Instruction Sheet for Mindfulness Meditation
Bare Bone Steps: Mindful Breathing using the 4 F’s Find, Focus, Feel & Follow your Breath.
A. This is what you do: Pull yourself into the present moment by Finding your breath, then Focusing on it only by Feeling and accepting it as you Follow it over and over, keeping this in the front of your mind. When you are pulled off this present moment focus by thinking, notice it temporally only long enough to get back to the breathing.
B. What you don’t do: Don’t get pulled out of the present by thinking of the past and future and then judging based on feelings good, bad, or right or wrong, causing holding on, avoiding, controlling, expectations, comparisons, criticisms.
This present moment feeling and accepting and not using thinking or judging is mindfulness applied to breathing.
The steps are as follows: Use any posture that allows relaxation, yet being alert, eyes maybe open or closed
1) Pull yourself into the present moment by putting all your Focus on Finding and Feeling the sensations of breathing and only keep this in the front of your mind, as you Follow the breathe over and over.
2) Put all thinking about everything including the breathing from the present, the past and the future on a shelve in the back of your mind, as you continue to only Feel and Follow the sensations of the breathing.
3) Don’t use any control, don’t think about the breathing, don’t expect anything special, just allow your awareness to rest gently on sensations of the breathing, and Follow the lead of the breathing, let it control you, until you awareness, your feelings and the sensations of the breathing get closer and closer, becoming like one.
4) Breathe over and over, Feeling the changing sensations of each breath, accepting it for what it is, regardless of feeling, right, wrong, good, bad or neutral, feeling one breath at a time, and then letting it go for the next.
5) It may be helpful to label the breathing or use any counting method that works for you, by saying silently “one on the in breath, two on the out breath,” or “in breath, out breath, or in or out”.
6) Sooner rather than later some distraction will pull your focus off the breathing, this is normal, to be expected and is part of the process. When your mind wanders notice it with mindfulness and return back to the breathing.
7) Don’t ignore the distraction but give it just enough temporary mindful “knowing” or awareness without thinking, until it weakens or goes away , then let it go, so you can get back to your primary focus on the breathing for more concentration, & mindful “awareness” =present moment feeling accepting & letting go, without thought
8) If your mind gets stuck on a distraction use the 4 F’s, Find the Feelings associated with it and Focus on this, Following it, until it gets weaker or passes, so you can get back to the Feeling the breathing.
9) Label the distraction if needed by saying “thinking, thinking, or feeling, feeling, or planning, planning, or noise, noise, or pain, pain, or whatever”. Become “aware”, accept it, label it, feel it, let it go, without thinking.
10) Repeat the sequence breathing, breathing, until distracted, deal with the distraction, and then back to breathing.