When:
We’ve carved out some time right now for mindfulness. As you continue to practice in your own time, try to schedule a regular slot each day. Morning typically works well as it sets a serene tone for your day. Treat this time as a crucial appointment with yourself.
Where:
For today’s session, find a quiet spot to sit undisturbed. As you make mindfulness a part of your routine, any peaceful corner of your home can become your personal space for practice. It doesn’t need to be fancy—a comfortable seat and minimal distractions will do just fine.
How:
Let’s settle into a comfortable sitting position, whether on a chair with your feet touching the ground or on a cushion cross-legged. Keep your back straight to help maintain focus. This posture is ideal both for today and for your ongoing practice.
Now, let’s get started. I recommend listening to this, but you could read it first and then try it. Just follow my voice as we step into a few minutes of peaceful reflection.
(this one is definitely better as a listen)
Notice:
Close your eyes if that’s comfortable for you or drop and soften your gaze. This stops you getting distracted and allows you to focus more easily. Take two or three deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Where are you? Body? Senses?
Take a few moments to settle into your body. Begin by gently observing your posture. Notice the sensation you have from where your body meets the chair, your feet in contact with the floor, and the weight of your hands on your lap.
Notice whatever you find. Notice what you can smell, whether you’re warm or cold, and what is it you can see, even if this is the dark behind your eyes.
Top-to-toe Scan
Scan your body from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes, bit by bit. Don’t try to change what you find; simply note it. Now, scan again and notice which parts of the body feel relaxed. Take a little time over each scan.
Your Thoughts
Now, turn your attention to your thoughts. Notice any thoughts that arise without trying to change them. Become aware of your underlying mood – just become aware of what is present without judgment. If you don’t notice anything in particular, that’s fine, too.
What were your expectations of this?
Consider any ideas you brought to the practice today. Any preconceptions? Were you hoping to stop your thoughts? Were you expecting it to be relaxing? Had you decided that it was pointless because the last time you did it, it felt uncomfortable or disjointed? Or something completely different.
Remind yourself that there is no right or wrong to this. It just is as it is. You feel what you feel; it is enough to simply sit with that. And that the difficult practices are often the ones that reveal the most about how your mind. It is interesting how we often predetermine how we think things should go.
There is nothing to do here. Your only job is just to sit for a few minutes. Beyond that, there is no expectation. These moments are about curiously unfolding rather than doing. Follow the breath. Rest your attention on your breath.
Your Breath
Let your awareness be on the natural flow.
There is no need to alter it in any way. If your breath feels awkward when you notice it, stay with it – trusting it will settle back into its rhythm.
Notice your breath coming in at the nostril; the chest and upper abdomen inflate as the breath comes in and deflates with the out-breath. Be curious whether your breath is long or short, fast or slow, deep or shallow. It is normal for thoughts to pop into your head while you do this. All you do when you notice that a thought has arisen or distracted you is to simply guide it back to observing the breath.
No need to push thoughts away. Simply guide your mind back to the breath. Do this as many times as you need to. When the mind is super busy (this may be many times), you might find it useful to add a count:
1 on the in-breath,
2 on the out-breath,
3 on the in-breath,
4 on the out-breath,
and so on until you get to 10 and then simply start back at 1 again.
Let it be as it is. Allow awareness of the breath to fall away. Just try sitting. You might find that the mind is inundated with thoughts or that it is calm and still. Just sit and observe how it is. Whatever it is is completely fine.
Just Be
Notice that it isn’t often that we just sit and be. We tend always to be doing. Notice how it feels to take time away from that.
Get a sense of observing that thought. Connect with the idea that we are separate from our thoughts. We are not our thoughts.
Be aware of the physical sensation of being seated and of your feet on the ground, your arms resting, and your hands in your lap. Reconnect with the smells and sounds and the space that you’re in. If you’ve had them closed, now is the time to gently open them, keeping whatever insights you’ve found to carry into your day.
Reflect
Think for a moment about the next thing you’re going to do so that you can move towards it with a sense of being in the moment, not rushing thoughts too far ahead. Try to carry this awareness of being ‘in the moment’ throughout the day.
Checking in with yourself regularly. Body, senses, thoughts, feelings – connect with the breath and how you’re holding your body
What gets in the way?
Honestly, when you learn to meditate, it is not all sitting in tranquillity. There are times when it can feel distinctly annoying, as your thoughts can race, and you can feel impatient.
Think of this like weight training. It takes repeated practice, and even when you feel that you’ve got the hang of it, no practice is ever the same as the last. It will always be a reflection of where your mind and body are on that day.
Making sense of it all
The mind can get restless thoughts of what you need to be doing instead. It can produce compelling reasons why you should be able to stop and do something else. Observing the thoughts means they can arise, and you don’t have to get involved.
“I don’t get it?”
When your mind asks that, it’s trying to think its way to understanding what it’s meant to be doing.
We very rarely make time just to sit and be. The only thing to do is sit and watch what the mind does and follow the breath.
This is why this is a daily practice. You start to get familiar with your inner world, each time you do it.
Whatever you find when you sit and notice is exactly what should be there. If you make time and do the practice, you’re doing it right. It is meant to feel exactly as it does and it will be different each time you do.
Emotions
Sometimes, when you do this, difficult emotions surface, like sadness or loneliness. Often we distract ourselves from these normal emotions by keeping busy, diving into work or finding other ways to escape them. Emotions are there to teach us something or to help us process events or situations.
Distraction never gets rid of the emotion; it just delays it.
Try to be bold, practice daily and calmly let whatever there is – come to the surface. To feel the feeling, give it a name, and watch how it gently fades as you breathe.