Hello everyone and welcome to the daily pause.
The intention behind this experiment or challenge,
Whatever you want to call it,
Is to become familiar with the simplicity of mindfulness practice.
In essence,
What you will be doing is training your mind.
You will be training your mind to make it more attentive,
Resilient,
Productive,
Grateful,
Compassionate,
Calm,
All those qualities that are in the foundation of your well-being.
Just like when you're going to the gym to train your body,
You start with the biggest groups of muscles.
In our body,
If I'm not mistaken,
It's our core,
The abs.
When we're training our mind,
We also start with the main muscle.
In this case,
It's our attention.
Every practice starts with training attention.
It may not be simple at the beginning,
But I promise you,
Just like in a gym,
It may look very difficult to do some of those moves and exercises.
It becomes easier with time.
So,
Let's do our practice.
You may be sitting at your desk.
You may be moving yourself to the armchair,
To the couch,
Doesn't really matter.
If it is comfortable,
I do invite you to close your eyes.
Perhaps take a breath,
Complete exhale.
See if you can direct your attention and become aware of your feet.
Become aware of your feet touching the ground.
Now,
See if you can become aware,
Direct your attention to the connection of your chair and your body.
You may sense the weight of your body and support beneath you.
Now,
See if you can become aware of your shoulders,
Perhaps soften your shoulders.
Now,
See if you can bring your attention into your hands and soften the palms of your hands,
The fingers.
See if you can soften muscles of your eyes,
Your face.
Now,
Your body is calm,
It's in stillness.
See if you can notice your body breathing.
There's no need to change anything.
You're just aware,
You direct the light of your attention towards the very subtle act of your body breathing.
If at any moment it is uncomfortable or triggering,
You can always open your eyes or shift your attention again to feeling your hands or your feet.
And if feeling and sensing your body breathing is comforting and calming,
See if you can keep exploring it,
Observing it,
Watching it.
Notice where is your breath most obvious?
Is it at your belly and maybe at the tip of your nose?
And sometimes you may notice that your mind has wandered,
You're distracted,
You're thinking about your next to-do list.
This is normal.
Thoughts are not a problem.
Every time you notice that your attention drifted,
You make a choice,
You bring it back,
You bring your attention back to the sensing and focusing and watching your breath,
The movement of your belly.
Or if breath is not comforting enough,
Then simply sensing your hands,
Your feet.
And this is your practice.
This is your training.
Sat It may not be easy.
You may recognize that your body is restless and you want to do something.
Something very unfamiliar to be calm and not doing much.
And yet for just another few seconds you're observing,
You're acknowledging that,
Aha,
Your body is restless or there's lots of thoughts and there's lots of energy that needs to be doing something.
And then again you feel that breath and feel those feet,
Sense those hands.
And that's it.
Simple.
Your body is always present.
Our mind is like a time traveler.
It wants to go places.
It wants to travel.
Every time you remind yourself to feel and sense your body,
Even through your daily life,
Through your daily routine,
This is the moment when you come back right here to feeling your feet and feeling your hands and breath.
This is the moment when you are in the present moment.
This is your pause.
It doesn't need to be long.
It doesn't need to be many minutes.
It may be just a second.
In your own time,
See if you can open your eyes if they were closed.
And yet this is the most important moment of the practice.
See if you can still observe the calmness,
The moment of stillness that's sort of around you and inside of you.
And perhaps from this moment you may set an intention,
What is the next thing you want to do next?
Maybe it's go and get some water,
Or maybe go and get some tea or coffee,
Or maybe make a call,
Finish that email.
But this decision is coming from a place of calmness,
Awareness.
And thank you.
And I'll see you next time.
