Hello and welcome to this short guided breath awareness practice.
Now breath awareness is simply when we become more aware of how we're breathing without necessarily changing anything in that moment.
So breath awareness is always where we start and because it's a practice of awareness,
Although we're going to be going through a guided version today,
This is something you can implement in your life day to day,
Moment to moment,
Any time that you want to notice how your breath is changing or shifting based on how you're feeling mentally,
Physically or emotionally.
So for this practice just take a seat anywhere comfortable,
Anywhere you're supported,
Somewhere you're not going to be disturbed and when you found that place just begin to close your eyes.
Just take a moment to arrive,
To settle in.
Noticing how it feels to just stop for a moment and then just begin to tune into your breath.
Just observing that flow of air in and out of your body.
How's it feeling right now in this moment?
What do you notice about your breath?
How does it feel in your body?
Maybe you're noticing the length of your breath.
Perhaps it's a little short and sharp or maybe it's slow and smooth or perhaps it's somewhere in between.
There's no judgment here,
Just noticing,
Just tuning in.
Becoming aware of any movement in your body when you breathe.
How does your entire body move as that air flows in and out?
What parts of your body specifically are moving?
Is it your chest?
Is it your stomach?
Is it your shoulders?
Perhaps you're even able to tune into the really small details,
That slight movement on the tip of your nose or any other subtle sensations that you can associate with movement.
There may be some pauses in your natural breath at the moment.
There may be some sound and there might also be some temperature.
Maybe that feeling of coolness as you breathe in and warmness as you breathe out.
In this practice,
You're really just becoming friends with your breath,
Getting to know all the nuances or the unique characteristics of your breath.
And lastly,
Just notice how it feels to you to breathe,
To just be breathing,
To focus on your breath.
Is it comforting,
Overwhelming,
Restricting,
Joyous,
Whatever it might be,
Just honor whatever comes up.
Notice how it feels.
There's no right,
There's no wrong.
And finally,
Just take a few more breaths and just appreciate for a moment that ability to breathe.
Be thankful that your breath is always there to come back to.
And then noticing how you feel perhaps after five minutes of breathing or noticing your breath,
You can begin to,
In your own time,
Open your eyes and come back into the room that you're in or the environment that you're in.
And so this is a really foundational practice when it comes to the breath and to nervous system regulation.
And so this is a practice I'd recommend that you keep in your mind throughout your day and just check in with your breathing.
It holds a huge amount of information for you.
And by noticing over time,
Different patterns and different elements of your breathing that we touched on there,
As we come on into future videos and guided sections,
You'll begin to be able to shift and change the way you're breathing to influence your nervous system and how you feel and your state of calmness or alertness or whatever it is you're looking to cultivate in your day.
And so I hope that was a really useful start and tune in for the rest of the day to your breath and see how that feels.
All right,
Speak to you soon.
