Areas › Your body
Your body
You cannot think your way out of a body that is braced. This area starts there: the breath, the ground under you, moving, eating, resting, and the small physical things that change how the rest of the day lands.
Narrowed down
6 practicesHow long you have · Twenty minutes
Approach · Mindfulness
If you are moving attention through the body, start at the feet and work up. Leave the throat, the chest and the face until last.
The far edges of the body carry less charge, so they are a gentle place to find your bearings. Include the back, which people tend to skip: attention…
There is a difference between watching your hand and being in your hand. See whether you can move from looking at a part of your body to living inside it.
Observing keeps a small distance, which is useful early on and can quietly become the whole practice. Inhabiting is the further step: filling the…
If sitting still with your eyes closed has never worked, do it moving. Walking, washing up, gardening: the exercise is the same, and there is something to hold on to.
Sitting meditation asks for the hardest possible version of the task, sustained inward attention with nothing outside to grip. Attach attention to…
Walk somewhere at a deliberately slower pace than normal. Stop now and then to look at something properly, and let your breathing settle into the pace.
Choosing to go slower is itself the exercise, because it is a small piece of holding back that you can actually feel. Ten minutes is plenty. Outdoors…
If your child is learning to settle, learn it alongside them rather than supervising. Parents who practise report less stress of their own and less flying off the handle.
Attention difficulties run in families, so the adult in the room is often working with much the same wiring at the end of a longer day. Practising…
If your imagination runs away with you, use it rather than fight it. Guided imagery gives a vivid mind somewhere to go.
Being able to disappear into a scene is a real ability, even when it has mostly got you into trouble at school and in meetings. A recording that…