Video transcript
Ok, so I’m just going to run through the 3-minute check-in exercise which we covered in the main videos.
This is sometimes called a breathing space and it’s been designed to be like a mini meditation when we haven’t got the time for deeper meditations, or setting aside time where we want to explore things in our own time. This could be done maybe in the office, through the day, at points where we’re starting to feel a bit anxious or triggered. So these are the sorts of opportunities where this 3-minute check-in exercise can be really powerful.
Obviously we need to make sure that we remind ourselves to do it because if we get triggered by situations through the day sometimes we’re then ‘in it’ and it’s hard to work out what caused it.
And maybe we then draw up into our head, then we’re doing catastrophizing worrying, these sorts of things. So overtime if we can practice this then maybe we can start to insert a little pause when we’re starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. So it’s only 3 minutes – you could put a Post-it note on your computer if you use one of those, or the fridge, whatever might be helpful in that sense. So so the first thing to do is to start at the top of this hourglass shape.
I’m starting at the top, number one and we’re going to do a check-in with our thoughts, our feelings and then our sensations. so so you know you can imagine, I’m starting to feel a bit a bit anxious. I need to do this this kind of check-in just to bring myself back to present moment. If you’re sitting in a chair, standing up or lying down as well, but with me here, I’m just doing the usual thing of trying to notice my feet on the ground. Eyes closed ideally if you can and then bringing my attention to my breathing just with the hands on the tummy area, and then just a quick check in so it’s just one minute.
I’m just starting to see what’s going on. I’m not trying to change anything, just seeing what’s going on. What what am I thinking about? Am I worrying about something? Am I getting angry about something and it’s causing me distress or stress just noticing. Am I catastrophising, or panicking about things?
Of course actually maybe there’s no thoughts going on so we might move on to our feelings. ok, so I noticing some anxiety and I’m noticing that I’ve got this feeling of dread about something coming up. so we then move into the body and it’ll be ok – So where am I feeling this? I’m feeling tense in my shoulders, my breathing feels a bit shallow, I can notice tension being held in my head. Those sorts of things. So we’re just working through that in the first minute. Then in the second minute we’ll be starting to go into that narrow point. Down to focusing on one thing, and gathering our attention into one place.
So it can either be your breath or it could be your feet on the ground for example, or just the chair holding your weight. And just starting to tune into that one thing. so in my case, I’m just tuning into my breathing.
Just noticing my breathing lifting my hands. feels like my attention is starting to just feel concentrated around my tummy area. You do that for one minute and we might notice that we start to settle a bit. With these exercises the more that we do them then the body and the mind knows what the routine is and gets into into the process more quickly So this is something that we can you know if you do it frequently then it can be a little breathing space that we can just turn to various points through the day and very quickly get some positive results. Then number 3 at the end we’re starting to open it up again at the bottom of the egg timer or the hourglass here.
You just want to start gently bringing your awareness to open again to the surroundings. So starting to tune into sounds around us. Maybe birds tweeting, dogs barking – my dog Oscar starting in the background.
And and then we just gradually bring our awareness to the room. Maybe open our eyes to see if we can just maintain that quality of calmness that we’ve gathered, where we feel that we brought ourself back into the here and now.
So that we are operating in that way of being for the next phase of our day.