Letting Go, Begin Again

In this short practice, the focus is on letting go and beginning again. The practice helps us to cultivate an ability to be with whatever life presents us, by letting go of a stressor, bringing our focus to the present moment, and stepping forward from there. Letting go and beginning again is foundational to our mindfulness practice. In dificult times, remembering this process can help us release stress from our internal experience, and bring us to a place of clarity.

Transcript

In today's meditation we're going to practice with letting go and beginning again.

This is foundational to meditation practice,

Letting go of whatever is distracting us or disturbing our focus from the present moment and committing to beginning again.

We'll start this process with a focus on the breath.

As you are in the position you've taken for this practice,

Bringing your awareness to your breathing,

Following each breath from beginning to end.

Breathing in,

Aware of breathing in,

Breathing out,

Aware of breathing out.

As you continue to be with the breath,

Just allow yourself to drop into this present moment space.

Noticing what's happening in your awareness,

Can you bring a curiosity and an openness to your practice?

And anytime you notice that your focus is not on the breath,

Simply and gently bring your awareness back to breathing.

Letting go and beginning again.

No matter how many times you find yourself lost in thought,

Memories,

Feeling a certain way,

Anytime you notice it's not the breath,

Gently bring your attention back to the breathing.

Each time we do notice that our mind has wandered,

It's an opportunity for growth.

Growth in our ability to be in the present moment,

To meditate,

To be mindful.

Growth in the potential for flow to occur,

Because flow only does occur by being in the present moment.

And also we're developing the ability to be with whatever life presents.

Instead of getting caught up in,

Swept away by,

Overwhelmed by life experiences,

We can take this perspective of letting go and beginning again.

If we start with small aspects of experience like the breath,

We can strengthen this muscle of mindfulness that will enable us in more challenging situations to do the same thing,

To let go,

To begin again.

You might like to take this phrase,

Let go and begin again,

Into the days ahead and perhaps use it as a little mantra so that as you do encounter obstacles,

Be they small or large,

As life presents itself to us,

We can remind ourselves about letting go and beginning again.

And in that process,

Bringing our focus to our breathing,

Bringing our focus to the present moment and stepping forward from there.

Thanks for joining in this practice.

Reviews

Excellent, thank you. And particularly good without distracting music in the background 🌟

I really enjoyed the straight-forward nature of this mindfulness practice. Being a person dealing with severe anxiety and PTSD, it was really helpful to me. I think this may become my go-to mantra/meditation when I start feeling my anxiety rise.

Perfect reset when your thoughts are stuck on that negative infinity loop.

Great reminder to let go of past and begin again.

Exactly what I needed today. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and guidance.

Short but super effective.

Shirt but sweet reminder about what our practice brings us back to - awareness. Thank you

Excellent, thank you. ☮️💟🕉

Simple, but powerful! 🙏🏽

Nice idea. Thank you.