Steering your Breath through your Body
| Steering your Breath through your Body |
| Kind of meditation |
Concentration/observation |
| Degree of difficulty |
Both beginners and more advanced students |
| Recommended duration |
5 to 45 minutes |
| Posture |
Lying or sitting |
| Advantages |
- It improves your concentration
- It makes your mind clear and calm
- It gives you a deep feeling of physical relaxation
- It brings you back into contact with your body
- It removes feelings of stress
- It diminishes muscle tension
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| Remark |
An excellent relaxation exercise to get to know your own body better. Very suitable for people with physical complaints like RSI, arthritis, injuries, etcetera |
This is a good meditation exercise for both beginners and more advanced students. It strengthens your powers of concentration and observation. Besides: it also helps you with physical problems.
The following meditation looks a little like the well-known body scan meditation. The difference is that in this meditation our breathing is the object of our meditation. We steer our breathing through the body to relax our body and to flood it with attention. In this way we train our powers of focus and concentration. During this exercise we also try to observe and to feel the sensations in our body. We become more and more conscious of where our body is less relaxed and what is the effect of relaxation on our muscles, our posture and our organs. Every time you breathe out try to relax the part of your body that you are focussed on. Every time when our mind wanders away we return to our breathing and we go on where we
had stopped. As is the case with every form of meditation we try not to judge, we try not to get angry when things do not go so well and we try not to be too goal-oriented. Let us begin!
Steering your Breath through your Body Exercise
- Sit down or lie down, close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing.
- Be aware of every breathing in and breathing out.
- Let your breathing be something automatic, do not try to control it.
- Observe how the air slowly passes in through your nose, fills up your lungs and goes out again. If, after a few breaths, you feel at ease and fine you start with a deep breathing in.
- Visualise that when your lungs are filled up your breath passes through your body to your left foot. When you breathe out the oxygen goes out from your left foot and via your lungs it goes back to your nose and leaves your body.
- Visualise that when your lungs are filled up your breath passes through your body to your left lower leg.
- When you breathe out the oxygen goes out from your left lower leg and via your lungs it goes back to your nose and leaves your body. Feel the difference with your right lower leg. Does not your left lower leg feel different?
- Visualise that when your lungs are filled up your breath passes through your body to your left knee. When you breathe out the oxygen goes out from your left knee and via your lungs it goes back to your nose and leaves your body every time you begin to think of something different from your breathing or you start to feel something different from your breathing, observe this and just return to your breathing.
- Breathe in and let the air pass through your body to your left upper leg. Breathe out and let the oxygen go out from your left upper leg and via your lungs let it go back to your nose and leave your body.
- Breathe in and let the air pass through your body to your right foot. Breathe out and let the oxygen go out from your right foot and via your lungs let it go back to your nose and leave your body.
- Just keep on steering your breathing through your body in the way described above.
- Steer your breath to your two hands, lower arms, elbows, upper arms, shoulders, chest, diaphragm, belly, sex organs, buttocks, lower back, upper back, neck and head.
- Notice the sensations caused by the steering of your breathing. Notice the differences between the various areas. Feel the twinklings in your body, feel how your muscles get more and more relaxed and observe which parts of your body are harder to relax.
- Let yourself become totally one with your breathing.
- When you have refreshed and relaxed your entire body, return for a few breathings to an area in your body that felt particularly tense.
- Breathe in and let your breath pass through your body to that particular area. Breathe out and let the oxygen go out from that area and via your lungs let it go back to your nose and leave your body.
- Keep on doing this as long as you like and, if necessary, just go to other areas in your body to which you want to pay some extra attention.
- All right, slowly take your attention back to the rest of your body and the noises in the room. Move a little, stretch your muscles a bit and open your eyes.
- Finished!
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