Connecting the Dots

How does meditation work exactly? More specifically, how does the simple act of breathing lead to better communication? How does it ease anxiety (aside from the physical benefits)?

First, let’s abandon the term “meditation” for now. Let’s just call it a breath practice. Takes some of the weight off the whole process.

You start to engage in a breath practice. You find a place where you can primarily just focus on your breathing. A place where you can sit quietly with your eyes closed, just listening to and focusing on your inhales and exhales.

Where that place is really depends on you. For some, it’s in a soundproof booth. For others, it’s in the forest. For some, it’s in a city park. It doesn’t matter where it is, as long as you can remain undisturbed and concentrate on your breath for a fixed amount of time.

It may start out as three minutes, and that’s fine. Even if it’s two minutes, I would say that’s OK too, as long as it’s dedicated, uninterrupted time where you just focus on your inhales and your exhales and nothing more.

No calls, no emails, no conversations, no note-taking, nothing.

Just a promise, a contract if you will, that for whatever amount of time you’re comfortable with, you will remain uninterrupted (even by you) while you concentrate on and focus on your inhales and your exhales.

Simple enough, right?

As you start to focus on your breathing, you may notice thoughts come up. Your to-do list, something you said three months ago, a Netflix series you’ve been meaning to watch, a recipe you’ve been meaning to make, a great idea for a business.

Whatever it is, you must promise yourself to let it go.

You are making a promise to yourself that you’re going to sit for those five minutes (or whatever time you’ve dedicated to yourself) uninterrupted. When a thought arises, as part of that promise to yourself, you are going to let go of the thought.

If it’s really important, you will just have to trust yourself that it’ll come up later. Right now, you’re dedicating yourself to you for five minutes.

You have to put some faith in the process here. Five minutes is not a lot to ask of yourself at any given moment on any given day. You spend more time scrolling on Instagram while taking a shit, if we’re being honest.

In these five minutes, you sit, you feel, and you notice the inhale. Maybe you hold your breath at the top, then you exhale. Maybe you add a hold to the breath at the bottom, or maybe the exhale seamlessly transitions into the inhale again.

It’s your breath practice. Do what feels inviting.

Perhaps you envision the breath traveling up your spine like a wave, through your core, finding expansion at each anchor point in your body: your sit bones, your belly, your solar plexus, your ribs, your collarbones, your throat, and even the top of your head.

Maybe you add some color to the breath and imagine the inhales as cleansing blue light, creating healing expansion in your body. With each exhale, you imagine a cleansing, heat-filled energetic color like red or orange, as if you’re a dragon breathing out fire.

Maybe you add some texture to the breath, envisioning each inhale as the cool air of the Arctic, and each exhale as black smoke leaving your body, creating space for something new.

Truly, the possibilities are endless.

The purpose of the above is to help you concentrate on something, and to make concentrating on the breath more inviting, more interesting even, than the many, many thoughts that will likely pop up.

It’s not a failure by any means that you have thoughts that pop up. The key to this breath practice is allowing the thoughts to happen, acknowledging them, labeling them, letting them go, and returning to your breath.

Let’s say that again altogether now:

RETURNING TO YOUR BREATH.

That’s the whole foundation of a breath practice, and that’s the whole foundation of meditation in general. It’s returning to your breath when negative thoughts arise, obstacles present themselves, and emotions take over.

You continue to sit there breathing, inhaling and exhaling, and the natural thing that will happen throughout is the thinking, the thoughts, the distractions.

That’s OK. In fact, don’t fight it. Let it happen, as long as you can remember to come back to your breath.

That’s where the magic happens.

You begin to get good at this. You begin to get good at letting thoughts happen and finding a safe, consistent, inviting place to come back to yourself.

Your own breath.

It’s there whenever you want. It’s there whenever you need.

And it’s not just when you’re meditating. Oops, I meant practicing breathing.

You start to do this every day. You start to feel a sense of calm that comes from intentional breathing. The calm lasts a while. Depending on all the things that can and often do happen, that calm is temporary.

But you can come back to it and bring that feeling back at your own will!

You have that power!

Kinda cool, right?

It gets better.

You’re on a phone call with a client or customer. They’re yelling at you. They’re complaining. They’re accusing you of a whole load of bullshit.

You start to feel this sense of “fuck you” take over. You start to feel yourself tighten, temper rising, emotions overwhelming rational thought, and negative thoughts starting to infiltrate your mind.

But then something happens.

You remember, “This is just a thought,” and even, “I am not this thought,” or “I am not this emotion.”

You start to let it go.

You’ve been practicing for this very moment.

You let go of the negative, because they’re just thoughts like any other. There’s no difference between “I want to fucking punch this asshole” and “I really want to watch that Netflix series everyone’s been talking about.”

They’re both just thoughts.

And when those thoughts happen, you can choose to let them go. You can let them go and come back to your breath.

Are you even breathing?

Wait, have you been holding your breath that whole time?!

Come back to your breath.

Pause.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Then, respond.

Having a breath practice strengthens your ability to pause, which means you start to respond instead of react.

You retrain your behavior by simply focusing on the breath. And what’s more, you start to retrain your nervous system. You start to teach yourself that the tense moment is temporary. You can walk away and come back to your breath as a safe space.

I know this because I’ve done it, successfully. In emails, in court, even in a deposition recently. I prioritized my peace (more on that in a separate post), and I allowed for space and time to come back to my breath.

The result?

Better communication.

Responding, not reacting.

Moving at my pace, slower, with intention.

Moving at a pace of kindness and compassion for others and for myself (because I always feel like shit when I say the unkind thing to someone).

Moving at a pace of love.

Too much for you? That’s OK. You’ll get there.

It all starts with a dedication to your breath and a promise to yourself for just a few minutes a day.