Trigger Tamer Toolkit - Mindfulness 01 - A Breathing Anchor

Trigger Tamer Toolkit - Mindfulness Meditations 1 of 5
Strength & Anxiety - "A Breathing Anchor" 

"A Breathing Anchor" guides the listener through a mindfulness practice using the breath as an anchor for awareness. 

The practice aims to reduce anxiety, stress, and promote peace and relaxation by focusing on the sensations of breathing while acknowledging and observing thoughts and emotions without judgment.

Transcript

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A breathing anchor for your wandering mind. This mindfulness practice is your breathing anchor practice. A meditation where you root your awareness into the present moment like an anchor that roots a ship to one place. This practice may help you dissolve anxiety, decrease stress, and allow the body and mind to experience peace and relaxation. So to begin, adopt as comfortable position as possible. It's often best to be sitting. But you can do this meditation in any posture, standing, lying, sitting, or even walking. My guidance will assume you're sitting, but adapt the instructions to whatever posture you've chosen. Sitting with your back upright, get relaxed with your spine following its natural curves. See if you can establish a position that feels dignified, alert, and yet relaxed, and allow your body to settle. To rest down into gravity, letting it be supported by the floor beneath you. And gently close your eyes if that's comfortable. This will help your awareness to settle by lessening external distractions. Gradually, allow your awareness to gather around the sensations of the breath in your body. Where do you feel the breath most strongly? Be curious about your actual experience, letting go of what you think should be happening and being with your experience without judgement. Now very gently rest your awareness within the whole torso. Can you feel your belly swelling on the in breath? And it's subsiding on the out breath. Can you feel any movement and sensations of the breath in the sides and the back of the body as well? Gradually inhabit your body a little bit more deeply, with a sense of kind curiosity towards whatever you're experiencing as you breathe. Remember, To be accepting of whatever's happening, holding your experience with gentle awareness as it is. See if you can cultivate a precise awareness of the sensations and movements of the breath in the body as they happen, moment by moment, being careful not to strain. Allow your awareness to be utterly receptive as it rests upon the natural movement of the breath in the body. Allow the breath to be saturated with kindliness as it rocks and cradles the body. Soothing any stress, pain or discomfort you might feel. Now, become aware of any thoughts and emotions. Remember that mindfulness isn't about having a blank mind. It's normal to think. Mindfulness is the training whereby you cultivate awareness of what is actually happening. Physically, mentally and emotionally. With increased awareness, You can gradually change your perspective and feel you have more choice in how you relate to life. See if you can look at your thoughts and emotions rather than from them. Can you be aware of what's your thinking and feeling without blocking the experience or getting overwhelmed by it? And then anchor your awareness back in your breath. I am breathing in. I am breathing out. Use awareness of the movement and sensations of the breath in your body as an anchor for the mind over and over again. I am breathing in, I am breathing out. As thoughts arise, know that they're not facts, even though we often think they are. As you develop perspective on your thoughts and emotions, including undermining ones, Can you let go of being so caught up in them? Notice how they're continually changing one moment to the next, exactly the same way your breath is always changing. Your thoughts and emotions are not as fixed, as solid, as you perhaps thought. And then come back to your breath. I am breathing in, I am breathing out. Follow the breath all the way in, and all the way out. Each time your awareness wanders, as it will, simply note this, and then return to the breathing actor time after time after time. Moment by moment. Making sure you're very kind and patient with yourself. Even if you have to start again a hundred times. I'm breathing in, I'm breathing out. Starting over and coming back is perfectly okay. This is what the training is all about. And remember that each time you notice you've wandered, it's a magic moment of awareness. A moment where you've woken up from a distraction. A moment of choice. So when you catch yourself having wandered off, you're succeeding in the practice. Just as you're succeeding when you manage to stay with the breath. Even if just for a moment. I am breathing in. I am breathing out. What's happening now? What are you thinking? Just notice this, without analysing or latching on, and guide your awareness back to the sensation of the breath in the body, over and over again. And now, gently begin to bring the breathing anchor practice to a close, opening your eyes, slowly and in your own time. And become aware of the sounds around you, inside and outside the room. Feel your whole body and gradually, gently begin to move. Making sure you give yourself some time to make a smooth transition from the breathing anchor practice to whatever you're doing next. This completes the session.