Our Daily Breathe: Practice Presence

Learn how to focus your attention using a simple technique you can practice for a few minutes daily. Give yourself the gift of space and time. 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 happy that you're joining me for our practice.

This is an opportunity for us to practice being present,

Practice focusing our attention,

And just practice giving ourselves space to simply be.

So I invite you to come into a nice comfortable position,

Whatever that might mean for you in this moment,

Sitting on a chair,

On a cushion,

Lying down,

If that would feel good.

Just go ahead and let everything go.

This is our time to meditate,

To be connected to ourselves and each other.

We can just give ourselves permission to let everything go.

Let's take a nice deep breath in through the nose,

Filling all the way up with breath,

And out through the mouth.

Deep breath in through the nose,

And out through the mouth.

One more nice deep breath in,

Filling all the way up with breath,

And just let it go.

As I take those nice deep breaths,

Usually my shoulders will travel upwards,

And when we exhale,

We can just let our shoulders drop.

Do any sort of movement that feels good,

That will help you release any tightness or tension that you might be holding on to,

Perhaps without even knowing it.

I like to give myself a couple of good shoulder rolls,

Gentle stretch of the neck or the lower back,

Maybe even shake out the hands.

Relax all the muscles in your face.

Sometimes it's helpful to even use your fingertips to give yourself a little massage in your forehead,

Your temples,

Underneath your eyes.

Just invite your body to release and relax and soften.

Your jaw,

We hold so much tension in our jaws.

Relax your tongue and your throat.

As you release your shoulders,

Go ahead and just feel your chest opening,

Almost like you're this feeling of being proud,

Heart open,

Belly soft.

Release the belly.

If you're sitting on a chair,

I invite you to keep your feet flat on the floor.

It helps you feel grounded and steady.

Hands can simply rest,

Palms down wherever they fall naturally.

Really just feel whatever it is that you're you're sitting on or lying down on.

Give your weight over to gravity.

Oftentimes we have this feeling of getting ready to stand up and do whatever's next.

I invite you to feel into the opposite.

We have nowhere else to go.

We're here right now.

We're dedicating this time and space to ourselves for our practice.

We can just simply sink in to ourselves and to this moment.

As you allow yourself to feel heavy,

I invite you to also allow yourself to feel light.

If you are seated,

You can imagine the top of your head just reaching upward.

You can even do that if you're lying down energetically.

Top of the head is reaching up toward the sky.

We want to come into a posture in which we're feeling alert but also relaxed.

It's a real fine balance between the two.

See if you can explore and find that balance.

This is mindfulness of body.

Just coming into this moment,

Feeling whatever it feels like to be in your body and allowing yourself to relax and soften.

I should also mention that I invite you to take a nice soft gaze with your eyes cast down if you've never tried an eyes open practice.

You're never trying to actually focus on anything in particular but allow all that you see to come in.

You're just inviting your entire field of vision in with a soft gaze.

If it feels more comfortable for you to close your eyes,

Definitely feel free.

We're going to come into mindfulness of breath.

Breath is our focal point,

Our object of attention.

It's always with us.

While there's no special breathing technique,

Just feel yourself breathing naturally.

Go ahead and just feel air coming into your body and air coming out.

Notice perhaps the rise and fall of your chest or your belly.

You could also rest your attention on the feeling of the air coming in and out of your nostrils.

I entire trunk of my body,

So my chest including my belly.

Sometimes it's helpful to even place your hand over your heart and the other hand on your belly to really just feel that movement of breath,

Your natural rhythm.

Breathing in and breathing out.

Another technique might be to even say silently to yourself,

I'm breathing in,

I'm breathing out.

That's what's called noting.

We're just simply sitting and breathing,

Feeling our body breathe.

It's more than just noticing or thinking about,

But we're actually feeling the rhythm of breath.

The final step before we come into our practice is mindfulness of mind.

We're going to continue to focus our attention on our breath,

Which means we can let everything else go.

Our mind will continue to make thoughts,

So in our meditation practice it's never about trying to turn off our brain,

Stop ourselves from thinking,

Change really anything,

But rather it's a practice of simply sitting with what is,

Allowing whatever thoughts might be happening,

Feelings,

Emotions,

Let them just be as they are.

And we can let them fade to the background because right now we're just sitting and feeling our breath.

We're resting our attention on those waves of breath and so everything else can just simply fade away.

And sometimes if those thoughts come and steal our attention away from our breath,

That's absolutely okay.

That right there is the practice.

The noticing that we're thinking,

That we've become entangled in thought,

And then all we need to do is remember that we have a choice and that we can just simply let go.

It doesn't matter what the thought is.

We're practicing bringing awareness to those thoughts so that we can simply acknowledge them,

Even thank them for being here,

And then just let them go.

Simple,

Very deliberate,

But also with a sense of gentleness,

A sense of softness.

Really our practice is about letting go and we simply come back to the breath.

We direct our attention back to the breath and we take a fresh start,

New breath.

We begin again,

Resting our attention on the breath.

Anytime a thought comes up to the point where we've forgotten about our breath yet again,

It's just another opportunity for us to practice letting go and coming back over and over again.

We can spend our entire practice noticing that we've forgotten about our breath.

We just 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 is to help each other give ourselves permission to just allow ourselves to be in the moment,

Practice being present.

This is how we learn to work with our mind so that we can spend more time actually being aware instead of on autopilot.

Letting our minds dance from thought to thought and just realizing that even if we have all the thoughts that we are actually not our thoughts.

They're just thoughts and sometimes when our thoughts might not be the most helpful or empowering thoughts,

This is also a reminder that we can choose new ones.

Thank you for being here with me.

I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your day and see you again soon.

Take care.