This entry was posted on Apr 30, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
We’ve all seen idealized pictures of meditation. Maybe it’s a younger lady on a abandoned seaside, palms in a meditation-friendly mudra, having fun with a sundown. Or possibly it’s a picture just like the one on the prime of this submit—an individual with serene countenance, fingering mala beads in deep contemplation. It’s true that meditation may be peaceable. However generally, it’s marked by cascading ideas and reminiscences, uncooked feelings and/or bodily discomfort. It’s vital to keep in mind that in mindfulness apply, the latter expertise doesn’t imply you’re doing one thing flawed. These ideas, reminiscences, 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 into overwhelming, mindfulness has an answer: a breath consciousness apply designed to calm the physique and thoughts.
Once I train mindfulness programs, many new meditators doubt their capability to apply. They’ll say, “Each time I sit right 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 taking place 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 approach.
We may be conscious of the course of of considering, as an alternative of getting caught up within the content material of our tales, reminiscences, worries and dramas. Mindfulness of considering is definitely one of many 4 foundations of mindfulness. However generally, we have to sluggish the method down in order that we may be with the considering course of with extra equanimity. That’s the place the breath consciousness apply I’m about to explain may be invaluable.
Breath Consciousness to the Rescue
On an 18-day retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Middle a couple of years in the past, this breath consciousness method 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 attainable. Life occasions I hadn’t considered in many years have been flashing by way of 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 apply that I believed would possibly have the ability to sluggish issues down a bit. It’s a quite simple apply that I’d heard on an instruction CD by writer/Perception Meditation instructor Joseph Goldstein. After only a few minutes of apply, the entire rapid-fire film slowed down, and I felt a deep sense of calm.
The way to Observe Calming Breath Consciousness
- Collect your props: a Meditation Cushion and Zabuton. For those who don’t have a Zabuton, you possibly can place your Meditation Cushion on prime of a pair folded Yoga Blankets for further padding beneath your knees or ankles.
- Calm down 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.
- Observe this so long as you want. You possibly can apply for a couple of rounds at the start of your meditation, or you possibly can apply it for the complete length.
This breath consciousness apply could seem too easy to be efficient, however I’ve discovered it to be a vital device in my meditation toolbox. You possibly can apply it any time—whenever you’re feeling impatient whereas sitting at a stoplight, whenever you’re within the midst of a difficult scenario, whenever you’re feeling stress or anxiousness, whenever 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 strategy 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 Observe and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third guide 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 gained two Emmy awards.
