Breathing Space, Anchored

What to expect

The three-minute breathing space as a short mindfulness practice. Notice what is here without changing it. Rest your attention on the breath, in a place you choose, and come back to it each time it wanders. Then widen to the whole body and everything around it.

How to listen:

• Sitting or lying down, anywhere you can stop for a few minutes. Not while driving.
• Your eyes can close, or stay open with a low, soft gaze.
• Headphones help: two low tones sit under the first minutes.
• Wandering is part of it. Noticing and coming back is the practice.

About

Safety and aftercare. Nothing here asks you to change your breathing or hold it. If attention on the breath feels uncomfortable, rest it on the feeling of your feet or your hands instead. You can stop at any point.

Credits. The three-minute breathing space comes from mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, the work of Zindel Segal, Mark Williams and John Teasdale. Its three steps are as the sat-chit-ananda.com page on the pause meditation gives them: a minute noticing what is here without changing it, a minute gathering attention on the breath, a minute widening it to the whole body.

Written by Lucas + Twins. Voice: Lucas.

Transcript

Opening

Settle into a position that suits you, sitting or lying down.

Close your eyes, or leave them open with the gaze low and soft.

The next few minutes have three steps: what is here, the breath, the whole body.

Part One: What is here

Notice what is here right now, starting with any thoughts passing through.

Any feeling, pleasant or not.

Sensations in the body.

Leave each one as it is.

Part Two: The breath

Gather attention onto the breath, wherever its movement is felt.

At the nostrils, cool air coming and going.

In the chest, a rise and a fall.

Low in the belly, a swell and a release.

Choose one of these places, and rest attention there.

Leave the breath as it is, quick or slow, deep or shallow.

Part Three: Wandering and coming back

Attention will wander, again and again. When it wanders, notice where it went, and come back to the breath. Noticing and coming back is the practice itself.

Part Four: Staying

Rest on the breath, in the place you chose.

Come back to the breath, wherever you feel it.

Stay with this breath, in that same place.

Part Five: Widening

Let attention widen from the breath to the whole of the torso.

The body as a whole, breathing.

Where little is felt, let that be part of it too.

Its edges, where skin meets air and whatever is under you.

Sounds in the room around you.

Everything that is here, all at once.

Part Six: Closing

Move your fingers and toes a little.

Feel the surface under you, and the room you are in.

If your eyes are closed, open them.

Next comes whatever your day holds.