Duration: 2 minutes
DO NOT SKIM, ONLY READ IF YOU CAN TAKE THE TIME
Stop. Just slow down for a second. It is important that you read the following meditation slowly. Get present with these words and what they are saying to you - they're here to have a positive impact on you and your day.
Take a deep breath as you read this sentence, in through your nose...and out through your nose...take another just the same, right into your belly. See how long you can continue to breathe this way as you read on.
Without shifting your gaze from these words, see if you can shift your awareness away from your screen, into your environment, picking up all the sounds around you.
Are there people talking or typing? Machines or vehicles going? What can you hear? For your next two full breathes, just simply listen.
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I’d like you to identify which sound is closest to you and focus on it for one full breath.
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Now identify which sound is the furthest from you, a sound that you can only just hear in the distance and focus on it for one full breath.
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Now, continuing to breathe deeply in through your nose, and out through your nose, can you listen for what is between each of these sounds?
Connect strongly to your breath and tune in. Beyond the sounds you identified, you will find the constant (non)sound that sits eternally behind them - silence.
To get there, relax your shoulders, relax your body and slow your breath right down.
Once you’re there, hold your connection for 7 slow breaths (close your eyes if you want to), and then come back to your screen.
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As you slowly bring your attention back to the sound of your immediate environment, and to your own breath, know that silence is there for you whenever you need to slow down and check-in.
If you keep practicing with it, you will be able to follow it, out of the room or the vehicle you’re sitting in, away from your building, down the streets, beyond the trees, over the ocean…wherever - silence will travel as far as your imagination.
Hopefully this helped to invite a bit of stillness into your busy day. Your challenge between now and the rest of today, and every day for the next week, is to get yourself outside with the sole purpose of connecting again to that silence.
Enjoy.