Calming Breath Meditation

A simple 15 minute breath-focused guided practice. This meditation is suitable for anyone looking to hit the reset button and can be practiced at any time of day. Using attention to breath and body scanning, these 15 minutes should leave you feeling calm, refressed, and peaceful.

Transcript

Hello,

This is Julia.

I'm here to offer you a very simple practice to hopefully allow you to find just some more gentleness and ease and comfort within yourself and maybe even some more stillness in your mind.

I know sometimes that's easier said than done,

So we're just going to approach this time together without judgment,

Knowing that there's no right or wrong.

We hope that through practice we can find that sense of ease and relaxation,

But sometimes when the world is heavy,

It can be a challenge.

It often just takes a bit of consistency and practice.

When you're ready,

Begin to find yourself in the position that you would like to take for our time together today.

Whether that's sitting down in a chair,

On the floor,

On a cushion,

Or even laying down.

You can shift and wiggle around until you find the most possible comfort for you in this moment.

Sometimes it's even helpful to ask ourselves,

Can I be just 5% more comfortable right now?

And make those necessary adjustments.

Just take a moment to glance around the space that you're in.

You might be in a space that you're quite familiar with,

Comfortable in,

Or perhaps you're in a new and foreign space.

Just briefly looking around and noticing without judgment,

Observing textures,

Colors,

Items.

And then beginning to find just a soft gaze out in front or even completely closing the eyes.

Just start by taking a deep,

Full breath in,

Filling up your lungs all the way to the top.

Letting that breath go maybe out through the mouth so that it leaves your body with a big sigh.

Do that one or two more times on your own.

Just letting the breath come into its own rhythm now.

Simply listening,

Hearing,

Taking note of any sounds that you're able to pick up on.

Sounds near,

Sounds far away.

The most subtle and quiet of sounds.

Expanding your awareness just a bit more,

What else can you hear?

And directing this awareness now into your body.

Starting with your head and just very gently scanning through,

Noticing any sensations,

Pleasant or unpleasant.

Even noticing areas where you might not have much feeling at all.

Moving your way down into your neck,

Into your shoulders,

Down your arms,

Into your wrists,

Hands and fingers.

And down through your torso,

Upper back and chest,

Mid-back and ribs,

Lower back and belly.

And down into your hips and the pelvis and slowly down your legs to your knees,

Your lower legs,

Ankles,

Feet and toes.

Simply noticing your whole body here,

Whatever position you find yourself in.

Can you simply feel your whole entire body at once?

Maybe observing a sense of comfortable heaviness,

A sense of settling in fully here.

Now just start to gather up your awareness and see if you can gently rest it on the experience of your breath.

Not even changing the flow of your breath,

Just simply noticing.

This part is really just about finding the space in yourself where you feel most connected to your breath.

For some it's around the tip of the nose and in the nostrils,

Really feeling those subtle physical sensations of breath moving in and breath moving out.

For others it might be more within the airway,

Noticing the subtle difference of temperature when you breathe in and when you breathe out.

Sometimes it's observing just the natural rise and fall of either your chest or your belly.

Really just finding the place where you can feel most connected to the experience of breathing and resting right there.

We'll do our best to stay right with this awareness with no judgment,

Knowing that it's no problem if the mind wanders.

It's quite likely that you'll catch yourself thinking sometimes about the silliest or most irrelevant things.

Anytime that you catch yourself wandering away,

Just come back to this space right here.

There's no way that you can do this incorrectly.

Settling onto the experience of your breath,

Just notice yourself breathing in and breathing out.

Breathing in and breathing out.

No matter how subtle the breath has become,

The breath doesn't necessarily need to be deep or full.

We're just observing the passive breath,

The breath that happens when we don't pay attention to it.

Except we're aiming to just be aware.

Breathing in and breathing out.

Just being that part of yourself that can just sit in the background watching thoughts as they come and go.

And breathing in and breathing out.

If at any point it feels like a challenge to stay anchored to your breath,

You can always add words along as you breathe.

Like I've been offering,

You can simply say to yourself,

Breathing in as you inhale and breathing out as you exhale.

Sometimes it feels helpful to count the breaths.

With an inhale,

You would start at one,

Exhaling to all the way until you get to ten,

And then starting over again.

Even as my voice chimes in periodically,

Just stay rested on your breath.

Knowing that there's no right or wrong way.

Knowing that even if the mind feels super full today,

Busy,

Loud,

Or even uncomfortable,

You're still doing so good by observing your breath,

By feeling and noticing and sensing your inhales and exhales.

Even if the mind doesn't feel quiet today,

By doing your best to stay with your breath,

You're still settling your nervous system.

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

Simply noticing where your mind went.

The mind has such capacity for thinking and dissecting and mulling over.

Sometimes we can be so good at staying anchored to the breath and even still there's just files and files of thoughts happening.

It's no problem.

This is part of being human.

Breathing in and breathing out.

When you're ready to change course,

The next time that you breathe in,

Make it a really big,

Really full,

Deep breath all the way down into your belly,

Fullest capacity on your chest.

Maybe even hold the breath just for a short moment and then sigh it out and let it go all the way out.

Do that one more time,

Gathering up a deep,

Full breath in all the way,

Even more,

Pausing.

Completely let your breath go all the way out.

One more time,

Filling up as much as you can,

The biggest,

Fullest breath yet.

Release.

Still staying here in this moment,

Just direct your awareness back into yourself and into your body again.

Observing where you feel settled,

Where you feel comfortably heavy,

And even taking note of any sensations you might be feeling.

Slowly just start to wiggle and stretch around.

Maybe shrug up your shoulders to your ears and drop them back and down.

Stretch your fingers,

Wiggle your toes.

Take one more deep breath in.

Inhale to the very tippy top.

With a big sigh,

Let that breath go.

When you're ready,

Gently opening your eyes,

Glancing around one more time.

When you're ready,

Continue on with your day.

I hope this practice felt helpful for you.

Reviews

Beautiful meditation. Thank you ✨

Thank you! Julia. Love you calming voice. Felt very relaxed after listening to you!

Breathing in ... breathing out ... So nice

Steady, calm, present voice and guidance. Great meditation!

Very nice. Loved it. Perfect pace, perfect voice.