Hello, everyone.
My name is Olivier, and welcome to my YouTube channel.
In today's video, I'm going to show you how to practice mindfulness meditation using 4
simple steps.
By the end of this video, you will have a simple tool that you can use to reduce your
stress and anxiety, but also help you calm your mind and your body.
If you like to learn about different mindfulness practices or meditation techniques, consider
subscribing to my channel.
Every Tuesday, I will be posting a new video on these topics and show you how you can apply
these tools into your daily life.
Before we get started with the steps on how to meditate, it is useful to understand what
is mindfulness meditation and how it can help us in our daily life.
Mindfulness meditation is the simple practice of bringing our attention to our experience
in the present moment.
What does it mean?
That means paying attention to our breathing, to our body sensations, to our feelings, or
to our thoughts.
For today, though, we will just focus on how to pay attention to our breathing.
These techniques, this meditation technique, is called mindful breathing or mindfulness
of the breath, and it is a foundation of mindfulness meditation.
In future videos, I will show you how to pay attention to your body so you can learn to
relax it and also how to pay attention to your feelings and thoughts so you can transform
the difficult experiences that we sometimes have when we experience longingness, or fear,
or anger, or anxiety, but I will also show you how to practice mindfulness to cultivate
joy and happiness in every moment of your life.
Mindful breathing is a practice of paying attention to our breathing as it is happening
in the present moment.
Mindful breathing is extremely helpful in our daily life.
I'm sure you can recall many times where you felt so preoccupied by a worry or a project
that you could not fall asleep or you could not enjoy your free time with your friends
or when you were taking a walk outside.
By focusing your attention on just your breath, you will be able to stop your thinking, thinking
about the past and the future.
This, in itself, is a great source of freedom and relief.
Now, I am going to show you how to practice mindful breathing.
Step number one.
Sit comfortably.
The first step is to find a comfortable sitting position.
You can use a chair.
You can use your couch or the side of your bed, if you'd like.
If possible, maintain your back straight so that you feel more energized and you feel
more stable, but if you do, try not to tense up your body.
If you have back issues, then lean against a chair.
It's perfectly fine.
Once you find a comfortable sitting position, you can gently close your eyes.
Step number two.
Find your anchor.
Your anchor is the part of your body through which you will observe your breathing.
Take a few breath and see where in your body you feel the sensation of breathing the most
clearly.
For some, that can be at the tip of their nose.
That can be at the back of their throat, at the level of the chest, or of their abdomen.
If you're unsure, just put the palm of your hand on top of your belly and observe the
rising and falling of it.
Step number three.
Follow your breath.
The third step, you just need to rest your attention on your anchor and follow the in-breath
and out-breath.
Follow the air coming into your body and the air coming out of your body.
As you are breathing in and out, try to let your breath be natural.
Try not to control it or change it in any ways.
One exercise I like to do is to label the in-breath "in" and to label the out-breath
"out," so as I'm breathing in, I say silently to myself, "In," and as I'm breathing out,
I say silently to myself, "Out."
This exercise helps me to focus on my breath more easily and more quickly.
Once you do that, after a few moments, you will have a little bit more focus, and then
you can try noticing when your in-breath begins and when your in-breath ends.
The same thing for your breath.
Try noticing when the out-breath begins and when it ends, and maybe you will be able to
notice the little spaces between the in-breath and the out-breath.
Step number four.
Notice and come back.
After a few breath or after a few moments, your mind will have most likely drifted away
somewhere in the past or somewhere in the future.
Maybe you start having some thoughts about a project or the things that you need to do
next.
When you notice that your mind has wandered away, just notice the thought and come back
to the breath.
Use the breath as a home base, as an anchor for your mind, for your attention.
Having thoughts and getting lost in thoughts is no more doing meditation, so when this
happens, no need to judge yourself.
This happens to everybody, so simply notice and come back.
This will happen many times during your sitting meditation, so it's fine when it happens.
What's important is to notice that your mind drifted away and then to bring it back to
the breath, so it's a constant noticing and coming back, noticing and coming back.
Imagine a snow globe.
When you shake it, all the snowflakes will be floating around, but if you let the snow
globe rest on the table, after a few moments, the snowflakes will start settling down at
the bottom of it.
Mindfulness meditation is like this.
By focusing our attention on the breath, we allow our thoughts and our emotions to settle
down so we can have more clarity and feel more calm.
If you are new to meditation, practice mindful breathing five or 10 minutes a day.
You can use a timer, or you can use guided meditations.
Next week or very soon, I will have a set of guided meditations, so make sure you come
back to my channel and check out the playlist on guided meditations.
My last tip for today is, mindful breathing can be practiced at home when everything is
calm and we have our timer and so on, but it can also be practiced throughout the day
whenever we have just a few moments, so when you are waiting in line at the grocery store
or when you are stuck in traffic jam, so you can take five or 10 mindful breath.
This will help you to feel more grounded throughout the day and help you feeling more calm as
well.
Are you new to meditation, or do you already have a meditation practice?
Please let me know it in the comment sections below.
Also, if you have any questions about today's instructions or you'd like me to cover any
specific topic about meditation or mindfulness, again, please use the comment sections below
so I can address them in future videos.
To stay in touch, you can visit my website at peaceful-breathing.com, and there, you
can subscribe to my mailing list.
If you found the content of this video helpful, don't forget to hit the Like button below
and share it with your friends and family if you think that the content of today's video
would be beneficial to them.
Next week, I will address some of the most common challenges that we encounter during
meditation.
Thank you for watching, and see you in the next video.