We’ve all seen idealized photographs of meditation. Maybe it’s a younger girl on a abandoned seaside, fingers in a meditation-friendly mudra, having fun with a sundown. Or perhaps it’s a picture just like the one on the high of this submit—an individual with serene countenance, fingering mala beads in deep contemplation. It’s true that meditation will be peaceable. However typically, it’s marked by cascading ideas and reminiscences, uncooked feelings and/or bodily discomfort. It’s vital to keep in mind that in mindfulness follow, the latter expertise doesn’t imply you’re doing one thing unsuitable. 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 turn out to be overwhelming, mindfulness has an answer: a breath consciousness follow designed to calm the physique and thoughts.

Once I educate mindfulness programs, many new meditators doubt their potential to follow. They’ll say, “Each time I sit all the way 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 once they meditate; they’re as an alternative observing for the primary time what’s been taking place of their minds all alongside. I clarify that mindfulness shouldn’t be about stopping your ideas. It’s about coping with your ideas in a skillful manner.

We will be conscious of the course of of pondering, as an alternative 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 typically, we have to gradual the method down in order that we will be with the pondering course of with extra equanimity. That’s the place the breath consciousness follow I’m about to explain will 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 method 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 doable. Life occasions I hadn’t considered in many years had been flashing by my consciousness nonstop, and at warp pace. None of it was traumatic, but it surely turned exhausting after some time.

After a number of hours of experiencing this reminiscence dump, I remembered a breath consciousness follow that I assumed may be capable to gradual issues down a bit. It’s a quite simple follow that I’d heard on an instruction CD by writer/Perception Meditation trainer Joseph Goldstein. After just some minutes of follow, the entire rapid-fire film slowed down, and I felt a deep sense of calm.

Easy methods to Follow Calming Breath Consciousness

1. Collect your props: a Meditation Cushion and Zabuton. For those who don’t have a Zabuton, you may place your Meditation Cushion on high of a pair folded Yoga Blankets for further padding beneath your knees or ankles.
2. Chill out into your sitting place and tune into your respiratory. Discover the place you’re 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.
3. Now, as you inhale, make a mild suggestion to calm the physique and calm the thoughts. Do the identical in your subsequent exhalation. Once I follow this, I merely say to myself “calm” every time I inhale and “calm” every time I exhale.
4. Really feel your physique/thoughts receiving this suggestion with every inhalation and exhalation.
5. Follow this so long as you want. You possibly can follow for a number of rounds firstly of your meditation, or you may follow it for the complete period.

This breath consciousness follow could appear too easy to be efficient, however I’ve discovered it to be a vital instrument in my meditation toolbox. You possibly can follow it any time—whenever you’re feeling impatient whereas sitting at a stoplight, whenever you’re within the midst of a difficult state of affairs, whenever you’re feeling stress or nervousness, whenever you’re mendacity awake at evening, and naturally, when your thoughts is wandering throughout meditation. You possibly can follow it firstly or finish of your yoga follow. It’s an particularly good solution to start your Savasana (Remaining Leisure).

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started educating in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Follow and Yoga for Meditators, each revealed by Rodmell Press. Her third ebook 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 people sextet Purple Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards.