Finding Your Center With Square Breathing

Terry introduces a new technique- Square Breathing, which balances the art of inhaling, exhaling, and remaining empty. This short meditation leaves one with a sense of peace and emptiness. Feel free to open up your mind and enter a space of self-awareness, mindfulness, and presence...

Transcript

Welcome!

Let's take a minute and breathe together.

That's right,

Breathe together.

We all know breathing is important.

Certainly it sustains life,

But more than that,

You'll find that most meditative and mystical systems involve the use of the breath or control of the breath.

So let me offer you a technique today.

It's called square breathing,

And by square,

It means that there's just as much time taken as inhaling and holding and exhaling and remaining empty.

And today we're going to use 3 by 3 square breathing,

Which means that we inhale for a count of 3,

Hold for a count of 3,

Exhale for a count of 3,

And then remain empty for a count of 3.

Let's do that together.

Ready?

Inhale.

2,

3.

Hold.

2,

3.

Exhale.

2,

3.

Empty.

2,

3.

That's one round or one cycle of square breathing.

And I'd like to suggest that you do 5 cycles in a row,

And you can even count on your fingers.

In fact,

Maybe it's better to count on your fingers than to try to keep the numbers in your head,

Particularly while you're counting.

So 5 cycles will take you 5 fingers of 3 by 3 square breathing,

And if you do 3 by 3 square breathing for a count of 3,

And you do 5 cycles,

You will have taken exactly 1 minute.

That's 1 minute that you step back from your life and your difficulties and your problems and your concerns.

That's 1 minute where you take control of your breath and your life.

This is particularly useful in stressful situations,

And if you find yourself with a spike of stress coming from inside or,

For that matter,

From outside,

What you can do is say,

Wait a minute,

And then take a minute and do 5 cycles of 3 by 3 square breathing.

And in that minute,

You will give yourself back control of your breath and maybe control of your life.

It really is that simple.

Try it sometime.

Got a minute?