Mindful Breathing Exercise - Transcript

This will begin our deep breathing practice.  A practice to grow your mindfulness practice.  Adjust being with, observing, non-judging, witnessing.  A practice that will also offer you a deep relaxation.  To begin, allow yourself to assume a comfortable position, either lying on your back or sitting.  If you choose to sit, allow your spine to be long, straight, and your shoulders to hang gently at the sides.  Allow your eyes to close comfortably.  Let yourself just take a moment to make any gentle adjustments to give yourself the most comfortable position possible. 

Now bring your attention to your breath, the way it is naturally in this moment.  Just notice your breath.  Notice if it enters through the nose or the mouth, and how far into the body it travels, the chest or even down to the belly, and notice how the breath exits the body through the mouth or through the nostrils.  Just be fully aware of your breaths in this moment naturally.  Now judging it without changing it.  In this moment, with your intention, guide your breaths to your belly and notice the gentle rising or expanding with the inhale breath, and the gentle fall or receding of the exhale breath.  Just let yourself focus on this rising and falling of the belly, as you bring the breath in through the nose, and let the breath gently exhale through the mouth, keeping your full focus on the breath, noticing it as it enters the body and travels to the belly, and exits the body, leaving a sense of relaxation in every cell.  Just be with each breath.  Allow yourself to be with each inhaled breath for the full duration and with each exhaled breath for its full duration.  Allow your attention and awareness to be with the breath as if you were riding the waves of your own breathing.  As you breathe in this way, anytime you notice that your mind has wandered from the breath, to a thought or sensation, an emotion, or anything that might have taken your attention, just notice this and gently guide your attention back to the breath without judgment, without preference, without story, just noticing when your attention might wander, and gently bringing it back to your breath. 

As you continue to breathe in this way, with all of your awareness on the inhaled breath, the gentle rising of the belly, the exhaled breath, the gentle falling of the belly, notice how the more time we spend being with the breath, the deeper the relaxation becomes.  It is as if every cell of the body were expanding with the inhale, and every cell of the body were relaxing and releasing on the exhale, and you're present each moment of the breath.  Just ride this whole body breath, this whole body wave in silence, and if your mind wanders away from the breath, again just notice this and guide it back.  Even if the mind seems to wander away, time after time, this is okay.  We just notice and return to the breath, and this grows our practice of mindfulness, noticing, witnessing, non-judgmentally, and coming back to the present moment at present breath.  Allow yourself to stay with your breath, being with your breath, for as long as you like.  This practice will go on for 3 to 5 more minutes of silence.  You can stay with this practice and end as it does, or choose to stop the recording now, continuing to practice more on your own.