Meditation Skill 01

During Skill 01 you will learn to use slow, gentle breaths diaphragmatic breaths to settle physical restlessness and to develop relaxation in your body. As relaxation deepens, awareness of your body will increase, and you will access comfort and ease sitting in meditation.

YouTube: Video Instructions.

SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.

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• Set a countdown timer on your phone, set it to do not disturb, and place it behind you. 
• Meditation Length: Initially meditate for 20 minutes, gradually increasing to 30 minutes.
• Benefits: This skill will teach you how to lower physical restlessness and fidgeting so that you feel more relaxed in your body throughout the day. 
• Purpose: To develop a foundation of relaxation in your body in preparation for mindfulness of breathing in Skill 05.

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Summary:

Sit comfortably for meditation.

1. Be mindful of the flow of sound and the touch of your clothing.
2. Next, take 5 slow abdominal breaths to further relax your body.
3. Then, take 5 slow whole-body breaths, enjoying the relaxation.
4. Sit still, enjoy relaxing, allowing breathing to happen by itself.

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Instructions:

• Find a comfortable place to sit on a chair or the floor for meditation that is secluded from disturbance for this short time. This may be a quiet room, garden or sitting in your car. Then allow your eyelids gently close, relaxed.
• Begin your meditation by sweetening your mind with reflections on simple things in your life for which you can be grateful.

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Step 1: Be mindful of the flow of sound and the touch of your clothing. 

Being aware of these simple present experiences develops mindfulness.

• Start by mindfully listening to the flow of sounds around you for a few minutes. Allowing sounds to come and go within your awareness. This will aid in your mind in settling down.

Tip: As you relax your awareness will naturally withdraw from the world around you and rest on the borders of your body. 

• Be mindfully aware of your clothing resting on your body for a few more minutes, noticing how present the experience is to develop mindfulness.

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Step 2: Next, take 5 slow abdominal breaths to further relax your body.

Taking slow abdominal breaths will further relax awareness into your body.

• To relax your body and increase body awareness, take five slow breaths by slowly extending and lowering your abdomen (as you did in Skill 00). 

Tip: Find the nice feeling in each slow abdominal breath to deepen your bodies relaxation.

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Step 3: Then, take 5 slow whole-body breaths, enjoying the relaxation.

Slow whole-body breaths will allow you to access the relaxation in each slow out-breath.

• Now take five more slow in-breaths, starting from your belly and bringing into your chest to fill it like a balloon. Then slowly allow your shoulders, chest and upper back relax to access the relaxation available in each out-breath.
• Gradually allow each breath to become subtler until your body is breathing by itself, yet you are still able to access and enjoy how nice the relaxation of each breath feels.

Tip: If you feel like your breathing will not go up into your chest when you breathe in, it is either because you are slumping or because you are over-inflating your belly.

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Step 4: Sit still, enjoy relaxing, allowing breathing to happen by itself.

Enjoying the relaxed feeling of your body will allow it to grow and enter your mind.

• Once you have completed the previous steps, let go of any intentional control of your breathing and allow it to occur naturally for the rest of the meditation. Incline your mind toward enjoying the gentle stretch and relax of each breath.  
• Allow the feeling of relaxation to flow through your arms, hands, legs, and feet and most importantly: enjoy the feeling of relaxation. 

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As you practice for Skill 01, you may experience the hindrance of Physical Restlessness. Insight is developed at this stage of meditation by being curious about creating the conditions that support relaxation of your body thereby weakening the conditions that support the hindrance to relaxation which is physical restlessness.

Meditative Hindrance. 

Physical Restlessness (01).

Unable to experience physical comfort.

Physical Restlessness refers to when you feel unsettled in your body and need to move around and fidget to get comfortable during meditation. It occurs during meditation due to energy build-up from stress/aversion or overstimulation in our daily lives. Simplifying your life and relaxing with slow, softening breaths will lower your experience of stress and anxiety and weaken your desire to distract yourself with sensory stimulation.

Antidote. 

1. Be curious about what it means to find enjoyment in relaxing your body with slow-gentle diaphragmatic breaths. 
2. If stress is present, retraining your breathing patterns during Skill 00 before practicing Skill 01 will lower stress and physical restlessness. 
3. Reflecting gratefully on the small things you are grateful for will change how your mind relates to your meditation and allow your body to relax.

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Other Hindrances that may be present.

When developing relaxation in your body in Skill 01, it is normal to experience other hindrances.

• Mental Restlessness: Thinking about past and future.
• Sleepiness & Dullness: Becoming dull and falling asleep.
• Habitual Forgetting: Forgetting you are meditating.
• Habitual Control: Desire to micro-manage your meditation
• Mind Wandering: Become lost in thoughts and memories.

It is normal for our mind to be a mess when we begin meditation. With daily practice your mind will settle more easily, and relaxation will come to your body and mind faster. To deepen relaxation, you only need to settle one hindrance at a time. At this stage of meditation, the only thing you need to settle to reach deeper relaxation is any feelings of physical restlessness. 

If any of these above hindrances are present, there is nothing you need to do with them at this time as they will be addressed as your relaxation deepens during meditation. It is ok for your mind to wander; to think or to fall asleep, this is a natural part of the development of relaxation in meditation and nothing to concern yourself about. The important part is that you do not get in a struggle with your mind, instead learning to accept whatever experiences are present to you.

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Once you are familiar with Skill 01: Body Relaxation in seated meditation, you can integrate it in your daily life. The key is to check in on how you feel throughout the day, starting with when you hop out of bed in the morning.

• How am I feeling now?  
• Am I holding more effort in my body than I need to? 

If yes, take a few softening breaths to relax effort in your body, notice how nice it feels to relax, and then immerse yourself back into life. This simple act of taking a few softening breaths will withdraw your awareness from your intellectual mind and bring awareness into your body, therefore developing mindfulness of your body (grounding). 

How to do it. 

The key to being mindful of your body in daily life is not to try to be mindful of your body in daily life. 'Trying' will take you in the opposite direction, as your mind will see mindfulness as something else it has to do, with another problem to solve. It is important to make being mindful during the day something enjoyable for your mind to do rather than another job to complete. 

This is done by:

1. Enjoying noticing when you have forgotten to be mindful.
2. Taking a few breaths to relax your body when you notice. 
3. Finding enjoyment in the relaxing breaths.
4. Clearly comprehending awareness returning to your body as you do.
5. Being satisfied with creating small gaps in mind wandering.

Tip: Being mindful in daily life is not about striving and straining to be mindful; it is about making being mindful a fun and enjoyable thing for your mind to do. By checking in every now and then throughout the day and softening/relaxing your body, you will create small gaps in the habitual patterns of your mind and body. With repetition, these gaps of habitual 'mindlessness' will gradually decrease, and your enjoyment of increased mindfulness will increase.

Stress throughout the day.

You can use the skills you have learnt in Meditation Skill 01 to gradually weaken your experience of stress throughout your day by re-engaging your diaphragm muscle in respiration whenever you notice you are feeling stressed. More information: Skill 00: Diaphragmatic Breathing.

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You are ready to progress to Meditation Skill 02: Mind Relaxation when:

•  You find enjoyment in relaxing and feel comfortable sitting in meditation, free from experience physical restlessness or the desire to move around during your session.

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