A 12-Minute Meditation to Remind Yourself That You Are Enough A 12-Minute Meditation to Remind Yourself That You Are Enough · 12:22 1. Sit and find your breath. Sitting in an upright relaxed position, please drop your gaze or close your eyes. Find the breath, the faithful friend that it is, and notice that you are breathing. Take a deep breath in, and out. 2. Take three deep breaths. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in positivity, breathing out and letting go of old stale air and stale stories. Breathing in, breathing out. Sitting with our attention on the breath. Relax the body, drop your shoulders, and be still.  3. Repeat these affirmations to yourself, taking a deep breath at the end of each sentence. I am a human being full of life and possibility. No one else is like me. I have a right to make mistakes and recover. I love myself unconditionally. I do not need anyone else’s approval to love and be kind to myself. Sometimes I do not know. It is OK not to know. What is not known is an invitation to be curious and to discover. I do my best. I let go of the rest. 4. Return your attention to the breath. If your mind wanders off, come back to the home base of the breath.  5. Gently and easily, on the next breath, open your eyes and return your attention to the space.

Mindful Movement to Wake Up Your Body In this article, Cara Bradley offers a video practice to help you start your morning with a few minutes of mindful movement to synchronize your body and mind with movement, breath, and stillness. 1) Rise: Gently roll over to one side and rise slowly, pausing in each transition to notice your breath and feel your body. 2) Attend to your needs: Then, go do what you need to do: bathroom, wash face, brush teeth…and return to your bedside. 3) Single Knee to Chest: This movement warms up the lower back and hips. We’ll start on the floor. Lie down next to your bed, on your back with your legs straight, arms straight, palms on the ground, and head facing the ceiling. As you inhale slowly, bring your right knee up towards your chest, grab your knee with both hands and pull it in to your chest. As you exhale switch legs and then exhale and bring the left leg towards your chest and repeat. Repeat for 3-5 breaths. 4) Dynamic Bridge: This movement warms up the spine and helps to relieve any tension accumulated in the spine during sleep. Place your arms flat on the ground by your sides a few inches away from your body, with your palms facing down. Place both feet to the floor under your bent knees. Make sure your back is flat and your body feels centered and balanced. Then, as you inhale lift your hips up towards the ceiling, creating a straight line from your knees, down your thighs, to your chest. Exhale and lower your hips back to the ground so that the small of your back and your hips tough the ground together. Repeat 3-5 times. 5) Cat/ Cow: This movement continues to warm up the spine. Slowly bring your knees to your chest and gently roll over to your side and then move on to all fours: Place your hands on the ground beneath your shoulders and your knees on the ground beneath your hips, keep your back straight and your head forward. As you inhale gently drop your belly towards the floor, lift your chest and look forward arching your spine slightly. As you exhale bring your face towards your navel while doming your upper spine, rounding the top of your back. Repeat for 3-5 breaths.

Restorative Breathing is the Key To Vitality Some experts say 9 in 10 of us are missing out on the mental and physical benefits of breathing well. Here’s how to take a deep breath, the mindful way. - BY HUGH DELEHANTY - AUGUST 20, 2019 -   -   -   -   The story in my family is that a coat hanger saved my life. I was about 18 months old and was suffering with a horrible case of pneumonia that made it difficult for me to breathe. One night I was struggling so badly, my father called our family doctor and pleaded with her to make a house call. When she arrived, or so the tale goes, she took one look at me, grabbed a wire hanger from the closet, and performed an emergency tracheotomy on the spot. Everything turned out fine, and within a few weeks I was up and crawling again, but what lingered for years was a feeling of vulnerability—and an ambivalent relationship to breathing—that has shadowed me throughout my life. I was hospitalized again with pneumonia in my teens, and even as an adult I sometimes struggled to exhale or mysteriously stopped breathing altogether. I started meditating years later and listened to teachers rhapsodize about following the breath, which was my idea of hell. I danced around it, focusing on noting thoughts or experiencing bodily sensations—anything except following the breath. But you can only hide from your breath for so long. Eventually, I would have to address the problem head-on. If breathing is the gateway to a happy and peaceful life, as many meditation teachers claim, how could I continue to ignore it? So, I reached out to Belisa Vranich, the author of Breathe, a classic book on the mechanics of breathing. Vranich, a psychologist who runs a learning program called The Breathing Class, got interested in breathing when she started practicing in New York City and found that many of her patients were so agitated they couldn’t take in anything that she had to say. But when she started looking for some simple breathing techniques to teach them, she found that, even though everyone agreed that breathing was important, the majority of people—including many experts—were doing it all wrong.

A Trauma-Informed Meditation to Uncover the Potential for Healing A 12-Minute Meditation to Uncover the Potential for Healing · 13:20 1. Stop. Here, simply notice any reactions you’re having in this moment. You might notice a particular sensation or stressor. Simply notice. This gentle act of noticing allows us to create some space for our automatic reactions. When we notice, we allow ourselves to choose to respond with intention. 2. Take a breath. Allow yourself to breathe as deeply as is comfortable for you. Breathing deeply can bring us to a state of equilibrium—to a place of support, and maybe even a little peace. 3. Observe. With this greater sense of ease that you’re cultivating, you can continue to observe what is arising for you in this moment. Between stimulus and response, there is space. 4. Imagine. Now, let’s imagine together. First, imagine a door and an invitation to open the door. Imagine walking through and inside the space feels quiet and peaceful. Pause there. Now, bring to mind a memory that brings feelings of joy, and peace, and even a little excitement. Feel the energy of this moment. Pause there. Next, bring to mind a moment when you felt awe. Maybe a beautiful scenic view at the end of a long hike. Imagine the work it took to get you there. And now feel the satisfaction of arriving at this spot. Feel the joy. Pause there. Finally, imagine a kind, loving figure, maybe a grandmother figure. Feel them sharing their warmth and love with you. Reminding you that you are loved. Rest in that peace and love for a moment. Know that this kind, loving space is available to you at any time. 5. Proceed. When you’re ready, bring your attention back to your breath, wiggle your fingers and toes. Know that you can carry this feeling of spaciousness, joy, trust, and ease into your day with you.

How Mindfulness Can Help Teens With Tech Addiction Mindfulness teachers in schools are using self-compassion and awareness practices to help students use tech more intentionally. - BY SARAH ROBERTSON - MARCH 23, 2022 - KIDS Adobe Stock/ Davide Angelini -   -   -   -   Many teens spend every minute of free time on their phones, playing video games, or lost in the screens of their laptops. In fact, according to Common Sense Media, teens now spend around nine hours a day in front of a screen—and that doesn’t include screen time they may log doing homework or at school. “Increasingly, students just don’t know how to deal with boredom, loneliness, and unpleasant feelings,” says Doug Worthen, director of mindfulness programs at Middlesex School, an independent day and boarding school in Concord, Massachusetts. Many educators blame the long hours spent on screens for fractured attention levels, lack of impulse control, and heightened levels of depression and anxiety. Teens are also losing their ability to navigate nuanced and complex interpersonal human interactions, says Adam Ortman, head of mindfulness at St. Andrews School in Texas. In response, mindfulness educators across the United States are creating specific curricula and practices around how to use technology with greater intention. Their approaches tend to focus on three fundamental mindfulness skills: watching thoughts, being present with others and the natural world, and self-compassion. Impulses Are Impermanent Worthen explains that by paying attention to their thoughts, students can begin to understand the intentions behind their phone use. Are they going to connect with someone or are they going to distract from a feeling? “We also want the students to see that these impulses are impermanent. They come and go. You don’t have to act on them,” he says.