Welcome to this mindfulness practice.
I invite you now to start by finding a comfortable position in a chair or seated on a couch somewhere where your body feels comfortable and calm so you can begin your practice in a relaxed state.
And when you've found that position,
Just allowing your body to come to rest with your feet resting on the ground about hips width apart hands just resting gently in your lap your back sitting forward off the backrest shoulders down and relaxed imagining there's a string pulling you up through the crown of your head and just giving your body a little bit of a sway from side to side just a slight wiggle in your seat and a comfortable position to come to rest and when you've found that position I invite you to allow your eyes to close slowly or if that feels uncomfortable,
Just allowing your gaze to rest somewhere in front of you and your eyes to just rest in that position and let's begin by taking three long slow deep breaths and then letting your breath fall back into its natural depth and rhythm,
Not trying to control it in any way or change it just simply allowing it to breath itself and as you allow yourself to notice that gentle rise and fall of each breath just appreciating that there's a peak and a trough a top and a bottom point to every breath like natural bookends as one breath finishes the next breath naturally comes and as you allow yourself to notice that gentle rolling quality of the breath up and down over and over again almost like gentle waves that wash over you they rise to a peak and then tumble and crash to a trough you might even notice that you put quite a lot of effort into breathing in your inhalation and then your out breath,
The exhalation seems to happen on its own almost like blowing up a balloon and letting it go in this way we can begin to see that for 50% of our day our exhalation can be a restful state even in the most stressful of situations our exhalation still occurs on its own we don't need to force it it simply follows the effort we put in to the inhalation I just invite you now to sit for a moment and just bask in those brief moments of exhalation those small windows of calm and relaxation no effort not needing to control anything just simply stepping back and allowing the out breath to come often we don't notice this stillness of the exhalation because we're too busy planning the next inhalation gasping for breath in short bursts but much like life we can step back we can allow events,
Thoughts,
Feelings and the breath to simply unfold just as it will without us needing to force or control it without us having to worry and if at any point you find that your mind begins to wander away from the breath just simply guide it back to the next breath there will always be a next breath another moment to bring calm and compassion a simple in and out of the breath reminding us that for all the fighting and doing that we engage in in life all the pushing and striving of the inhalation we can always relax back into that calmness and stillness into that sense of being in the exhalation it doesn't matter how many times your mind wanders or how many times you gently bring your awareness back it's never too late to begin again there will always be that next breath a next moment of calm and stillness quietness and compassion moments you can just sit and notice and as we come to the end of this practice I invite you just to bring some movement back into your body wiggling your fingers and toes allowing your eyes to open slowly whenever you feel ready but holding on to that stillness and calm and remembering those moments of the exhalation that you can bring into your day,
Into your life and that you can always come back to again and again
