Guided, deliberately simple, a couple of minutes of quiet in the middle. Music underneath
Deliberately simple, so you can take it anywhere. The car, the corridor outside a meeting, the kitchen with a child pulling at your hand.
About 12 minutes with Steven Webb's calm voice.
One idea sits underneath it. When you breathe in, the universe breathes out. There is a balance in every breath, and it is always available, whatever else is going on around you. Thich Nhat Hanh said returning to the breath is like kissing the floor with every step. That is the whole practice, and it is enough.
Treat me to a coffee, keep the podcast free, and get my Weekly Calm every Sunday. It is all on stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for sitting with me.
Steven
Who this is for
Anybody who wants one thing they can take everywhere.
Deliberately simple, so it works in the car, in the corridor outside a meeting, or in the kitchen with a child pulling at your hand.
The peace is already there. It is usually just covered over by thinking and busyness.
What happens in this meditation
Phone down. Breath, without doing anything to it. Shoulders, face, arms, all the way down.
Then one idea sits underneath the whole thing. When you breathe in, the universe breathes out. When you breathe out, it breathes in. There is a balance in every breath.
Then a couple of minutes where I say nothing and keep an eye on the clock.
Then a question, and it is worth actually answering. Which feels wiser and more open, the busyness of ten minutes ago, or this?
Returning to the breath is like kissing the floor with every step you take.
Thich Nhat Hanh
How to get the most from it
Twelve minutes, and once you know it you can run it yourself in thirty seconds, which is rather the point of keeping it this plain.
Do not treat dropping out of busyness as disconnecting. It is the other way round. Busy is the disconnected state, and this is where the wiser decisions get made.
If your mind wanders during the quiet bit, that is what minds do. Come back.
Questions people ask
Is this too simple to be worth doing?
It is the one I use most, and every teacher I know comes back to the breath eventually. Simple is why it survives a bad day.
Do I need to breathe in a particular way?
No. Your body has been doing it for decades without your help and it knows how deep and how fast. You only notice it.
What does the universe breathing bit mean?
It is a way of feeling that you are not sealed off from anything. Take it as poetry rather than physics. What it does is stop the breath feeling like a private little exercise.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
breath · mindfulness · present-moment
Read the transcript
Welcome to Returning to Your Breath. This meditation is really simple and I'm keeping
it really simple deliberately because I want you to be able to take this with you wherever you are, whenever
you need a little bit of inner peace, whenever you need the mind to just quieten down a little bit,
just to be able to return to your breath. And just feel that little bit of inner peace that you
already have, but is often covered over by so much thinking and stress and anxiety. and busyness that we
don't very often see it. So wiggle yourself into a comfortable position. If you're looking at this on the phone,
just place the phone down next to you and
just become aware of your breath.
You don't need to do anything with your breath. Your body knows how to breathe. It's been doing it without
you for a long time.
Allow your shoulders to relax. Allow your face and your arms
and your eyes
off and your chin,
your bum and your legs. Allow them all to relax. And
again, just as your breath, your body knows how to relax.
And by keeping your awareness on your breath but not doing anything with it, you're just embracing this moment.
Embracing this moment for everything it is.
And the moment very often is just fine. You don't need to do anything with it.
Just breathing in calm. Breathing
out. Relax.
And you may notice your breath naturally slows down. Your body naturally relaxes into this
moment.
Just the same as your mind naturally quietens.
And if you find your mind does wander, just give it a gentle smile. Thank you for the thought. Thank
you for the story.
But just invite it to sit with you.
Be here with me. We're just breathing.
We're just breathing at being at one with
the mind and body. The
spirit.
This moment.
This room.
The place where you are.
And notice in the smallest possible way that
when you breathe, you change the whole universe.
Just consider that for the moment.
Every peaceful, gentle breath
changes the whole universe.
And just by allowing this moment to be
all and complete without
adding to it,
without making it more complex and just keeping it as simple as what it is now.
The peacefulness goes
throughout your whole body.
You may feel it in a different part.
For me, it's in my heart and just below in my belly. I
just feel this peacefulness that's calming
and And every breath just feels like a connection to the world around me.
When I breathe in, the universe breathes out.
When I breathe out, the universe breathes in.
And it's that perfect balance with every breath.
And what's important to remember is this is always available to you.
Whether you're driving somewhere in a car or you're about to go into a meeting or the
children are
pulling at your hand, nagging you for something. Whatever the pressures are, you
can still take a breath and
allow your awareness to drop from the sense of Urgency and doing and
busyness to a place of wisdom and openness and calmness. And
from this area, from this place,
it's not a disconnection.
The other place is a disconnection. This place is a deep connection.
And with this connection we can make wiser decisions. We stay calmer. We are more at touch. We
have more compassion. Can
you feel that now?
Which one feels wiser? Which one feels more compassionate and open and loving? The busyness of before
or the quietness of now?
Like Thich Nhat Hanh said, just returning to the breath is like kissing the floor with every step you take.
There's a peacefulness and calmness about
it leave you focus on your breath for a couple of minutes. I will keep an eye on the time.
And if your mind wanders, just bring it back to your breath
and Allow yourself to go deeper and more calm.
I will be back soon
So how was that for you? Did you manage to remain calm or did your mind start to wander?
Both of those things are
natural.
Your minds evolve to think, to
wander, to make up things, to keep an eye out.
And the breath is just evolved to breathe, to
keep you alive keep
you energised, to give you all The
Things it needs.
So in a moment I'm going to come back from five. We'll
return to the room.
So five, four, gently open your eyes. Three, shake out your
arms to just stretch a little bit look around the room just Just
consider how much more relaxed you're feeling now compared to before. Your body knows how to relax. You don't have
to do it. You just have to give it permission. Your
mind knows how to become quieter. Again, if you try to quiet in your mind or try not to have
a thought, they'll come racing even faster. The
idea is to give your mind something to do. The idea is to appreciate your breath. And from this deeper
sense, wisdom will come. Wisdom is knowing ourselves. That's the probably the deepest form of wisdom
you'll ever have, is getting to know yourself. And
this is where I just return into your breath, return into what's going on inside your body at any given
moment. It's really that's the that's the whole recipe. That's everything you
need
to become more calm, to suffer less, for the body to heal, for the mindfulness gateway, to connect with
the world
And that symbol of life itself,
the breath.
I'm Steven Webb and this is Inner Peace Meditations. And thank you for your support. You can find out my
links below. StevenWebb.uk. Take care. Bye for now.
