This mindfulness practice is your breathing anchor practice.
Where you root your awareness into the present moment.
Like an anchor that roots a ship to one place.
This will help you to dissolve anxiety,
Decrease stress and allow the body to heal in a relaxed peaceful state.
So to begin adopt as comfortable a position as possible.
It's often best to be sitting but you can do it in any posture standing,
Lying,
Sitting or even walking.
My guidance will assume you are sitting but adapt the instructions to whatever posture you have chosen.
Sitting with your back upright get relaxed with your spine following its natural curves.
See if you can establish a position that feels dignified,
Alert and yet relax.
And allow your body to settle,
To rest down into gravity.
Letting it be supported by the floor beneath you.
And gently close your eyes if that's comfortable.
This will help your awareness settle by lessening external distractions.
Gradually allow your awareness to gather around the sensations of your breath in your body.
Where do you feel the breath most strongly?
Be curious about your actual experience,
Letting go of what you think should be happening.
And being with your experience without judgment.
Now very gently rest your awareness within the whole torso.
Can you feel your belly swelling on the in-breath and subsiding on the out-breath?
Can you feel any movement and sensations with the breath in the sides and the back of the body as well?
Treadily inhabit your body a little more deeply with a sense of kindly curiosity towards whatever you are experienced as you breathe.
And remember to be accepting of whatever is happening.
See if you can cultivate a precise awareness of the sensations and movement of the breath in the body.
As they happen moment by moment,
Being careful not to stray.
Allow your awareness to be utterly receptive.
As it rests upon the natural movement of the breath in the body.
Allow the breath to be saturated with kindliness as it rocks and cradles the body.
Soothing any stress,
Pain or discomfort you may feel.
Now become aware of any thoughts and emotions.
And remember that mindfulness isn't about having a blank mind.
It's normal to think.
Mindfulness is the training whereby you cultivate awareness of what is actually happening physically,
Mentally and emotionally.
So you can credibly change your perspective and feel you have more choice in how you relate to life.
Can you look at your thoughts and emotions rather than from them?
Can you be aware of what you're thinking and feeling without either blocking experience or getting overwhelmed by it?
And remember thoughts are not facts even though we often think that they are.
As you develop perspective on your thoughts and emotions including undermining ones.
Can you let go of being so caught up into them?
And notice how they are continually changing.
One moment to the next.
Exactly the same way your breath is always changing.
Your thoughts and emotions are not as fixed as solid as you perhaps thought.
Using awareness of the moment and sensations of the breath in your body as an anchor for the mind over and over again.
Follow the breath all the way in and all the way out.
All the way in and all the way out.
Each time your awareness wanders as it will.
Simply notice and we turn to the breathing anchor time.
After time,
After time,
Moment by moment.
Making sure you are very kind and patient with yourself.
Even if you have to start again a hundred times.
It's okay.
This is what the training is all about.
And remember that each time you notice you have wondered.
Is a magic moment of awareness.
A moment where you have woken up from a distraction.
A moment of choice.
So when you catch yourself having wandered off.
You are succeeding in the practice.
Just as you are succeeding when you manage to stay with the breath.
So what's happening now?
What are you thinking?
Just notice and guide your awareness.
Back to the sensation of the breath in the body.
Over and over again.
And now gently begin to bring the breathing anchor practice to a close.
Opening your eyes.
And be aware of the sounds around you inside and outside the room.
Feel your whole body.
And gradually,
Gently begin to move.
Making sure you give yourself time.
To make a smooth transition from the breathing anchor practice.
To whatever you are doing next.
