Using your breath in meditation
In mindful movement meditation, we infuse our “experience” (thoughts and body sensations) with awareness and equanimity in real-time. Body sensations include each of the five senses: sight, smell, taste, sound, and touch, including the breath. Here I will discuss using the breath in meditation.
Felt Sense
Touch, or “felt sense,” is any sensation experienced in the body, including the breath and physical touch. Here I will discuss the breath.
Breath
The breath is a form of touch. I talk about the breath separately from other forms of touch because everyone breathes. That’s why most meditation teachers start their instruction by telling students to focus on the breath. The breath is handy. It’s always happening in the present moment, and focusing on the breath generally has a natural calming effect. This common denominator challenges any resistant part of the mind. It can’t believably say, “I don’t breathe.”
The breath also offers an excellent object of focus for moving meditation. We tend to notice the breath even more when we move because activity makes the breath stronger and easier to sense. Movement might make the breath more mobile, ragged, or rough depending on the intensity of the exercise, all things we can notice. With practice, breath awareness has a natural calming effect that can improve performance.
When you use the breath as your object of meditation during movement, notice how the breath actually feels in real time. This differs from the way breath is used in other practices such as yoga. Here, you do not try to change the breath. You notice the breath exactly as it is without altering it. This goes for moving meditation as well.
Notice these four parts of the breath:
The inhale
A turn or brief pause before the exhale
The exhale
A turn or brief pause before the next inhale
At first, it may be easier to identify these four parts when you’re sitting or slow walking. But once you become awake to them, you’ll notice them when you’re moving more quickly too.
Don’t be discouraged if it’s challenging to maintain your attention for all four parts of even one full breath. Most people find it challenging at first. Back when you began to do the movement form you now love, it was difficult. And it got easier. The same is true with focus. With practice, it will become more natural as well.
A note to people with anxiety: At first, focusing on the breath might make you nervous. Feel free to skip using the breath as your object of meditation until you grow more comfortable with the meditation process. Try using any of the other senses or body sensations. Or, if you want to ease into using the breath, lie on the floor with a book on your belly while tuning into your breath. That usually forces you to breathe from your diaphragm and does not induce the anxiety sometimes brought on by other types of breath meditation.
YOUR TURN: FEEL THE BREATH
The next time you exercise, before you begin to move, find the part of the breath that is most readily apparent to you. Often, this is the exhale. Try to extend that level of attention to all parts of the breath continuously.
Now, begin your movement form. As you do, watch the breath as though from within the body, feeling it come and go. Sense what it feels like and how it moves in and out. Experience the quality of the breath. Be aware if it is soft and gentle, raspy, hard, thin, or broad. Don’t think about the breath, be in it. Feel it. Investigate it with your attention. Sense if there’s any anxiety around the breath. Are you trying to control it? If so, can you be curious about it and let it be exactly as it is? Is the breath pleasant? Unpleasant? Neutral?
If you have trouble concentrating on the breath, note and label: inhale and exhale.
Especially at first, don’t be concerned if you forget you’re supposed to be focused on the breath. When you remember, simply bring your mind back to the breath. If you feel even one breath all the way through, give yourself a mental gold star. Do this exercise for whatever interval of time you choose.
I have included more than twenty “Your Turn” exercises in the book Make Every Move a Meditation.
This excerpt is from Make Every Move a Meditation by Nita Sweeney which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
