Our lives are so big. They are full and busy and complicated. Our problems extend into the future indefinitely and stretch into the past. Adn then add onto it our children’s live and our partners lives and our parents lives… It can all feel like so much. It is too much. It can feel like we have to solve all of it, our pasts and our futures in order to feel okay now. But the now, here and now, this moment, this breath really, is all we really have. It’s all we really are. Just this breath. This is the place we can return to over and over again to find our heart, our center, our core. Our true experience of this human life we are living. This breath. Right here. Right now.
Try this meditation:
Focus on your breath. Do not try to change it. Just be aware of it. For a few breaths focus just on the inhale. Notice it, how it fills you up. Watch it as it spreads out to the corners of your lungs, stretches to your fingers and toes. Notice how it feels at the beginning of the inhale versus the end, when your lungs feel full and ripe. Next find the pause at the top of the inhale. For a few breath cycles, focus on this moment, between inhale and exhale, when your lungs are full, you have everything you need and there is a moment of stillness, rest. Notice what this fullness feels like. Stay here for a moment. Next, move your awareness to the exhale. Really notice what the breath feels like as it leaves your body. This release. Is it fast or slow? Smooth or jagged? Notice what it feels like at the beginning of the exhale, when your lungs are ripe with air, and the end, when your body feels empty. What do you notice? Stay here for a few breath cycles and then move your awareness to the pause at the bottom of the exhale. Empty, complete. What do you notice about this place? This holding. Waiting. Pausing. Really examine each of these four components of the breath.
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