more breaths like that.

Nice full inhale,

And a nice long slow complete exhalation.

Bring our palms together in front of our hearts,

Bowing to your own heart.

Namaste.