And the first simple step is to become aware of your breath.
Feel the breath in your body.
Explore all the sensations of your breath.
And see if you can just gently hold your breath lightly in the center or the foreground of your awareness.
And you don't need to make any effort at all to try and concentrate or focus on the breath to the exclusion of anything else.
So allowing everything else that's happening in this moment,
Thoughts,
Feelings,
Sounds,
Etc.
Just to be there just slightly in the background,
Choosing to take more interest at the moment with the breath.
Just holding the breath towards the center of your awareness.
And exploring how your breath feels in the body as you breathe in and out.
The second step is to realize that you could choose to change your breath.
You could choose to breathe more deeply or more slowly.
But what does it feel like to be aware of your breath whilst consciously deciding not to change the breath?
So allowing your breath just to be as it is.
So actively engaging with the breath in the sense of being aware of the breath and choosing not to change the breath.
This will be a particularly useful step to get onto the thoughts later.
So good to practice with the breath.
Aware of the breath and choosing not to change the breath.
The third step is just to reinforce that by just checking we're not maybe unconsciously restricting or limiting the breath in any way.
Maybe with some residual tension in the body.
So the third step is to have the thoughts and intention to really allow the breath in each time you breathe in.
So allowing the breath in without limiting or restraining the breath in any way.
And to really let go and release the out-breath without holding on to the breath in any way.
So spending a few moments now with the breath just with that thought to allow the breath in as freely and as fully as it wants to.
And to really release and let go of the breath without holding on to it at all.
How does that feel?
And the fourth step is to see if you can get a sense of the breath flowing through the body.
Feeling that rise and fall of the breath in the body and allowing the breath to flow completely freely through the body.
And the fifth and final step for the breath is to see if you can experience the body being breathed by the breath rather than feeling that you are doing the breathing.
Allow the body to be breathed by the breath.
See how that feels.
Okay,
So we're now going to take this approach.
We've practiced with the breath and applied to our thoughts.
We're often a lot more identified with our thoughts than our breath.
A lot more bothered about what the content of our thoughts are compared to how we're breathing.
So the challenge now though is to approach the thoughts in the same way as the breath.
So the first step with the thoughts is to simply become aware of your thoughts.
Become aware that you are thinking.
And as before,
See if you can just gently and lightly hold your thoughts in the central foreground of your awareness.
Keeping your awareness nice and open,
Not excluding anything else that's happening in this moment.
Breath,
Sensations of the body,
Emotions,
Feelings,
Sounds,
Distractions.
They're all still there,
They're all still welcome.
I'm choosing to pay a bit more attention at this time to the experience of having thoughts.
Aware of myself thinking.
And notice how that feels.
For me it seems to be quite a different experience to be thinking with this particular awareness on the thoughts compared to normal everyday thinking.
So getting used to this new experience of thinking whilst being aware of our thinking.
And the second step with the thoughts is to not try and change your thoughts in any way at all.
So don't try and think less,
Don't try and think more calmly,
Don't try to think more slowly,
Don't try to think positively.
Be aware of your thoughts whatever those thoughts are,
It really doesn't matter the content of those thoughts.
It's more about becoming familiar with that experience of being aware of your thoughts as they occur and being completely disinterested in the content of the thoughts.
So with this step we can genuinely welcome any thought at all to come into the mind.
We're really setting our thoughts free without any pressure or expectation as to what those thoughts are.
And that takes us to the third step,
See if you can get a sense of these thoughts flowing freely through the mind.
So just one thought following the next,
Simply choosing not to engage in any particular thought to be that interested in what the thoughts are.
So just leaving them free to come and go through the mind.
Maybe getting a sense of a flow of thoughts like water flowing in a river or clouds floating across the sky.
And the fourth step for the thoughts as we did with the breath,
Rather than feeling like you are doing the thinking,
Can you experience the thoughts occurring happening to you,
The thoughts coming to the mind without you having to make any effort at all to make that happen.
So as we were experiencing the body being breathed by the breath earlier,
Just experience the thoughts occurring to the mind without any effort needed from yourself whatsoever.
And the fifth and final step for the thoughts as we did with the breath,
The final step for the thoughts is to have your awareness so light and open and to be so alert and interested and welcoming that you can notice and catch the arrival of each new thought as it comes into your mind.
So we are really not interested in the current thoughts,
The past thoughts,
The thoughts that have already arrived.
Once the thought is there,
Completely disinterested in it,
It can stay around or go,
It really doesn't matter.
Always turning the attention,
Your awareness and that alertness and that welcoming attitude to what the next thought might be,
Being open to catch and notice the arrival of each new thought in your mind.
Completely disinterested in our current thoughts and the thoughts that have passed,
Turning your full attention and interest to what the next thought may be.
And as soon as that has arrived,
What's the next thought going to be?
If no thought comes for a moment,
Then you'll probably have the thought,
Oh there's no thought come,
So that's the next thought you've had that you've caught.
And then what's the next thought after that going to be?
Really pay attention to the process and the experience of relaxation in the body by choosing a part of your body.
In the shoulders downwards,
It could be a hand or foot,
Arm or leg for example.
Really pay attention to the process of you choosing a part of your body,
Deciding you want that part of your body to relax,
Allowing that to happen and then really feeling the experience of that relaxation response in that part of the body.
Maybe quite a subtle experience if you're already quite relaxed.
You can exaggerate the sensation for this part of the exercise by,
For example,
Tensing,
Clenching a fist and then relaxing and feeling that relaxation response in the hand.
I'll just give you a few moments to do that a few times with the same or different parts of the body.
Maybe just to draw your attention to exactly what happens and how it feels to relax a part of the body.
Okay,
So now if you want to bring your attention to your face,
You can wear all the muscles across the face around the eyes and forehead,
Mouth and the jaw and then allow your face to relax completely and really notice how that feels to totally relax the face.
Moving our attention to the top back and sides of the head and doing exactly the same,
Just allow all these parts of your head to completely relax.
Notice how that feels.
And now approaching your brain in exactly the same way as you would any other part of your body.
Allow your brain to completely relax.
How does it feel to allow your brain to be totally relaxed?
So allow your breath to flow freely through your relaxed body and allow your thoughts to flow freely through your relaxed brain.
Free flowing thoughts and breath through your relaxed body and brain.
