Most of us, most of the time, spend very little attention on their own breath. We take it for granted.
The breath informs us so much about our current mental or emotional state. When we learn to pay attention to the current breath at this current moment, we gain clues about what is going on physically and emotionally at this current moment. With a routine of paying attention to the current breath, we gain deep insight into our body, our beliefs, our values.
Often, when we attend to the breath, we notice things that bother us. We wonder what others may think about the sound (or smell) of our breath. We wonder what disease or ailment this kind of breath might portend. We wonder why we aren’t “doing it right”. The two common reactions:
- we run away, finding something else to occupy the attention, or
- we try to fix it.
Breath meditations are a wonderful starting point for most people. When we pay attention to our own breath, with patience, kindness, interest, and acceptance, we learn a great deal about our present state of mind and heart. Often, with just the act of meditating on our breath, without any effort to change it, our breathing becomes slower and deeper, helping the brain, heart, and other systems in the body to work more efficiently, and spirit to settle, and heal, and grow, and strengthen.
Some people pay a great deal of attention to their breathing because it is difficult or even painful, due to injury, deformity or disease. For those, learning to meditate on the breath can be very difficult, but with patience, kindness, interest, acceptance and gratitude, a peace can be developed around the breath limitations, and that peace, in turn, can bring about the freedom that invites physical healing and improvement in the breath.
There is a benefit to learning to intentionally encourage in yourself, slower deeper breathing. You may find that you wish to practice this slow and deep breathing. This app can be a useful tool. If you choose to train your breath, we encourage you to devote some significant time, in addition, to noticing your breath, as it is, in the moment, with no effort or intent to change anything. There are many guided meditations that can help you learn breath meditation, but the same app mentioned above can actually be used to learn to attend to your breath as it is.