We’ve all seen idealized photos of meditation. Maybe it’s a younger girl on a abandoned seashore, arms 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 put up—an individual with serene countenance, fingering mala beads in deep contemplation. It’s true that meditation could be peaceable. However generally, 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’s to be aware of. However when these experiences change 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 potential 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 a substitute observing for the primary time what’s been occurring of their minds all alongside. I clarify that mindfulness will not be about stopping your ideas. It’s about coping with your ideas in a skillful manner.

We could be aware of the course of of considering, as a substitute 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 gradual the method down in order that we could be with the considering 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 a couple 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, utterly uncontrolled, at a tempo I didn’t assume attainable. Life occasions I hadn’t considered in many years have been flashing by my consciousness nonstop, and at warp pace. 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 would possibly have the ability 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.

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 below your knees or ankles.
2. 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.
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 apply 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 apply for a couple of rounds originally of your meditation, or you may apply it for your entire length.

This breath consciousness apply could seem too easy to be efficient, however I’ve discovered it to be a vital software 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 state of affairs, whenever you’re feeling stress or anxiousness, whenever you’re mendacity awake at evening, and naturally, when your thoughts is wandering throughout meditation. You possibly can apply it originally or finish of your yoga apply. It’s an particularly good solution to start your Savasana (Remaining Rest).

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started educating in 1986. Charlotte is the creator of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Follow 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 Purple Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards.