breathing spaces

These short meditations are a great way to ground yourself throughout the course of your day. You start by bringing your attention to your body, wherever you may be seated or lying down, simply noticing with curiosity whatever is present. Next you can shift your attention to your breath, not controlling it in any way, again just resting your attention on the sensations, with curiosity and kindness. If you practice with your eyese open, you can rest your gaze in one spot on the video, or you may wish to allow sounds to be your primary point of focus. Whatever we choose, we pay attention without adding on. We rest in the bare experience of the sensations, the breath, sights, sounds, even our thoughts. 

If you find your mind racing, going off the rails, caught up in worries, fears, regrets, fantasies, these short meditations are a great way to step out of auto pilot mode. To bring ourselves back to the present moment, which is really the only place where we have any influence.
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Our meditation practice not only helps us to cultivate really keen concentration and focus, but there's also this really beautiful practice of love, kindness and self-acceptance when we come back to ourselves and to the present moment over and over again.

It goes something like this:

Each time the mind wanders,
we avoid giving ourselves a hard time.
We avoid calling ourselves nasty names
for having gotten distracted by
thoughts of the past, planning for the future, thoughts about our thoughts....
We have this other choice, 
to simply return,
to our breath, the sights and the sounds,
with love, kindness and curiosity for what's here now.

Even if it happens 100 times during the short 3 minutes.
Even 1,000 ties.
You kindly, gently, draw yourself back to whatever's here now.

Quieting down, focusing on the inhale and exhale, and anchoring ourselves in what's here now, tells the nervous system that everything is ok. That we are safe. The heart rate and the blood pressure lower.

Even if what's happening is not "ok", by coming face to face with what's present in any moment, we create a little bit of space around it. We expand a little instead of contracting. We loosen the grip, even just a little bit.

If you practice with the videos with your eyes open, choose just one spot upon which to rest your gaze. Instead of letting your eyes dart around the scene, focus on just one point and notice what's happening there, moment to moment to moment.

When the mind wanders as it will, bring yourself back.
Gently.
Be kind to yourself.