This brief mindfulness exercise may help teach the basics of presence, or awareness, that makes up one half of mindfulness. While the other half is acceptance, this exercise emphasizes compassion, a tool to allow for acceptance. Consider this a fundamental building block on your road to a deeper meditation practice, a richer and more self-compassionate thought life or a more balanced wellbeing.
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Set a timer for anywhere from 1 minute to 10, starting out with really no more than 90 seconds or so. It may be useful to use a ‘meditation timer’ or something with a gentle and increasing chime rather than a jarring klaxon.
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For the duration of the timer, focus only on your anchor. There are a number of things to anchor yourself to, but the most common one tends to be your breathing. Watch with curiosity as your breath goes in and out. Give yourself permission to notice the smaller breaths, the bigger breaths, the slower breaths, the shorter breaths, all without placing judgment or trying to change the breath.
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You may find it useful to count your breaths as they pass, you may prefer not to. Generally it’s easiest to count one with the in breath, two with the out breath, up to a count of either six or ten before starting back at one.
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* THIS PART IS THE IMPORTANT ONE- the things above are not the exercise, they are just the set-up for the exercise. This is the exercise-
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When you notice your mind drifting (which it definitely will, this is why we set things up this way in the first place) gently praise yourself for becoming aware of the distraction and kindly return your focus to your breath.
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The goal here is not to perfectly maintain your focus indefinitely, that’s very likely impossible. The goal is to see how many times you can notice your focus drifting and to compassionately reward yourself for it. If losing your focus is a ‘mistake’ then this exercise isn’t about avoiding mistakes, it’s about being aware of how you address them.
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Practice for one minute once or twice a day, gradually increasing to 90 seconds, 2 minutes and beyond as you feel comfortable. Take note of how quickly you become able to catch yourself and how the tone of your catches begins to shift.
