Breath Consciousness: A Calming Apply

We’ve all seen idealized pictures of meditation. Maybe it’s a younger lady on a abandoned seaside, fingers 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 might be peaceable. However typically, it’s marked by cascading ideas and recollections, uncooked feelings and/or bodily discomfort. It’s vital to do not forget that in mindfulness observe, the latter expertise doesn’t imply you’re doing one thing mistaken. These ideas, recollections, feelings and discomforts are merely what’s current. They’re, in a really actual sense, what there’s to be conscious of. However when these experiences turn out to be overwhelming, mindfulness has an answer: a breath consciousness observe designed to calm the physique and thoughts.

After I train mindfulness programs, many new meditators doubt their potential to observe. They’ll say, “Each time I sit all the way down to meditate, my thoughts goes loopy. My considering amps up greater than ever.” To that, I inform them that they’re not considering extra once they meditate; they’re as an alternative observing for the primary time what’s been occurring 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 manner.

We might be conscious of the course of of considering, as an alternative of getting caught up within the content material of our tales, recollections, worries and dramas. Mindfulness of considering is definitely one of many 4 foundations of mindfulness. However typically, we have to sluggish the method down in order that we might be with the considering course of with extra equanimity. That’s the place the breath consciousness observe I’m about to explain might be invaluable.

Breath Consciousness to the Rescue

On an 18-day retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Middle 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 night time, recollections started flowing, utterly uncontrolled, at a tempo I didn’t assume doable. Life occasions I hadn’t considered in a long time had been flashing by means of my consciousness nonstop, and at warp velocity. None of it was traumatic, but it surely grew to become exhausting after some time.

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

How you can Apply Calming Breath Consciousness

1. Collect your props: a Meditation Cushion and Zabuton. In case you don’t have a Zabuton, you’ll be able to place your Meditation Cushion on high of a pair folded Yoga Blankets for additional 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. After I observe 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. Apply this so long as you want. You possibly can observe for a number of rounds at the start of your meditation, or you’ll be able to observe it for all the length.

This breath consciousness observe could seem too easy to be efficient, however I’ve discovered it to be an important device in my meditation toolbox. You possibly can observe it any time—once you’re feeling impatient whereas sitting at a stoplight, once you’re within the midst of a difficult state of affairs, once you’re feeling stress or anxiousness, once you’re mendacity awake at night time, and naturally, when your thoughts is wandering throughout meditation. You possibly can observe it at the start or finish of your yoga observe. It’s an particularly good strategy to start your Savasana (Closing Rest).

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the creator of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Apply and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third e-book 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 Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards.