Hello and welcome to The Daily Insight.
My name is Vidya Mala and today we're going to be focusing on how being aware of breathing in the body is a brilliant way to calm a busy mind.
Put very simply,
The way we're wired up as human beings,
We can't be in the body,
Aware of sensations of breathing or any other sensations in the body,
At exactly the same time as we're lost in an overactive mind.
So coming back to breathing in the body is a very,
Very effective way of stilling the mind,
Of calming the mind.
It's a little bit like an anchor.
Can you imagine that your mind is like a boat bobbing about on the surface of an ocean?
And breathing in the body is like an anchor deep in the ocean that's holding the boat still.
So to begin with,
Choosing a posture.
You can do this meditation sitting,
Lying,
Standing,
It's up to you.
The main thing is to be as comfortable as possible and yet alert.
So choosing your position quickly and beginning to settle.
Seeing if you can allow your whole body to rest down onto the surface it's lying on or sitting on or standing on.
Giving the whole weight of your body up to this mysterious force of gravity.
Gravity is always pulling us downwards and very often we fight it,
We resist it.
What's it like to settle down into it?
Feeling into all the points of contact between your body and the floor,
The chair,
The bed.
And let's take some deeper breaths.
Breathing into the whole body and breathing out,
Allowing the out-breath to flow all the way out.
And as we breathe out allowing our weight to settle down a little bit more.
Do this a few times in your own way.
Big breath in,
Big breath out.
Making sure you allow the out-breath to flow all the way out without inhibition.
If we let the out-breath go all the way out the in-breath will take care of itself.
And very often when we're stressed,
Our minds are very busy,
There's a very subtle kind of breath holding that goes on.
We don't let go of the out-breath fully.
So seeing what it's like to do that in this meditation.
Letting the face be soft,
Particularly the eyes and the jaw.
So the breath,
The wind of the breath can flow freely through the back of the throat.
Letting the jaw hang loosely,
Lightly.
And now let's guide our awareness down inside the body,
Dropping down inside the body and coming to rest in the whole chest area and the whole abdominal area.
Tuning into the movements and sensations of breathing.
An expansion phase on the in-breath and a subsiding phase on the out-breath.
If it's helpful you could put your hands on your belly and feel the movements.
It's up to you.
And you can allow your breathing to find its own natural rhythm.
Every time your awareness bounces back into thinking,
It might even feel like your awareness is shooting up into your head.
Every time you notice this,
Then without any kind of judgement or thinking that you're doing it wrong,
Just noticing that.
And then guiding your awareness back deep in the body,
Down into the anchor,
Over and over again.
Now allowing our awareness to move through the body to come to rest in the back of the body.
Often we think of breathing only happening in the front of the body,
In the chest perhaps.
But in fact the whole body is involved with breathing.
The ribs are as much in the back of the body as the front,
The lungs are as much in the back as the front.
And there are movements right down into the lower back as we breathe.
So let's rest right inside the whole back of the body and see what we can feel on the in-breath and on the out-breath.
Allowing breathing to fully inhabit the whole back of the body.
If we've got any pain or discomfort,
Allowing it to be soothed by breathing.
Allowing the whole back of the body to be rocked and massaged by all the movements of breathing.
Back breathing is also naturally calming.
It stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system which is to do with calm and ease.
It's allowing calm to arise as we rest inside breathing,
Inside the whole back of the body.
And now let's be aware of the whole torso,
The volume of the torso as we breathe.
The front,
The sides,
The back,
The inside and the surface.
Sense of the whole torso expanding a little bit in all directions on the in-breath.
Subsiding a little bit in all directions on the out-breath.
Allowing the breathing to find its rhythm and then to rest,
To settle inside that rhythm,
Moment by moment.
And if your mind keeps shooting off into thinking,
That's quite normal.
Letting go of harsh judgements.
But every time we notice that's happened,
We have a choice.
And we can choose to guide our awareness back inside the body,
Deep inside the body,
Inside breathing.
.
.
.
Beginning to end this formal period of meditation.
Moving the body a little bit,
Opening the eyes if they've been closed,
Stretching if we want to.
But seeing if we can keep our breathing soft,
Deep in the body.
And every time during the day that the mind gets agitated,
We get lost in overactive thinking.
Remembering we have a choice and we can drop our awareness deep inside the body,
Inside breathing,
Inside the anchor.
As a way of calming the busy mind at any time.
And we're ready,
Re-engaging with the activities of our day.
