I'd like to offer a little bit of a mindful moment followed by a breath practice known as Nadi Shodhana or alternate nostril breathing and we'll just begin by orienting into where we're at with mindfulness being awareness of whatever the state of things is plus compassion deliberately applied from self towards that observation of whatever is.
To get a little a little bit of a lay of the land and then I will do a demonstration of alternate nostril breathing and then you can try it if you would like to and you can experiment with how that works for you and you can drop it at any point if you're not enjoying it and just come right back to a very simple practice of observing your naturally occurring breath with no effort applied to the breath and in either case we'll sort of come back at the end to that state of mindful awareness and so it'll give us an opportunity to sort of notice the beginning do this practice and then notice the end and see if there's any kind of a shift that happened from doing a little bit of alternate nostril breathing.
You may want to blow your nose before we do this so if you have a tissue you can go ahead and grab one and do that.
I invite you to close your eyes if that feels relaxing and supportive and if it's not relaxing to close your eyes you can just gaze gently downwards and find in your body your connection to the ground through your feet and your seat bringing your awareness to that sensation of connection the sensation of gravity holding your body on the earth and with an intention towards a sense of dignity in your posture see if you can gently elevate up through the spine and through the crown of the head inviting in a sense of balancing relaxation and alertness and as you sit with each breath just noticing your breath as it is mindfully observing your breath as it comes in and out of your body through the nostrils into the lungs expanding and releasing as you focus yourself on your naturally occurring breath will take just a few minutes to practice mindfulness compassionately observing whatever is true for you in this moment in your breath in your body in your mind in your heart and in the world pausing your compassionate awareness practice there we'll begin to pick up the alternate nostril breathing if you're familiar with alternate nostril breathing you can begin at any time if you're not familiar I'll talk a little bit about it the ancient yogis discovered in various experiments with the breath that if they alternated breathing in and out of one nostril at a time that it created a sense of balance a sense of ease and alertness that increased focus increased creativity and increased vitality and in modern time science has studied this and found that it does provide benefit to not just the nervous system but to the respiratory system to the heart rate which slows and how it does this is by connecting with the two hemispheres of the brain the right nostril is said to connect with the left hemisphere of the brain which is the side that is more connected with emotion and the left nostril is connected with the right hemisphere of the brain which is the logic hemisphere predominantly and so by deliberately interchanging the way that we breathe one to the other there's a balancing of these two hemispheres so to give it a try you can take your thumb and close off the right nostril breathing in through the left nostril take a additional finger close off the left nostril and breathe out through the right nostril then breathe in again through the open right nostril coming to full close the right nostril breathe out through the left nostril that's one round so we'll go again breathing in through the left nostril closing the right nostril holding on full closing off the left nostril breathing out through the right nostril pausing on empty breathing in through the right nostril pausing on full close the right nostril breathe out through the left nostril pause on empty and you can continue like that at your own pace if you get confused just alternating one to the other you don't have to be too precise you may notice as you continue that your breath extends and deepens and that the pause on empty and the pause on full may also extend and deepen if you feel any dizziness just let it go come back to your natural breath feel free to try again or not remembering as you continue to be deliberately compassionate I'll do about one more round ending with the exhale on the left nostril if possible and as you come to a close in your own time of your alternate nostril breathing practice you can come back to just a mindfulness awareness practice gaze is soft or eyes closed bringing attention to your natural breath noticing what you notice with non-judgment and releasing your effort just resting that completes our mindfulness practice and see if you can appreciate yourself for your efforts regardless of how that was for you just now
