This audio is the copyright of Catherine G.
Lucas.
It is for personal use only.
The three-minute breathing space.
Welcome,
Or welcome back,
If you've already been listening to some of these mindfulness audios.
I'm Catherine G.
Lucas,
And I've got a great little practice for you today.
And when I say little,
I really mean it.
As the name suggests,
This is a very short practice.
And in fact,
It can be even shorter than three minutes.
It can be as little as 30 seconds.
But equally,
If you've got the time,
You can spend five or ten minutes with it,
And get even more benefit from it.
So,
The three-minute breathing space is really a way of coming back to ourselves,
Of re-centering ourselves,
Re-grounding ourselves when we need to.
You can use it anytime and anywhere.
Whether you're at home,
Whether you're out and about,
In the car,
At work.
It's very versatile.
So,
Let's dive straight in there and have a go.
So we just take a moment to connect with our bodies,
To sense into our bodies,
To feel our connection with the earth,
With the ground.
Whether that's through your feet or through the seat of the chair,
If you're sitting down.
And then we check in with ourselves.
How are you doing right now?
What's present for you in this moment?
Emotionally,
Physically,
Or mentally?
Let me just take a moment to notice that.
And we don't have to do anything.
We don't have to change anything.
We don't have to judge anything.
We're just noticing how it is right now.
And when we've done that,
We can take our attention to the breath.
And we can follow the breath for a few cycles.
So we're following all the movements and sensations of the breath.
So whether that's the rise and the fall of the shoulders,
Or the movement in your abdomen as you breathe in and out,
Or any other sensations,
Any other movements that you're aware of.
We're just following those for a few cycles of the in-breath and the out-breath.
And then when we've done that,
We can gradually start to expand our awareness back out again.
Noticing our surroundings,
Any people,
Any noises.
And if you've had your eyes closed,
You can open those now.
So that's it.
It's very simple and very short.
You can do it with your eyes open or closed,
Depending on what's appropriate and where you are.
And if you remember to do this throughout the day,
Maybe at least three times a day,
Then you'll really very quickly start to feel the benefits.
I particularly like to do it after a drive,
When I've parked up somewhere,
To kind of have a pause before going on to the next activity,
A way of grounding myself after the drive.
In recovery circles,
This practice is known as SOBA.
It's the same practice,
But with a useful acronym for helping to remember the stages.
So SOBA stands for Stop,
Observe,
Breathe,
Expand and Respond.
So we stop what we're doing for a few moments.
We observe,
As in we observe how we are.
We check in with ourselves.
We take our attention to the breath and then we expand our awareness back out.
And we're now hopefully in a position to be able to respond to a situation,
Rather than reacting in a habitual knee-jerk,
Automatic way.
So it's a really good way of looking after ourselves for that self-care that we're cultivating,
That goes very much hand-in-hand with the mindfulness.
So if a tricky situation has arisen,
Or something upsetting has happened,
Then we can use it to really look after ourselves,
Come back to ourselves,
To our centres,
To our bodies,
To the breath.
So,
Have a go with it.
Have fun trying it in different places and at different times of the day.
And I'm sure you'll very soon be feeling the benefits.
Thanks for joining me today.
I look forward to sharing many more mindfulness practices with you.
Bye for now.
