A shared practice
Focused Attention
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Created bySean Fargo
Day 8 of Sean's original 28-day mindfulness series — recorded in his own voice.
In Sean Fargo’s own voice7 min
Read along — the full script
Mindfulnessexercises.com. Your 28-day mindfulness challenge. Day 8, Focused Attention. Let's begin by taking a moment to settle the body by finding a posture that feels relaxed and alert, inviting a sense of ease into the body.
Feeling more grounded as we feel our feet touch the ground, the weight of your body on the chair or cushion. Sensing into the breath as you breathe in and out. Dropping your shoulders, wiggling your fingers, loosening the jaw and the muscles around the face and eyes as you close your eyes gently or look downward just to limit visual distractions.
Just relaxing, feeling more grounded and at ease. Today, we're gonna practice focused attention or concentration practice, where we're gonna focus on our breathing. So you can think of this practice as a metaphor of resting a snow globe or a jar of muddy water onto a table.
As we let it settle, it becomes more clear and calm. The mind is very similar. As we focus attention on the breath, as we settle the mind onto the breath, the mind and the body both begin to relax and settle, becoming more clear, feeling more free.
Taking a full breath in and a slow, long breath out, we can observe our breathing, we can notice the breath flowing in and out as we allow all of the other contents of the mind to settle and clarify. So I invite you to take a deep breath in and a long, slow breath out. Trying this a few times, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Not making any effort to change your breathing too much, but just simply noticing your body breathing in and out, staying with the sensations of breathing. It's very helpful to notice the rise and fall of your chest as the air passes in and out. Some people like putting a hand on their chest to feel it rise and fall.
Can you notice your chest moving up and down, in and out as you breathe? And when your attention wanders, which it will because you're human, just come back gently and focus again on your breathing. Not judging yourself to be good or bad, right or wrong, just coming back over and over to the sensations of breathing.
Noticing if any thoughts arise, not holding on to them, simply letting the thoughts pass and bring your attention back to your breathing. And notice the stages of a complete breath from the in breath to the subtle pause, the exhale, and the pause before taking another breath. See the slight breaks between each breath, feeling the air entering through the nose, see it in the mind's eye flowing through the nose and then down to your lungs.
Feeling your lungs expand as they fill with air and relax again through the exhale. And as thoughts arise, simply allow them to pass and return your attention to your breathing. And let's finish now with a full deep breath in and a long slow breath out.
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