So find a comfortable seat.
It could be a meditation posture or simply sitting at your desk in front of your laptop.
Once you get settled,
Close your eyes.
And we're going to take three nice deep breaths in through the nose,
Loud audible exhale through the mouth and really let yourself let go of something each time you exhale.
A tangible thing in your mind,
Whether it's fear,
Doubt,
Worry,
Inner critic stuff,
Terror over your manuscript,
Whatever it is,
Each time you exhale in these three breaths,
Let a different thing go.
Don't think about it too hard,
Just whatever comes to mind.
So first breath in and let something go out.
And next breath in,
Really filling that belly and let something go out.
And one last breath in,
Really nice deep luxurious breath in and let something go out.
Roll your neck around a couple times,
Roll your shoulders.
Just get comfortable and let your eyes close if they already are not.
You can just be in a comfortable posture right now.
Don't worry about perfect meditation.
We're going to start doing very simple breathing,
4,
8,
12 breathing.
We're going to do it for about 3 minutes.
And once you get comfortable with this recording,
You can just do it on your own,
On the fly,
As needed.
Sit,
Close your eyes and just go for it.
Three minutes is what you need in order to get the actual physical relaxation in your body.
For me,
That's about 10 rounds of 4,
8,
12 breathing,
But you'll see for yourself.
And as we go through it,
Just make sure that each inhale is the same.
So when you're inhaling,
Well you'll see as we go.
Okay,
Let's just get started.
4,
8,
12.
So 4,
8,
12 breathing is breathing in for 4 breaths through the nose,
Holding for 8 breaths,
Exhaling for 12 breaths through the mouth.
And what I meant by the exhales and inhales being the same length is the way that you count those numbers.
So when you're inhaling in for 4,
Maybe you count 1,
2,
3,
4.
So when you hold for 8,
You're not going to count 1,
2,
3,
4,
5.
You're going to count 1,
2,
3,
Right like that.
Alright,
So take a nice breath in,
Let it out.
And we'll get started,
Breathing in for 4 through your nose.
1,
2,
3,
4.
Holding.
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8.
Now exhale through your mouth,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12.
Now you might have felt when you did that exhale that you didn't have enough breath in you.
So just go as long as you can,
Eventually getting to the point where it is 12.
You'll kind of figure out your rhythm.
And the key is to have a really nice big inhale on that 4 count,
Really filling the belly so that you've got a lot of air to exhale.
Okay so that's the 4,
8,
12 breathing.
And you're going to do that with me now for 3 minutes.
I'm not going to count.
I'll count one more time and then the rest of the time you'll be doing your own counting.
If you don't sync up with me,
Don't worry about it.
And again,
When you do this on your own,
About 3 minutes.
Breathing in through the nose.
1,
2,
3,
4.
Holding for 8.
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8.
Exhaling for 12.
1,
2,
Through the mouth.
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12.
Okay and right into the next round.
Breathing in the nose for 4.
Exhaling for 8.
Exhaling through the mouth for 12.
And going right into your next round,
This is number 3.
Inhaling through the nose for 4.
Holding for 8.
Exhaling for 12,
Through the mouth.
And inhaling for your next round.
Nowhere to go,
Nothing to do,
Just following your breath.
Going at your own pace,
No need to rush,
Just following your breath.
The breath is cleansing your nervous system,
Calming you down,
Chemically affecting you right now.
And wherever you are in your round,
Finish that round up.
Whenever you finish that last exhale through your mouth,
Just let yourself sit for a few moments.
Really just enjoy this sensory expression that the breath has made in your body.
Just enjoy feeling it.
Allowing all that worry to be soothed a little bit.
Feel how it's physically altered,
The way your body feels right now,
And enjoy that.
Now if you want,
You can do more rounds.
I like to do a total of 10,
Doing 4,
8,
12,
10 times,
Or about 3 minutes.
You can do this as many times throughout the day as you want,
As needed.
It's also a great way to kind of ritualize your writing time if you want to do some 4,
8,
12 breathing before you begin writing to get focused,
And then maybe close out with some 4,
8,
12 breathing.
If the inner critic comes up,
If you start to panic,
Do some 4,
8,
12 breathing.
It's most effective if you do it for 3 minutes.
That's when your body is actually getting the benefit to the nervous system,
Scientifically.
So really give yourself the time.
You can set a timer on your phone,
Or if you figure out what your groove is,
You might just know how many times you need to do it to hit 3 minutes for your breath.
So whatever brought you to doing this practice today,
Just know writing is a marathon.
It's not a race.
There are good days.
There are bad days.
Flow days,
Dry days.
The important thing is to hold your seat,
Stay in your chair,
Trust the process,
Trust yourself,
Trust that you are worthy to be sharing stories with the world and that people need your stories,
And that you need your stories,
And that no matter what happens with your book,
With whatever project you're working on,
The gift is in the journey of writing it.
So just let yourself get in touch with that,
With why you write.
You're going to be okay.
It's going to be great.
Just take care of yourself.
Okay.
