My name is Dan Guerra.
This stress management practice is called mindfulness meditation.
The word mindfulness can be thought of as awareness.
In mindfulness meditation,
We cultivate a state of relaxed attentiveness.
This simplified version of mindfulness meditation has been adapted for people who don't have many hours to spend at a time practicing meditation.
A regular practice of mindfulness meditation can be helpful to manage stress and to help us learn to cope better with many areas that contribute to stress in the body and the mind.
Let's begin.
Sit in a comfortable straight back chair.
Your feet should be touching the ground.
Place your hands in your lap.
Your head and neck should be relaxed and even along the shoulders axis.
Allow your chin to be parallel to the floor and adopt a posture that is upright,
Dignified,
And direct.
Not slouched over,
Yet not militaristic either.
If you are comfortable with it,
Allow your eyes to close.
If not,
You can leave them open a little as you stare at a spot on the floor about 12 inches or so in front of your feet.
In the next moments,
Become aware of your full inhalation as the breath comes into the body and your full exhalation as the breath leaves the body.
Refrain from manipulating the breath or changing it in any way.
Instead,
Just tune into the breath.
This tuning into the breath is a never-ending cycle and paying attention to your breath this way may tend to change your perception of time.
Continue to tune into the breath and feel the sensation of the breath as it moves up the body,
Through the belly,
Past the sternum,
Then out toward the rib cage and up through the chest,
Filling the collarbones and continuing up the neck and the head and into the nose.
And as you exhale,
Feel the same cycle again,
Feeling the breath as it moves down the throat,
Into the neck and collarbones,
Down past the chest,
Into the sternum and ribs,
And ending up in the belly.
Now,
If it makes sense,
You can begin to breathe in a way so that on the inhale,
The breath moves down deep into the belly and the belly expands on your inhalation.
And as you exhale,
The belly can fall back down toward the spine.
Some of you may get this right away,
While for others it might seem a bit counterintuitive.
If it doesn't come to you after a few breaths,
Just forget it for now,
And you can go back to observing the flow of your breath just as it is.
Continue this observation of breath from moment to moment.
You may find from time to time that the mind can get busy.
Thoughts may come up,
And those thoughts may be about all kinds of things.
Use this opportunity when thoughts arise in the mind to just see that as a signal to gently bring your attention back to your breathing.
Do this in a gentle way,
Not harsh or judgmental toward yourself.
Thoughts keep coming,
But you don't have to be involved with them.
Just let the thoughts rise and fall within your awareness.
As many times as the thoughts come in is as many times as you can bring your attention back to the breath.
The breath becomes an anchor for your attention,
Anchoring your sense of awareness and just tuning in right now to what is,
Not what happened in the past or what will happen in the future,
But just getting interested and curious about the here and now,
This present moment,
And this one,
And this one.
Continue this practice.
If you are new to mindfulness,
Continue this practice for five to ten more minutes.
Remember to use your breath as a point of focus.
Become interested for this time period in the breath.
Use the breath as an anchor to bring you back to the present moment.
In the last few moments of this practice,
Just recommit to being right here,
Right now,
With the breath.
Good.
And now,
As you finish the practice,
Just take a moment to forget about the breath.
Just bring your awareness to your body sitting in the chair,
The whole body,
The whole body.
Feel your feet making contact with the ground,
Your legs and back making contact with the chair,
And your head just resting comfortably on the shoulder axis.
Tune into your body for a moment.
Now,
Sense the light in the room coming through your eyelids,
And then slowly and comfortably open your eyes.
The practice of mindfulness meditation is finished.
