3 Minute Breathing Space - Resource Yourself

This is a really helpful short mindfulness practice you can slot into your day as a pause to resource yourself.

It's in 3 parts: 1) Check inside to see how you are doing: emotions, body, thoughts. 2) Bring awareness to the sensations of breathing, to bring focus to our attention. 3) Expand the awareness to the whole body.

And then, take this refreshed higher level of mindful awareness into your next activity. What a gift to yourself, and those you interact with.

Transcript

Welcome to this three minute breathing space, Which is a great way to have a bit of a pause in our day. Check in to see how we're doing, Gather ourselves and then to continue after the break better resourced and taking mindfulness forward into our next activity. So the first of the three parts is to do a sort of internal weather check. So just looking inside and seeing how you're doing. How are you feeling emotionally? How is the body? And how is your mind, Your thoughts? So just checking in with yourself to see how you're doing. And not trying to change anything and as much as possible not judging what we find. Just noticing, Bringing awareness to our internal state. And with a sense of kindness towards ourselves. And in the second part we gather our attention to focus on the physical sensations of breathing. And I recommend focusing on the sensations in the belly. So just noticing the physical sensations as the belly expands, As the breath comes in, Little pause, And then the sensations as the belly contracts, As the breath goes out, And the pause before the next in-breath. Just following the breath all the way in, And all the way out. And if your awareness wanders off into thinking, That's completely natural, Completely normal. Just gently bring it back to the sensations of breathing. Breath coming in. The breath going out. And then for the third and final part of this practice, We expand the awareness to include the whole body. So a sense of the whole body sitting or standing or lying, With the breath coming and going, Being aware of the body right from the head all the way down through the torso and the legs down to the feet, And including the arms and the hands. Again bringing this sense of kindness towards ourselves in our awareness. Awareness of the whole body sitting or standing. And then the invitation as the practice comes to a close is to have a sense of this gathered feeling from doing this short practice. So we've checked in with how we're doing, We've just brought a bit of focus to our awareness and then having a sense of ourselves, Mindfully aware, Taking this sense forwards as we continue our day.