A Moment of Calm

You may like to enjoy a moment of calm right now. Here is an offering of greater ease that might leave you feeling fresher than when you started.

This simple mindfulness exercise, inspired by the practice of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, to soothe your nervous system, release stress and nourish your emotions.

As you give it a go, remember this is just an experiment, your body is your own, you don't owe anyone your strict adherence to the guidance below. Stay within your comfort level. There's no need to force or push through if this isn't the right moment or practice for you right now.

Guidance: 

1. Take a few natural breaths, through your mouth or your nose. Settle your shoulders. Sometimes a breath release of "haaahh" like you're steaming a bathroom mirror to cleanse it, is a good place from where to begin a breath practice. It clears toxins from deep in the lungs. Go on and try that now if you want to.

2. As you read the following phrases inwardly in your mind, you might wish to explore breathing deeply through the nose with the first line, and breathe out slowly with the second line. You might notice a tiny glimmer of self-warmth start to ignite, but if it doesn't then there's no right or wrong here:

Breathing in, I am aware of my heart.  

Breathing out, I smile to my heart.

3. If you'd like to go further, you may like to place a hand on your heart as you practise this way of mindful breathing. You could simplify the phrase to:

In, aware of my heart, 

Out, smiling warmly.

4. Whatever you are aware of in your heart and mind, you may wish to continue this breath practice, repeating the words a few times for a few more seconds or minutes. Even one moment of mindfulness is a gift to offer yourself kind attention. You deserve it. Everybody does.


Enso circle brushstroke symbol


Home | Blog | Contact | Content Policy | Accessibility 

CC BY-NC 4.0

Popular posts from this blog

Meet Me Beyond the Labels

Image
So, I'm Kes. My full name is Kesley, and I like that, but Kes is for the dyslexics among us who might otherwise call me Kelsey. I'm certainly not a Kelsey. When I'm not pottering in the garden, being idle with a book, or following some creative pursuit, I spend a lot of time being a therapist. In one form or another, I've been a therapist for the best part of my adult life. As a child, it was my grandmother who taught me to be an excellent listener—and also instilled in me a penchant for teapots. I took my first classes in becoming a holistic therapist in my early twenties. I'm now in my mid-thirties, and have worked with many people of various ages and social positions. Let's start with the power and privilege stuff. Although it's clunky, it's important to name because it affects how you and I relate through our identities and social status. If we don't talk about these things, we’re likely to conform to predefined (and sometimes damaging) roles, pr...
Read more

Listening to the Felt-Sense: Finding Ourselves in Embodied Relationship & Belonging

Image
What if the depths of our inner world weren't a solitary landscape, but a rich territory we could genuinely share and explore with others? What if the felt sense —that subtle, quiet language of the body—was always in active, dynamic conversation with the spaces, people, and intricate systems we navigate daily? This expansive understanding is at the heart of two distinct yet deeply complementary approaches: HomeFocusing and Relational Whole Body Focusing . Both build on Eugene Gendlin's Focusing modality, and invite us into a profound way of being - an orientation to life that keeps us intimately connected to ourselves in context . HomeFocusing: Sensing Our Selves in Life's Living Systems 🧠 Note: No robots (or humans) were harmed in the making of this blog. This is one of a small number of articles where I’ve experimented with using AI to generate text—allowing my executive functioning to be reserved for other tasks. HomeFocusing , developed by Annat Gal-on, a Focusing Coo...
Read more

The Nervous System of Nations

Image
Understanding Trauma As a counsellor with some education about trauma, I’m witness to the way systemic trauma shapes lives and communities. Trauma is a complex psychological and physiological reaction to deeply distressing or overwhelming events. Fight, flight, freeze, flop, and fawn are all survival strategies, and they play out in our behaviour: fleeing a threat, freezing when powerless, or fawning to keep ourselves safe. Ideally, once the danger passes, we return to safety, and our nervous systems reset. But when threat is constant, such as in war, child abuse, discrimination, or other chronically distressing circumstances, the body can’t fully relax. It stays on alert. Over time, even neutral situations can feel dangerous. Generational Echoes Research shows that trauma can echo through generations — what’s sometimes called intergenerational or transgenerational trauma . Our cells can carry biochemical traces of ancestral pain. Epigenetic studies suggest trauma may influence gene e...
Read more