If you struggle to maintain your focus on the breath in the basic mindfulness meditation,
Do not worry.
This is to be expected and is totally fine.
The worst thing you can do here,
Other than stopping your practice altogether,
Is to beat yourself up over it.
I want to dig down on step four of the meditation instructions above that was,
If your mind wanders,
Gently return your focus back to the breath.
This instruction contains the real crux of mindfulness meditation.
We can say we are meditating correctly when we notice that our attention has wandered.
It is the act of noticing distraction and returning our attention back to the meditation object,
In this case the breath,
That will be the core focus of a lot of our initial mindful work.
So,
When you are practicing,
Do not get discouraged if your attention wanders.
Rather,
Take your noticing of that wandering as a small victory.
Each time you notice your mind has wandered,
You are improving your ability to focus and thus your mindfulness will improve.
With practice,
Your ability to maintain focus will naturally improve.
However,
There are three techniques,
Counting,
Labeling and intention setting,
That can be added to your meditation practice that will provide you with immediate improvements.
Counting.
Counting involves numbering each breath as you are taking it.
For example,
On your first breath,
You make the mental note,
1,
1,
1,
1.
On your second breath,
You make the mental note,
2,
2,
2,
2,
And so on.
Continue this counting up to 10 and then return to 1 and start over.
It is advisable that we only count to 10 because there is a temptation to get a high score,
Or alternatively to lose focus and find ourselves lost in thought and counting by rote.
Both states are of course counterproductive to attaining mindfulness.
Alternative approaches to counting involve using 1 on an in-breath and 2 on the out-breath,
Once again up to 10.
You could also choose to use the words in and out as a substitute to numbers.
I like to use counting at the start of formal sessions of my basic mindfulness meditation to settle into the practice.
Once I'm successfully able to count to 10 without losing my focus,
I take it that I'm adequately settled into the practice and can drop the counting for the rest of the session.
I also use mindful counting in response to anxiety or other symptoms of mental duress.
The idea being that 10 mindful breaths work as a quick and easy stop break to troubling thoughts.
Glimpse.
10 mindful breaths.
Turn your attention to the sensations of your breath entering and leaving the nose.
On your first breath,
Mentally repeat to yourself the word 1.
On your second breath,
Repeat to yourself the word 2.
Continue this process up to 10.
You can repeat this process as many times as you like.
Give it a try now.
Labelling.
Labelling involves taking a brief and broad mental note of the kind of distractions that you notice as they arise.
For example,
You may notice a memory of a childhood birthday party.
You label it as memory and then return your focus gently back to the breath.
Once you realise that you're distracted,
You simply label it as one of the following categories.
Memory,
Thought,
Physical sensation,
Which can include sounds or emotion.
If you notice it but cannot clearly define it,
Then label it as cloud,
As in a cloud of jumbled or undefinable mental phenomena.
I like to use labelling when I'm struggling to maintain my focus on the breath during a formal session,
As well as when I'm facing stress,
Challenging situations or interpersonal conflicts.
If I find that the current of my mind is,
For whatever reason,
Exceptionally turbulent,
I will start to label my mental phenomena as they arise.
This has the effect of both detaching me from the emotionality,
As well as forcing me to mindfully attend to the phenomena as it's arising,
Without being easily swept away by it.
The act of labelling it takes away its power,
Enabling me to return my focus to the breath or the situation at hand.
Glimpse,
Labelling.
For the next minute,
Turn your attention inwards.
As mental phenomena arise,
Simply label them into one of the following categories.
Memory,
Thought,
Physical sensation,
Emotion or cloud.
Give this a try now.
Intention setting.
Appropriately preparing ourselves and our environment for formal meditation will greatly assist the effectiveness of our practice.
The section,
Meditation preparation,
Will go into depth on this,
But for the moment,
It's enough to set ourselves an intention prior to beginning.
This will be a simple statement,
Read out loud or internally remembered,
That reminds us of what we are about to do,
Why we are doing it and why it is necessary for success.
Use the following words,
Or better yet,
Make up your own.
Intention.
For the next few minutes,
I will be mindfully meditating to improve my calm,
Clarity and focus.
I will gently return my focus back to the breath for the duration of the session.
This talk was taken from the book,
Mindfulness,
A guidebook to the present moment.
