Breathing Space: Finding Peace In A Frantic World

The 3-Minute Breathing Space is a short meditation, providing space to pause, step out of automatic pilot and reconnect with the present moment experience. This practice can be very useful in moments of stress, frustration, or unpleasant situations when negative thought patterns arise, that can so easily trigger you into a downward spiral of emotional reactivity. You can practice this anytime and anywhere.

Transcript

In this short practice,

I'm going to be guiding you through a three-minute breathing space meditation.

Begin by becoming aware of your posture.

Deliberately adopt a posture where your spine is long and self-supported.

You may be sitting or standing.

If possible,

Close your eyes,

Or simply lower your gaze,

And then bring your awareness to your inner experience,

And acknowledge what is going on in your experience right now.

What thoughts are there?

Simply seeing the thoughts as mental events,

As best you can.

What feelings,

Emotions do you notice right now in this moment?

Maybe turning towards any sense of discomfort or unpleasant feelings that you notice,

And simply acknowledging them without trying to fix them or make them different.

Just be with them however you find them.

What body sensations do you notice?

Perhaps a quick scan through the body,

Picking up any sensations of tightness and acknowledging those,

Not trying to change them.

Step two is to gather and focus your attention on the breath.

Start to notice the physical sensations of the breath.

How do you know that you're breathing?

You might notice the breath in the belly as it comes in and it goes out.

Or you might notice the breath in the chest or the nostril.

Each breath an opportunity for you to anchor yourself in the present.

And if the mind wanders,

No bother.

Simply escort the attention back to the sensation of the breath.

The third and final step is to expand your attention to the whole field of awareness around your breathing,

Including a sense of your body breathing as a whole.

Your posture,

Your facial expression,

As if the whole body is breathing.

Become aware of any sensations that you notice,

Any tension,

Any discomfort.

Feel free to bring that focus of attention right in to whatever you notice the most.

And this you are helping to explore the sensations,

Maybe get a sense of befriending them,

Rather than trying to change whatever is turning up for you in any way.

If they stop pulling for your attention,

Return to sitting aware of your body,

Sitting here or standing here moment by moment.

And when you are ready,

Moving on with your day,

Opening your eyes.

Thank you for practicing with me.

Reviews

An absolute refreshing resetting gift mid-afternoon when a bit frazzled and tired!