Mindfulness: Being with your breath
Mindfulness: Being with your breath
Simple mindfulness practices engage the mind and the body, helping you to accept, let go and slowly brining you back to a sense of peace and calmness. Minding the breath can be like taming a wild horse. The desire is to tame it with gentleness and kindness, without breaking its spirit.
This is a ten-minute exercise that is also a podcast of mine. This exercise can be done at any time of the day, whatever time best suits you.
Find a peaceful place. You can sit on a chair or on the floor, or lean against the wall to support your spine. Keep warm with a shawl or blanket around you. You may wish to light a candle.
- Focus on the sensations where your body contacts the floor or chair. Exploring theses sensations; simply ‘feel’ into your body and let it breathe itself.
- Bring your attention to your chest and belly, feeling them rise gently on the in-breath and fall on the out-breath.
- Be with each breath for its full duration. You may even notice a short-pause after each breath, and also that each seems to have a life of its own.
- Your mind may wander-thinking, daydreaming planning or remembering- and lose touch with your breathing, but that is okay. Simply notice what it is that takes you away, then escort your focus back to your belly and the feeling of breathing.
- It is just as valuable to become aware that your mind has wandered and bring It back to the breath as it is to remain aware of the breath. After all, only a person being mindful will ever notice the wandering nature of the mind.
- At the end of your practice, please blow out the candle.
By Dr Farah Nadeem
