Fiona Morris

Peebles, United Kingdom

Malcolm

Somerset, Massachusetts, USA

Melani F

Australia

Emily Winthrop

Breathe deeply into your belly to release stress and find a sense of sweet surrender and inner stillness.

Secular

Stress & Anxiety

Breathing Meditation

Stress

Concentration

Secular Mindfulness

English

In this time of mayhem and madness, life can just be a little too much. Come on in and join me as we gently sit and breathe. Find stillness and calm in our breathing. It all starts with the breath, the rest will truly follow.

with love
Susan

Just Breathe

 And just breathe, meditation. Sometimes we find ourselves where we are when there's very little we can do about it. In fact it feels like there's nothing we can do in our physical situation that we can actually change. When things just feel beyond our control. But to be fair, control is an illusory term at best. Well, what can we do? What can you do? What can I do? It's like being in a dark and unfamiliar room. We can feel vulnerable. We can feel scared. Maybe it's even a little helpless in our own entrapment. All of that is directing the energy we store outward to an outward threat or an unknowingness. And as understandable as that is, it's not necessarily a place we need to sit and certainly not all the time. What we can do is to help our bodies to release this holding, the alertness and the ready to act stance that we find ourselves in, garnered to action by the fight, flight, freeze response that we all hold. It's known and proven in various different research tomes that breathing is something that can help us drop down into our own sense of self, into a relaxation position, because it works with a parasympathetic nervous system which switches on and off all of this trauma response that we all carry at this time, I would think. So what I would like you to do, if you wish, is to join me on a very simple breathing meditation. There's nothing fancy. There's not an awful lot to do except to sit and breathe and be aware of it. So if you'd like to join me, please come. We're just going to have a really soft, gentle, guided breath practice, which will help us soften our clenched and battered cells. So come, meditate with me. So as you get ready to drop into your meditation, just allow your body to feel comfortable, unsupported and however it is you choose to sit or to lie. There's some sense and logic in having it so that you're not crunched up, so that your body can actually breathe and you're not restricting the flow of air in and out of your body. Beyond that, this is your practice and your time. I'm not here to judge you whether you're right or you're wrong. And when your body feels like it's going to support you as we breathe, just close your eyes and remove any extra stimulus that you really don't need to hold right now. And invite in the possibility of bringing your intention inwards. And just breathe. And hold your breath with a gentle curiosity. Breathing in. And breathing out. Just breathing in and out. No particular rhythm but yours. No particular pace but yours. And just breathe. All you need to do is notice how your body is breathing. Let your body breathe. Sometimes spending a little time just aware of your breathing, that's all you need to do. But sometimes it can make it feel a little clunky or a wee bit unnatural. But this too will pass. Just sit with it. Let it find its rhythm and its pace. All we're doing is giving your breath the place and space to breathe. It might help just to think logically to start with of your breath. And when you first breathe in you may notice a small coolness passing your nostrils. And this gentle warming as it travels in through your nose and into your body. Feeling the soft and subtle sensations of this whole process. It's timeless. It's life sustaining. It's beautiful. And when your breath goes out you'll notice the breath releasing back out and becoming air again. This time there's a warmth and a comfort and a familiarity to it. It's not new anymore. Just for this meditation I'm encouraging you to breathe fully. So I don't want you to take a huge breath as if you're trying to inflate the biggest balloon you can imagine. What I want you to do is to make sure your breath comes all the way in and down into your belly. And you're taking a full nourishing breath and then when you release it you're releasing your whole breath. And there's no holding to that last bit of breath. So let me help you take this time to breathe in a gentle guided practice. So breathing in there's a coolness as it wisps past your nostrils and goes down your throat. Feeling the breath flood across your chest and down into your belly. And just let this breath be welcomed into your belly like an old friend returning home. And often times when the breath comes in it doesn't release straight away. We have a pause, space between. So let this pause linger as long as you wish, as long as it's right. And when it's time, allow the breath to be released from your belly. And feel that breath gently returning back up through your body, passing back up your sternum, your chest, your throat. And releasing out of your mouth as it returns back to air. The beautiful space of breath becoming air as part of this whole wonderful cycle that's both unique and common to us all. So breathing in the breath passes your nose, warms up and travels down deep into your belly where it is welcomed. Softly, gently nurtured. Where it can linger for a while as you pause. And when the pause is ready to release you release it and relinquish with a wonderful sense of letting go. And feel that breath come back up from your belly all the way up, your shoulders dropping and softening and the breath releasing back to air. So to help you with this guided practice, focus on the breath being welcomed into a soft and receptive passive belly. And when it's ready to be released, feel a sense of relinquish. A sense of sweet surrender and letting go. So receptively received into your belly. And relinquished and letting go when it releases. Embody those feelings of acceptance, of surrender and release. So breathing in into a receptive and welcoming belly. And releasing with a surrender, a sense of release and letting go. So in your own time continue to breathe in this way... In these last moments of our practice together. In this space of your stillness. Touch into your heart, which is our litmus to how we feel. And just see if you can touch the truth of your feelings right now. Without any dressings or any artifice. Just noticing the true sense of you, here and now. It's not right, it's not wrong, it's just real without any noise of life's orchestra interrupting your true deep connection to who you are right now.. So just let the holding of your awareness of your breath gently fade into the background. And start to invite yourself back into your conscious awareness. Gently coming back into this place, this space, this time..