how to observe your breath during meditation

Meditating sounds quite simple.

You sit or lay down (however you feel comfortable), close your eyes, and focus on your breath.

Every time your mind wanders and gets lost in thoughts; you just bring your attention back to your breath.

But what if you can’t focus on your breath and start to take control of it instead?

Most times during meditation, instead of watching my breath, I begin to alter it.

I find it difficult to just observe my breath as it is.

This represents our tendency to want to control things and being aware of it is a good first step.

The breath itself is not important, it’s only a convenient focus point to bring attention to when the mind wanders.

One method to focus on the breath is to remove focus from the location of where you feel your breath such as chest or abdomen and ask yourself, “am I breathing in or am I breathing out?”

The experience where you get your answer from is what you focus on.

Another method to focus on your breath is to imagine that you are a passenger in a car looking through the window at your breath.

You are not driving the car, you are just watching.

Watching the breath is a skill that needs to be practiced like any other skill.

To calm the monkey mind and practice keeping attention on one thing you can start off by focusing on the front of your face.

When the mind wanders bring your attention back to the front of your face.

Visualising something that you can focus on is the best way to keep your attention on something.

A very helpful visualisation is to imagine a cross (vertical and horizontal lines) in front of your nose.

Keep your attention at the intersection point (where the lines meet) and relax your body.

I like to repeat the word “relax” like a mantra while meditating.

I found that when I keep saying relax in my head, it keeps me from getting lost in thoughts and it allows me to enter that blissful feeling faster.

After trying alternative techniques, you can start practicing watching your breath again.

With practice your attention will grow, and you’ll feel more present in your daily life.

Don’t give up on it.

The benefits of meditation are greater than the time spent practicing this skill.

Ask yourself, would you rather live a happy, fulfilled, present life or stay stuck dwelling on the past and worrying about the future?

Keep your long-term vision in your mind and that will carry you through this practice.

What helps you focus on your breath? What techniques do you use during meditation?

Read, share, comment, and let me know what you think!