This entry was posted on Apr 30, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
We’ve all seen idealized photographs 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 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 essential to do not forget that in mindfulness observe, the latter expertise doesn’t imply you’re doing one thing incorrect. 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 develop into overwhelming, mindfulness has an answer: a breath consciousness observe designed to calm the physique and thoughts.
Once I educate mindfulness programs, many new meditators doubt their means to observe. They’ll say, “Each time I sit all the way 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 an alternative 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 means.
We may be aware of the course of of pondering, as an alternative 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 generally, we have to sluggish the method down in order that we may be with the pondering course of with extra equanimity. That’s the place the breath consciousness observe I’m about to explain may 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 “huge reminiscence dump.” Beginning within the wee hours of the morning one night time, reminiscences started flowing, utterly uncontrolled, at a tempo I didn’t assume potential. Life occasions I hadn’t considered in many years had been flashing by way of my consciousness nonstop, and at warp velocity. None of it was traumatic, nevertheless it 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.
Learn how to Apply Calming Breath Consciousness
- Collect your props: a Meditation Cushion and Zabuton. If you happen to don’t have a Zabuton, you may place your Meditation Cushion on high of a pair folded Yoga Blankets for additional padding underneath your knees or ankles.
- Calm down into your sitting place and tune into your respiratory. Discover the place you are 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.
- 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 observe 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 observe for a couple of rounds originally of your meditation, or you may observe it for your entire period.
This breath consciousness observe could seem too easy to be efficient, however I’ve discovered it to be a necessary instrument in my meditation toolbox. You possibly can observe 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 observe it originally or finish of your yoga observe. It’s an particularly good option to start your Savasana (Remaining Leisure).
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started 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 revealed by Rodmell Press. Her third ebook 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.
