The Pause Practice

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about the pause practice. So during daily life, we often find ourselves caught up in autopilot mode. So in autopilot mode we're living, but we're kind of only half here, because half of our attention or more is lost in wandering thoughts. So for instance, while we're driving our car, we might be mulling over our problems.

While we're making lunch, our mind wanders and fantasizes of something like a holiday or a home improvement. And instead of being fully present when we're with our loved ones, we're often just lost in our own thoughts. So the pause practice is this really simple way to pull ourselves back out of autopilot mode and come back into the present moment. So here's the practice and the simple invitation for today. Each time you notice that your mind is wondering, just pause what you're doing, physically pause, and just take three deep, slow, mindful breaths.

As you breathe in, bring your attention out of thinking and into feeling the flow of your breath in your body. And then with each breath, just seeing if you can become more and more focused on what's happening in the present moment. So you connects with your senses what you can ,hear, what you can see, what you can feel. Just letting awareness really wash over you. So for me as I take these three breaths, it really feels like this mental fog slowly lifts, and then the clarity and peace and vibrancy of awareness returns.

After the third exhale, I've really anchored back into the present moment and I'm more able to carry it forward into the rest of the day or at least into the next moments. So today, see if you can use the pause practice whenever you need that little bit of extra support to just come home to the present moment. And with those three breaths you can connect again to the fullness, the aliveness and the richness of the moment around you and also to the, you know, to that mental clarity and that wisdom within. So I wish you a really wonderful day of practice with this. Have a little bit of fun with it.

And as always, thank you so much for your practice and for your presence here in this community. And let's settle in now for today's meditation.