This entry was posted on Apr 30, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
We’ve all seen idealized photographs of meditation. Maybe it’s a younger girl on a abandoned seaside, palms in a meditation-friendly mudra, having fun with a sundown. Or possibly it’s a picture just like the one on the high of this publish—an individual with serene countenance, fingering mala beads in deep contemplation. It’s true that meditation may be peaceable. However generally, it’s marked by cascading ideas and reminiscences, uncooked feelings and/or bodily discomfort. It’s essential to keep in mind that in mindfulness observe, the latter expertise doesn’t imply you’re doing one thing mistaken. These ideas, reminiscences, feelings and discomforts are merely what’s current. They’re, in a really actual sense, what there may be to be conscious of. However when these experiences grow to be overwhelming, mindfulness has an answer: a breath consciousness observe designed to calm the physique and thoughts.
After I educate mindfulness programs, many new meditators doubt their capacity to observe. They’ll say, “Each time I sit right down to meditate, my thoughts goes loopy. My pondering amps up greater than ever.” To that, I inform them that they’re not pondering extra after they meditate; they’re as a substitute observing for the primary time what’s been taking place of their minds all alongside. I clarify that mindfulness is just not about stopping your ideas. It’s about coping with your ideas in a skillful method.
We may be conscious of the course of of pondering, as a substitute of getting caught up within the content material of our tales, reminiscences, worries and dramas. Mindfulness of pondering is definitely one of many 4 foundations of mindfulness. However generally, we have to gradual the method down in order that we may be with the pondering course of with extra equanimity. That’s the place the breath consciousness observe I’m about to explain may be invaluable.
Breath Consciousness to the Rescue
On an 18-day retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Heart a number of years in the past, this breath consciousness approach helped me navigate what I can solely describe as a “large reminiscence dump.” Beginning within the wee hours of the morning one evening, reminiscences started flowing, fully uncontrolled, at a tempo I didn’t suppose potential. Life occasions I hadn’t considered in many years have been flashing by my consciousness nonstop, and at warp velocity. None of it was traumatic, nevertheless it turned exhausting after some time.
After a number of hours of experiencing this reminiscence dump, I remembered a breath consciousness observe that I believed would possibly be capable to gradual issues down a bit. It’s a quite simple observe that I’d heard on an instruction CD by writer/Perception Meditation instructor Joseph Goldstein. After only a few minutes of observe, the entire rapid-fire film slowed down, and I felt a deep sense of calm.
Learn how to Follow Calming Breath Consciousness
- Collect your props: a Meditation Cushion and Zabuton. Should you don’t have a Zabuton, you’ll be able to place your Meditation Cushion on high of a pair folded Yoga Blankets for further padding below your knees or ankles.
- Loosen up into your sitting place and tune into your respiratory. Discover the place you are feeling your breath most clearly—nostrils, chest or stomach—and let your consideration relaxation there. Really feel the method of respiratory, noting every inhalation and exhalation.
- Now, as you inhale, make a mild suggestion to calm the physique and calm the thoughts. Do the identical in your subsequent exhalation. After I observe this, I merely say to myself “calm” every time I inhale and “calm” every time I exhale.
- Really feel your physique/thoughts receiving this suggestion with every inhalation and exhalation.
- Follow this so long as you want. You may observe for a number of rounds at the start of your meditation, or you’ll be able to observe it for the complete period.
This breath consciousness observe could seem too easy to be efficient, however I’ve discovered it to be a necessary software in my meditation toolbox. You may observe it any time—if you’re feeling impatient whereas sitting at a stoplight, if you’re within the midst of a difficult state of affairs, if you’re feeling stress or nervousness, if you’re mendacity awake at evening, and naturally, when your thoughts is wandering throughout meditation. You may observe it at the start or finish of your yoga observe. It’s an particularly good method to start your Savasana (Closing Rest).
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced educating in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Follow and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third guide is titled Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Information to Defending the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Ache (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Journal and serves as editor for Yoga U On-line. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and folks sextet Purple Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards.