Help! Mindfulness of Deep Breathing

[JonW]

"I'm beginning to understand that if i stay with my emotions, observe them and accept them but dont 'explore' or make stories fom them - just watch as they come in and float out again, then they will lose their power, after all they are just thoughts, not facts."
That's exactly it.
Here's the thing though. It's easier to understand that concept intellectually than it is to embody.
As Mick says, there's a point in the eight-week course when we're invited to turn towards "difficult" thoughts and emotions. Without the grounding provided by the previous four weeks of the course, turning towards difficulties can be a real challenge for some people. The course is carefully calibrated so that one is slowly and gently introduced to more challenging concepts.
Most of my life was made a misery by being at the mercy of my thoughts. The difference that mindfulness has made is incalculable. Difficult thoughts and feelings still arise, but not nearly as frequently as they used to. When they do, they have very little hold on me.
But it does take practice. And the most important thing of all is to be kind to yourself.
Cheers,
Jon, Hove

[westie]

Hello! I am sorry but I will borrow this thread a little bit since I have the same "issue" but with the body scan.

When I started out doing the body scan I always imagined the breath going from the nostrils all the way to for example the foot and not focusing on HOW I was breathing. I've experienced some serious relaxing effects with this practice.

But now that I am aware that you can do deep breathing with the belly I can't make up my mind wether to just do it naturally (this is chest breathing for me at the moment) or make a bigger effort to control it, thought this tends to make it harder for me to focus on the different body parts.

Should I threat it like in yoga were you control your breath more (for what I know) or simply follows it in your body?

I am grateful for your opinions about this.

[piedwagtail91]

No, don't try to control the breath, just let it breathe itself. follow is natural rhythm as best you can. It's more observing the breath and the sensations it creates than trying to change it to be a certain way.
Hope this helps!
mick

[Gareth]

Yes, what Mick said.

Mindfulness is a funny thing isn't it? It's excrutiatingly simple, yet it's also a tricky concept to grasp for most people.

Mindfulness asks that we simply allow the breath to be however it is, and just observe it, wherever it is that we observe it.

In yoga there are lots of Pranyama exercises where we actively try and breathe in a certain way, but pure mindfulness is about observation - nothing else.