Our Daily Breathe: Focus Your Attention

Learn how to focus your attention using a simple technique you can practice a few minutes daily. Join me for Our Daily Breathe and create more peace and freedom in your daily flow. Together, we'll practice being present by focusing on the felt sense of breath.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to our daily breathe. I'm so glad that you're joining me for our daily meditation practice. This is an opportunity for us to create some space and time for ourselves to simply check in, Get a sense of how we're doing. Spend a few moments training our minds to focus on what's most important, Inviting in more daily peace and ease. And with that, I'd like to bring you into a nice comfortable position, Whatever might feel good in your body. Feel free to sit on a chair, Sit on the floor, Absolutely lie down if that feels good. Wherever you can start to allow yourself to just soften into yourself, Into the space. Start to just feel yourself breathing. Feel what it feels like to be in your body in this moment. Allow yourself to feel any points of tension, Any tightness that you might be holding on to. I always like to do a couple of nice shoulder rolls, Maybe a gentle stretch of the neck or the lower back. Whatever feels good, Whatever you might need to help yourself soften. Spend a lot of time moving from thing to thing. Spend a lot of time in our in our mind, Thinking this and that. This is really an opportunity to just drop in and be in your body. You can start to just really feel our body breathing. You don't need to change the breath. However you're breathing, Just let yourself be natural. Relax the shoulders, Soften the belly, Release your jaw, Release any tightness in your face, All the tiny muscles in the face, Under the eyes, Even relax your eyeballs. You can imagine them just softening. And so we're going to take a nice position, And as we soften into ourselves, We're also going to invite a sense of upliftedness with our shoulders, With our belly, With our neck, Upliftedness, Whether or not you're lying down or if you're seated, You can still imagine the top of your head reaching up, Sending the breath all the way from the top of the head, All the way down into your feet, Allowing a sense of lightness and groundedness at the same time. We're not going anywhere. We're simply sinking into this moment, Feeling our breath. Feel free to gently close the eyes or take a nice soft gaze cast down, Whichever you prefer. This is mindfulness of body, Just coming into the moment, Feeling whatever it feels like, To be in this moment. Next, We're going to move into mindfulness of breath. Breath is our focal point. And so when we start to just turn our attention to our breath, Actually feeling our body breathe, We can let everything else go. Everything from our day, We can just allow it to fade into the background. Because right now, We're just simply sitting and breathing, Focusing our attention, Letting everything else go. And so wherever you find yourself being able to rest your attention on the breath, For some of us, It might be the tip of the nose, As the air comes in and out. For some of us, You might really feel the breath coming in and out as the chest rises and falls. Rises and falls. Or our bellies. As we expand, We breathe in, Our belly fills with air. And then we release air goes out. Just simply rest your attention, Let yourself ride those waves of breath in and out. In and out. If it's helpful, You can even say silently to yourself, I'm breathing in. I'm breathing out. I'm breathing in. I'm breathing out. And this is mindfulness of breath. Last step is mindfulness of mind. Because we're focusing our attention on our body breathing, We can simply let everything go. And that includes our thoughts. So in our meditation practice, It's never about trying to stop ourself from thinking, Or to change our thoughts in any way. But rather, It's simply to acknowledge any thoughts that we have. So as we're focusing on our breath, It's natural for us to continue thinking to the point where we might forget about our breath. We've allowed ourselves to take a little dip into the river. And all of a sudden, We're down the rabbit hole, Right? We're somewhere else in our thoughts. And when we notice that we've forgotten about our breath, All we need to do is remember that we have a choice that we can choose to simply let go. We can acknowledge whatever thought that we're having, It doesn't matter what it is. We can simply acknowledge that we're thinking, And then we can choose to let it go. Just simply drop the thought. And then we come back to our breath. We come back to our breath and take a fresh start. We redirect our attention. And we begin again, New breath, Fresh start. And we do this with a sense of curiosity, A sense of compassion for ourselves. So we're not trying to have our practice be any other way than what it is, We can actually spend our entire practice thinking, Noticing that we're thinking coming back to our breath, That really is the practice, The noticing and coming back, Coming back to ourselves with a softness, With a deepening of our own sense of being in this moment. And we simply begin again. I'm going to set our timer for two minutes, And we will sit together and practice this technique. Simply let the technique go. Thank you for your practice. Thank you for practicing with me and each other. It's one of the most special things that we can do. Helping each other give ourselves permission to create space and time for ourselves to simply check in, Practice being present, Practice focusing our attention on what's most important. Invite a little more peace and ease into our daily flow. Thank you so much and until next time, Take care.