1.18.11 pt 12 Mindful Breathing- Fast Track to Mindful Breathing, Meditation and Self Hypnosis
Mindful breathing will become your anchor, home base, your life preserver, your safety line and net to all other activities.
Breathing with mindfulness will by itself help you relax, calm down , help you focus on difficult problems, and give you a needed rest, a mini vacation whenever you want it.
Normally we are unaware of our breathing and what it doing for us and how it helps us.
Thus the first steps of the ABC’s of this process is become consciously Aware of your Breathing and try to four things with it, 1. make is slower, 2. deeper, 3. quieter, 4.with a regular rhythm, breathing from the lower abdomen, like a baby sleeping.
Doing this over and over, and again and again, will lead to C which is increased Concentration, that will lead to increase mental Calm and physical relaxation.
Become Aware of four parts of your Breathing cycle, as you breathe slower, deeper, quieter, with a regular rhythm, 1. the in breath, 2. a pause, 3. the out breath, and 4. another pause.
We started out not being Aware of our Breathing, then we became consciously Aware of it, and using our thinking doing mind, change and control it in a helpful manner, making it slower, quieter, deeper, with a regular rhythm, as you focus on the four parts of the breathing process, in breath, pause, out breath, and pause.
The next step is to switch from thinking doing mode of mind to the feeling-sensing mode. Switch from thinking about and controlling and changing the breathing to feeling the physical sensations of the breathing, in the present moment, and then moment by moment, and accepting them as they are, and allowing their wave like nature to unfold, naturally , over an over.
As you do this over and over, you will feel an emotional mental switch from you controlling the breathing of the body, to the body breathing you as give up control to this autonomic process of the body.
As this occurs not only will you develop increasing levels of Concentration and Calm, but some very pleasant feelings and sensations, that will be unique to you, that will reinforce the process.
This present moment feeling of the breathing sensations with acceptance and allowing their wave like nature to unfold without control or changing it using any thinking processes or judgment is mindfulness applied to breathing.