Guided Breathing To End Your Week
“Guided Breathing to End Your Week” is a space to pause, take a breath, and let the weight of the week soften. I’ll walk you through a simple breathing practice that helps settle the nervous system and create a little more ease in the body and mind. By the end, you’ll feel lighter and more grounded, and hopefully ready to step into the weekend with a fresh start.
Transcript
I'm going to go ahead and get started.
Welcome.
My name is Olga.
And I am a yoga and meditation teacher.
I'm very new to Inceptimer.
So thank you for making it so far,
Such a pleasurable experience.
And I can't wait to just have this,
This moment.
So for today,
I really wanted to just kind of have a moment to,
You know,
End the week in in a positive light,
Just kind of taking some time for ourselves to reflect,
To let go of whatever needs to be let go of and just kind of make room for,
For renewal,
Just make space for the upcoming week.
And just also,
To be honest,
The upcoming year,
Which is crazy.
But,
Yeah.
Thank you.
I'm very grateful for everyone.
Um,
So we will begin with a little bit of breath work.
So just equalizing our breath,
We want to just set the tone for the rest of the time.
So the breath work we'll do today is going to be the box breathing.
For those of you who are not familiar with it,
It's like,
We will try to make the breath as equal as possible by making the inhales the same time as the exhales.
So we will work with four second counts.
So we'll just inhale through the nostrils for four seconds.
We'll pause and retain the breath for four seconds.
Then we'll exhale for four seconds.
And we will retain the breath for four seconds.
So it will be four,
Four,
Four,
Four.
That is why this is referred to as the box breathing.
So go ahead and find a comfortable seated position.
So however,
That looks like for you,
Whether it is in sukhasana,
An easy cross-legged seat,
Whether you want to be sitting on a chair upright,
Whether you need some cushions like I do,
Or a block,
However,
That is just take a moment here.
Grab yourself whatever you need,
Have a sip of water and make yourself as comfortable as possible.
Whenever you're ready,
I invite you to soften the gaze or perhaps just completely close your eyes.
If that is something that you work with in your practice.
And just allow the palms to drop over your laps.
And start to tune inwards.
Start to send your attention towards yourself.
Start to allow the sounds around you to ease into the background.
You want to be upright,
Yet comfortable and relaxed.
And just know that for the next 25 minutes,
All you have is your own breath.
Nothing else to do,
Nowhere to go.
Just you in this space,
In this moment.
So we'll take a deep inhale in and release fully.
Inhale,
Deep through the nose,
Exhale,
Let it all go.
Empty yourself out completely.
And we'll inhale for one,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold the breath.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Exhale,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Retain,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Inhale,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Exhale,
Retain for one,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Exhale,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Retain the breath.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Inhale through your nostrils.
Hold the breath at the top.
Exhale through the nostrils.
Empty your belly,
Your lungs,
Your clavicles.
Hold at the bottom.
Inhale,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold it at the top.
Exhale,
Release it all.
Exhale,
Hold the breath.
Inhale,
Send air to your tummy,
Send air to your lungs.
Retain and hold for three,
Two,
One.
Exhale it out.
Retain the breath.
Inhale.
Inhale.
Hold the breath at the top.
Exhale for three,
Two,
One.
Hold it at the bottom.
Inhale,
Last round.
Retain the breath.
Exhale.
Retain the breath at the bottom.
And release completely.
Find your natural breathing pattern once again.
Notice how the air travels into the body through the nostrils.
Notice how it travels out through the nostrils.
Try to pay attention to what happens in the in-between moments.
What are the sensations occurring?
I invite you to take a moment here to set a sankalpa,
An intention for yourself.
So whatever resonates with you,
Whether it's something that you wish to let go of from this week,
A fear,
A feeling,
An emotion,
Whether it's something that you want to create space for,
Something that you want to invite.
Whatever your intention is,
Just repeating it to yourself.
Three times in your hands or out loud.
And then just pressing your hands in prayer and just bowing your head to really seal that intention.
Taking a deep inhale and exhale,
Releasing the hands and releasing the breath.
Coming back to that anchor.
Nearly following what's coming in and what's going out.
Checking in with the quality of the breath.
And asking yourself,
How was the quality of your breath this week?
Did you take any time to pause,
To breathe?
Did you take the time to notice its length,
Its duration?
And now that you are,
Is it the familiar breath?
Or do you feel any difference to how it has been throughout the week that is coming to an end?
Has your breath been shallow?
Has it been rushed?
Has it been long or short?
Has it been deep?
Just knowing that there is no right or wrong,
But that each and every breath is tied to a certain emotion.
We can learn so much about ourselves by noticing the quality of our breath.
So just taking a moment to reflect on that.
Take a moment now to mentally travel back to the beginning of your week,
To Monday.
And see if you can bring to your mind awareness,
Any images,
Any feelings,
Any emotions.
Perhaps you can do this for the remaining days of the week.
Seeing if you can work in chronological order.
Notice any events and any sensations that were tied to those events.
Any predominant sensations,
Perhaps anger,
Stress.
Uncertainty,
Self-doubt or joy,
Happiness,
Clarity,
Peace,
Excitement.
Perhaps all of them.
Just observing,
Observing here without attaching ourselves to them.
Observing them without judgment,
Without that mental tag of right,
Wrong.
Just knowing that every single emotion and every single sensation is as human as can be.
Were there any particular moments of challenge or difficulty through your week?
If so,
Just allow yourself some kindness and compassion.
It is truly in those moments where growth begins,
When growth happens.
Perhaps you can even become aware of how these emotions show up in your body.
How they show up and take space physically.
Do you feel it in your heart?
Do you feel it in your gut?
In your muscles around your shoulder blades or your jaw or your eyebrows?
Or perhaps the space between the eyebrows?
Wherever it shows up,
Tuning into that.
Once again,
Without judgment,
Without right or wrong,
Without craving,
Without aversion.
And just pure acceptance.
Whatever events happened this week served their purpose.
Whatever emotions were felt this week served their purpose.
Keep inhaling through the nose.
Keep exhaling through the nose.
Just one breath after the other.
That's it.
That's all you have to do is be aware of every inhale and be aware of every exhale.
And it is in this awareness that you start to notice the subtleness of the changes that happen in life.
So just taking this week as an example,
It is in these moments of awareness when we realize that everything is ever-changing.
Everything is in constant motion.
Everything is ever-flowing.
Just anchor yourself in your inhale.
Anchor yourself in your exhale with full presence and full awareness.
With every inhale,
See if you can breathe in whatever you intend to gain in the next week,
Whether that's wisdom,
Clarity,
Confidence,
Less doubt,
Positivity,
Joy.
See if you can imagine just breathing that in,
Filling your whole body up.
And with every exhale,
Just let go of anything that feels heavy or unresolved.
Just practice this for a few moments.
With every exhale,
Letting go of all of those emotions that did not serve us and that we want to release.
And before we end this meditation,
Asking yourself,
What are three things that I can think of that happened this week that I would like to take on to my next one?
What are three blessings that came my way,
That life threw my way,
And that I would like to take on boards with me?
What are three things that did not serve you this week?
And how can you work on just allowing space for new things?
How can you work on reducing the amount of space that those things took up?
Something that does help me is to just write down these things,
Just having a moment with myself every Sunday,
And just noticing what were the things that served me?
What were the actions that I did that made me the person that I want to be?
And which ones not so much?
Just remember that we're all work in progress.
So just keep working on yourself one breath at a time.
I would really like to thank you all for allowing me to guide you through this meditation.
But most importantly,
I would like you to thank yourself for just gifting yourself the biggest end of the year gift,
Which is presence and mindfulness.
Thank you so much for being here.
If you liked being guided by me,
I do invite you to check out my profile.
I do have some other meditations and Pranayama's birth work.
So yeah,
You can definitely do that.
And just know that you can always support me by perhaps buying me a cup of coffee or anything like that.
There is a donation option.
There is no way that I expected,
But it is,
Of course,
Welcome.
