Extended 3-Minute Breathing Space Meditation

This is an extended 3-Minute Breathing Space meditation from Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). It is intended to be used as a responsive step whenever you feel stressed or troubled and wish to briefly inquire into your experience. This extended version of the breathing space extends the instructions from the basic format to provide extra guidance to respond rather than react when feeling stressed or experiencing a challenging experience or emotional state.

Transcript

Beginning this extended breathing space meditation with taking an upright but relaxed posture and simply asking yourself,

What's happening in my experience right now?

Taking a moment to describe and identify what is happening right now.

Maybe a feeling of anger is arising or sadness or self-critical thoughts are here and just acknowledging that in your awareness.

Just whatever's here.

And in step two,

Redirecting your attention.

Directing your attention to just the sensations of breathing and maybe with the sensations of breathing just noticing and maybe naming internally.

Just as you're breathing in,

Noticing breathing in.

And as you're breathing out,

Just noticing breathing out.

Or maybe counting the breath.

As you're inhaling,

Counting.

Inhaling 1,

2,

3,

4,

5.

And then exhaling 1,

2,

3,

4,

5.

And in the third step,

Beginning to expand your attention from the breath and the sensations of the breath in your body.

Including the sense of your body as a whole.

Aware of your posture and your facial expression.

How it feels inside.

And then now if you choose to,

You could expand this step further.

And especially if there's some sense of discomfort or tension or resistance.

If you find these sensations are present,

You might bring your awareness to them with a sense of breathing into them on the in-breath with awareness.

And breathing out from them,

From the sensations on the out-breath.

And on this out-breath,

Just seeing if it's possible to soften and open to acknowledging whatever's here.

Maybe on the out-breath,

Just saying something like,

It's okay.

Whatever it is,

It's already here.

Just let me feel it.

Just let me acknowledge it.

Just internally acknowledging your experience to yourself.

And as this meditation comes to a close,

There's a possibility of bringing this expanded awareness into your day as it continues to unfold.