Welcome,
I'm Jeroen from Move Your Mind and this is the first meditation of the Move Your Mind Fundamentals training in which you will learn to concentrate better and become more aware which is the basis of your personal development.
In this first meditation we work on our concentration while focusing on our breath and we use counting as an aid to get less distracted.
When you start to meditate it helps to pick a quiet spot.
When it's noisy then it's harder to concentrate and I would advise you to mute your phone.
Then let's start with the meditation.
You could meditate in any position you want but we are going to and that's also advisable to start with the sitting position.
If you are not able to sit you can also lie down.
When you sit you can sit on a chair or you can sit on a cushion or anywhere else and you can make it yourself as comfortable as you wish.
And it's good to have the intention not to move.
You're always allowed to move but to start with becoming aware of patterns and just for the sake of your meditation it's good to have the intention of not moving.
Now you may close your eyes,
Have your attention in your body and go to your back,
Neck and head.
This can be in a straight line,
Upright.
It's more important that it's relaxed,
Your body is relaxed so it doesn't have to be stiff upright but just upright in a relaxed position.
And now you can move your attention to your shoulders.
Are they relaxed or are they tensed?
And your body now,
Is it okay how you sit?
While you are sitting here with your eyes closed we are going to start with a little of a relaxing exercise and that's a deep breath in through the nose till your lungs fully expand and you can just slowly breathe in and then slowly breathe out till all the air is out.
Again through your mouth.
So you breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Very deep and slowly.
You may start with that.
Slowly fully in through the nose.
Once it's full slowly fully out through the mouth.
Till the air is all out.
Then again fully in through the nose.
Out through the mouth.
And you can continue with this controlled breathing on your own pace whichever feels good for you.
Now you may stop with the controlled breathing and come back to your natural breath.
The one you don't influence and you may breathe through your nose.
You may put your full attention to your breath somewhere in your body for instance in your nose or around or in your breast area or maybe in your belly and you pay your attention to what you feel in your belly while you are breathing in and out that it's expanding.
Maybe some pressure there while it expands and moving in again.
And you just follow that feeling in your belly while you are breathing in and out without influencing the breath.
For the rest of this meditation you keep your attention on this spot.
So in your belly,
Breast or nose.
And you just follow the in and out breath.
And we add one last thing and that is counting.
So we count to focus better on the in breath.
We can count one,
Mentally count one.
On the out breath count two.
On the in breath count three etc.
Till the maximum number you want to count,
For instance ten.
And then you start all over again with one.
Now please do.
Keep your attention on the breath.
So on the spot in your body where you feel the breath while breathing in,
Breathing out and you are counting.
Now it probably will appear that maybe you lost count and you were lost in your thoughts or maybe something else that you were distracted by a sound or your body.
This happens.
So you were distracted,
Your attention was drawn away.
Once you notice that your attention was drawn away,
You put it back again and you start on the in breath again with counting.
Try to focus on the breath,
Your training,
Your concentration by this exercise.
Every time you notice that you lost count or your attention was drawn away,
Don't be mad at yourself.
If you are mad at yourself,
Then it is good to see that you are mad at yourself.
But you don't have to.
It's better to just relax,
Say ok,
That's the state of my mind,
I was distracted and I bring it back to my breath and start all over again.
I am training my mind and this is the basis where I start and now I am going to improve it.
We have come to the end of this meditation.
Please for some moments keep your eyes still closed,
Bring your attention to your sitting position.
How is the body now?
How does it feel?
And you can congratulate yourself with doing this meditation and I wish you for the rest of day and nice day.
