This entry was posted on Apr 30, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
We’ve all seen idealized photos 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 submit—an individual with serene countenance, fingering mala beads in deep contemplation. It’s true that meditation could be peaceable. However typically, it’s marked by cascading ideas and reminiscences, uncooked feelings and/or bodily discomfort. It’s necessary to do not forget that in mindfulness apply, the latter expertise doesn’t imply you’re doing one thing fallacious. 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 apply designed to calm the physique and thoughts.
Once I educate mindfulness programs, many new meditators doubt their means to apply. 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 occurring of their minds all alongside. I clarify that mindfulness isn’t about stopping your ideas. It’s about coping with your ideas in a skillful method.
We could 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 typically, we have to gradual the method down in order that we could be with the pondering course of with extra equanimity. That’s the place the breath consciousness apply I’m about to explain could be invaluable.
Breath Consciousness to the Rescue
On an 18-day retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Heart just a few years in the past, this breath consciousness approach helped me navigate what I can solely describe as a “huge reminiscence dump.” Beginning within the wee hours of the morning one night time, reminiscences started flowing, fully uncontrolled, at a tempo I didn’t suppose potential. Life occasions I hadn’t considered in a long time have been flashing by means of my consciousness nonstop, and at warp velocity. None of it was traumatic, however it grew to become exhausting after some time.
After a number of hours of experiencing this reminiscence dump, I remembered a breath consciousness apply that I believed may be capable to gradual issues down a bit. It’s a quite simple apply that I’d heard on an instruction CD by creator/Perception Meditation trainer Joseph Goldstein. After only a few minutes of apply, the entire rapid-fire film slowed down, and I felt a deep sense of calm.
Apply Calming Breath Consciousness
- Collect your props: a Meditation Cushion and Zabuton. When you don’t have a Zabuton, you possibly can place your Meditation Cushion on high of a pair folded Yoga Blankets for further padding beneath your knees or ankles.
- Loosen up into your sitting place and tune into your respiration. 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 respiration, 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. Once I apply 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.
- Apply this so long as you want. You possibly can apply for just a few rounds at the start of your meditation, or you possibly can apply it for the complete period.
This breath consciousness apply could appear too easy to be efficient, however I’ve discovered it to be an important software in my meditation toolbox. You possibly can apply it any time—once you’re feeling impatient whereas sitting at a stoplight, once you’re within the midst of a difficult scenario, once you’re feeling stress or nervousness, once you’re mendacity awake at night time, and naturally, when your thoughts is wandering throughout meditation. You possibly can apply it at the start or finish of your yoga apply. It’s an particularly good method to start your Savasana (Ultimate Leisure).
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced educating in 1986. Charlotte is the creator of Aware Yoga, Aware 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 folks sextet Crimson Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards.