Chill out with a guided mindfulness practice
Take a short mindful break with me by trying out one of the practices I wrote and recorded for my work supporting teens and families.
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You don’t need a lot of time to create meaningful shifts. These guided practices are simple, accessible ways to bring more calm, awareness, and connection into your day.
Mindful Breathing (5 minutes)
Mindful Breathing is a tool that assists us in interjecting or slowing down the ruminating mind. Sometimes we perceive a situation as a threat and start overthinking, overanalyzing, and overstressing. Our ruminating thoughts can turn a small disagreement into a huge blowout argument. And then, we bring on an emotional storm.
When we pause to practice Mindful Breathing, we can interrupt the thoughts creating the emotional storm, and by doing this, we often find some relief.
Mindful Body Scan (10 minutes)
The Mindful Body Scan uses body sensations to help get us out of our ruminating mind, and into our body.
As you scan you may notice a variety of different sensations including: warm, cold, numb, tingling, aching, pricking, pulsing. Some sensations may be comfortable, and some may be uncomfortable. There’s no right or wrong sensation, and you don’t have to change any of the sensations. Do your best to simply observe the sensations for what they are.
Mindful 3 Part Breath (5 minutes)
It’s no coincidence that most great mindfulness teachers put a heavy emphasis on breath. Our breath gives us instant access to the present moment, and we can tap into what’s happening in our unconscious mind by becoming conscious of our breath.
The state of our breath and state of our mood are closely related. Our breath patterns reinforce feeling patterns. Sometimes the feeling patterns are helpful, and sometimes they’re unhelpful. The following Mindful 3 Part Breath practice can help you and your kids increase your ability to notice breath patterns, and make adjustments if need be.
Mindful Emotions (10 minutes)
The following Mindful Emotions practice is an awesome way to investigate feelings that are uncomfortable, and may evoke a sense of fear; and therefore, many of us bury them rather than process them.
This is a suitable practice for adults and children, and can act as a guiding light to talk about feelings with our family. The instructions will help you stay grounded while exploring intense feelings. I suggest you practice Mindful Emotions after you’ve tried the Mindful Breathing and Mindful Body Scan exercises.
Heartfulness (5 minutes)
This Heartfulness mindful practice is a way to build heart-to-heart connections and cultivate acceptance and compassion for self and others. Through building compassion, we expand our capacity to care for our own needs and develop a genuine sense of empathy for others. The intent of this practice is to help us develop acceptance and care for ourselves, exactly as we are, and to generate this same heartfelt quality for others.
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