Session 2 - Formal breath meditation

Mindfulness aims to teach you how to be more mindful of your momentary experiences and step back from following your autopilot mind.


Everything we do, we do so mostly on autopilot but from a therapeutic standpoint you are encouraged to you are encouraged to become aware of:


  • negative or irrational thoughts, false interpretations, judgemental or critical thoughts of self or others; basically any thought that has a negative impact on you.

  • feelings or emotions that lowers your mood, makes you feel uncomfortable, sad, angry, panicky, anxious or depressed, for example.

  • urges to be response that may have a negative impact on you or others.



Whilst we cannot stop some of these areas from triggering, we certainly can be in better control how we react to them.


When we are practicing mindfulness we do so with curiosity. With the raisin meditation you were encouraged to experience the raisin with curiosity with your 5 senses.



How does this curiosity help with your therapy?


Just as the mindfulness practices in the short course will help you to focus on what your experience is in the present moment without being judgemental of it.


It is hoped that you will equally learn to focus on thoughts, feelings, emotions and urges with the same curiosity.


It is perfectly normal to experience these but the mindfulness approach will help you explore any momentary experience with curiosity rather than following them on autopilot.



Listen to the recording below to familiarise yourself with the breath focus meditation and what it aims to teach you. 


Please read some useful information

Mindfulness is an extremely useful concept and one that is easy to nurture but practice is required.


On this page, and others, you will find drop down boxes like the ones you see below. The notes within the drop down boxes are intended to be informative to help guide you through your mindfulness practice.


Please take your time to absorb the messages and use the notes to help you create personal success with your mindfulness practice

  • The mindfulness of breathing

    Once you know how to breathe mindfully, you can use the practice to help you through challenging times. It’s not about denying feelings or changing them; it’s accepting them exactly as they are, while opening awareness to the calming quality of our breath.


    Mindfulness means paying attention, opening our awareness to what is happening in the present moment, and accepting it without judging or trying to control it.


    Practising mindfulness has been shown to have many benefits: more peace, energy, self-confidence, less stress, relief from depression and anxiety, fewer aches and pains and many people who start mindfulness training want to experience some of those for themselves.


    However, much some people try, they struggle with the practice. Some people say that they find it dreary, dull and boring, all that ‘notice what you’re doing while you clean your teeth’—Some just can’t get to grips with it at all and give up. 


    MAKING MINDFULNESS PART OF YOUR LIFE


    Mindfulness and breathing go together, and when you practise mindfulness with the breath, what might have been a dull, boring and mechanical practice suddenly comes alive. It is like putting petrol in your tank or the wind beneath your sails: mindfulness becomes a really enjoyable experience that just seems to flow.


    Practicing mindfulness using your breath as the starting point and the focus, not only opens your awareness to the present moment, which is what mindfulness is all about, but it can also naturally put you in touch with more peace, joy and strength. 


    Once you know how to breathe mindfully, you can do it anywhere, anytime, anyplace; it’s like flicking on an instant ‘inner peace’ switch. And it certainly is not boring!


    The CONTINUANCE OF MINDFUL BREATHING


    Being mindful of your breath simply means observing and opening your awareness to your breath: to your breathing in and your breathing out, without controlling or judging it in any way: letting it be. That’s it—it’s that easy!


    Once you’ve become practiced at breathing mindfully, you will find that it becomes natural for you and is available any time. Simply combining your breathing with whatever you are doing will help you transition into a mindful state of being. The practice will become a part of you and your daily life.

  • Enrich your life with a beginners mind

    Mary decided to visit her favourite coffee shop in town. The coffee shop was jam packed, and the woman working the counter was running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Mary felt so impatient. There was such a long line and the café was clearly understaffed.


    Mary noticed another person behind the counter, sitting and doing absolutely nothing. Finally, it was Mary’s turn and she couldn’t help but mention that the other employee should help out. The woman looked at Mary and gently said, “Oh, that’s my boyfriend. He shouldn’t even really be here.”


    Too often our thinking mind and what we believe to know to be true prevents us from seeing things as they really are. It’s almost as if we wear a lens and filter reality through it. If we are in a good mood, we see things from a happy, positive perspective. If we are in a bad mood, we may perceive things in a negative way.


    Imagine seeing things just as they are without judgment, no like or dislike, just as is. Sound intriguing? A beginner’s mind cultivates just that. A beginner’s mind sees things with a lens of openness and acceptance. It relates to experience like it is a first time.


    One could compare it to a young child playing with a toy, so present, focused, and lacking any judgment. The child is not thinking of his past or thinking of the future. That child is in the present, in the moment, noticing new things about the toy. The toy, as it is.


    The beginner’s mind attitude allows us to be open to new ideas and prevents us from repeating the way we relate to our experience. With a beginner’s mind, we naturally let go of expectations based on past experience. A beginner’s mind is present oriented as in the now. 


    If Mary was wearing a beginner’s mind lens at the coffee shop, she would have had no assumption about who should be doing what. She would have been too busy exploring all the colours and surroundings of the coffee shop as she patiently waited for her turn.

  • Practicing with a beginners mind

    Many people have preconceptions what their mindfulness practice will achieve. “It will make my thoughts go away”, “it will make me feel relaxed”, “it will stop me from feeling anxious”. These are all preconceptions which may harm your mindfulness practice if they are not met. 


    Beginner’s mind allows us to be receptive to new possibilities and prevents us from getting stuck in our mind, which often thinks it knows more than it actually does.


    Cultivating a Beginners Mind for Your Meditation Practice:


    • Let go of preconceptions about how the breath awareness meditation will work.

    • Eliminate expectations about what will happen.

    • Fill yourself with curiosity to understand the meditation more deeply.

    • Open yourself up to the possibilities that focusing on the present moment can offer you.

    Try to cultivate your own beginner’s mind as an experiment. The next time you see someone familiar notice if you are seeing the person with fresh eyes or through the lens of your beliefs about that person. 


    If you encounter a new activity you, notice if you are open to trying it out fully. 


    When you are out walking, see if you are noticing things you had overlooked before. Developing beginner’s mind opens you to possibilities in life you may be missing out on.

The formal breath focus meditation

Your formal mindfulness breath focus meditation will be an ongoing practice but to get you started with the breath meditation you will practice with the guided audio for 3 days at least once a day. Feel free to find time for additional practice times.

The importance of regular practice



Scheduling practice time will be paramount for you in order for mindfulness to become part of your everyday life. It can't be stressed enough how useful these mindfulness breathing meditations will be for you in the future so it is hoped that you follow the practice as directed.

  • There's no right or wrong way to meditate on the breath

    When people start our course, we often hear the same comments:


    • “I didn’t know how to breathe properly”.
    • “I couldn’t do it properly”.
    • “I couldn’t relax, my thoughts kept getting in the way”.

    Let us reassure you, there is no right or wrong way to meditate on the breath. Mindfulness practice involves observing the present moment and being accepting of whatever is in it. The practice involves following the breath as it is and doing so with acceptance of whatever arises without judgement.


    As an example: 


    • Whilst you are practicing a short breath awareness meditation, you become aware of your grocery shopping later on. The initial urge is to be unaccepting of the presenting thoughts and try to push the thought away. The more you try, the more the thought stays there. In your mind the meditation practice doesn’t work!

    • There is another approach: When the thought of the grocery shopping presents itself, allow yourself to recognise the thought is there and gently escort your awareness back to the breath. Here you are being accepting on the intrusion and choose to let it be there whilst you return your awareness back to your object of focus. If the thought is persistent just remain attentive to the breath. 

  • Understand the wandering mind

    It is very common as you begin to practice mindfulness to be surprised at how little your mind is truly in the present moment. 


    Whether you are engaged in a ‘formal’ or ‘informal’ mindfulness practice, your mind will wander away from your mindfulness practice. 


    This is absolutely normal. This mind wandering may involve thinking about the past, something you said or did or maybe thoughts about the future, an upcoming meeting or holiday. 


    When you notice that your mind has wandered, congratulate yourself for noticing this and gently bring your mind back to the point of focus in the present moment. 


    It is often helpful to label the wandering thought that you had. For example: “there's the upcoming Wedding”, “there’s Saturday night”, “there’s the mortgage”. 


    Then gently go back to your mindfulness practice. Don’t get frustrated or annoyed with a wandering mind…accept that is how our mind has been trained to work!


    One of the cornerstones of mindfulness is being non-judgemental and accepting of your thoughts. As you continue, you will notice your mind wandering off again. 


    This is entirely normal. Again, when you notice this happening, label the thought as a thought and bring your attention back to the present moment of focus. 


    If the mind wanders a thousand times your only job is to bring it back a thousand times.


    Irrespective of how often your mind wanders, always congratulate yourself on noticing that it has wandered and be gentle and compassionate as you bring your awareness back into the present moment. 


    Indeed, the very moment you notice your mind has wandered is in fact, you actually becoming mindful once again. Cultivating compassion for your mind is a very important principle within mindfulness.


    One of the reasons for this ‘cultivation of compassion’ for your own mind, is that as you evolve in your mindfulness practice, you will find that this cultivation of compassion towards yourself will extend to others as well.


    As the mind wanders, it chooses its own direction. So, while we may not have control of the first thought that fires off in our mind and the associated emotions created by this thought, we do have control on how long we dwell on these thoughts. 


    As you develop your mindfulness practice it allows the opportunity to see your ‘thought stream’ in action. For a brief moment, you will become aware of your thoughts and their generated emotions as they move like clouds across your mind, some big some small. 


    Mindfulness creates a distance between you and these thoughts. As you become the observer of these thoughts you can choose to accept them or reject them. When you become aware of this, it may become tremendously liberating. 


    Remember, you are only ever one thought away from the present moment. Step out of that one thought, focus on what's happening in front of you right now, using as many of your senses as possible and now you are practicing Mindfulness.


  • Managing your expectations

    As you move through this course there will be countless occasions when you’ll feel like you’ve failed. Your mind will refuse to settle. It will race off like a greyhound after a hare. No matter what you try, within seconds your mind may become immersed in thoughts about this and that. 


    At times it might feel that you are fighting a losing battle. You may even despondent that you can’t ‘create’ a calm state of mind. Or, while you listen to the formal mindfulness mediations you may feel sleepy and a deep drowsiness will begin undermining your intention to stay awake. At times you may even fall asleep.


    You may find yourself thinking, “nothing is working for me”. But these moments are not signs of failure. They are profoundly important to be aware of. Like trying anything new, whether it’s learning to play the drums or learn an apprenticeship, it can be frustrating when the results do not correspond to the picture of expectation you have in your mind. 


    In these moments it pays to persist with commitment and kindness towards yourself. 


    Apparent ‘failures’ are where you will learn the most. The act of ‘seeing’ that your mind has raced off or that you are restless or drowsy, is a moment of great learning. You are coming to understand a profound truth: that your mind has a mind of its own and that a body has needs that many of us ignore for too long. 


    You will gradually come to learn that your thoughts are not you, you do not have to take them so personally. You can simply watch these states of mind as they arise, stay a while, and then dissolve. It’s tremendously liberating to realise that your thoughts are not ‘real’ or ‘reality’. They are simply mental events. They are not ‘you’. 


    At the very moment when you realise this, the patterns of thoughts and feelings that gripped you may suddenly lose momentum and allow the mind to settle. A deep feeling of contentment may fill your body. But very soon your mind will race off again. After a while, you will once again become aware that you are thinking, comparing, judging. You may now feel disappointed. You might think: “I thought I really had it then and now I’ve lost it”. 


    You simply have to do the practices and learn for yourself. If you do, then every now and again, you will have an ‘Aha’ moment, a flicker of insight that is profoundly calming and enlightening. You will understand what other practitioners have been learning for thousands of years: that worries, stresses and anxieties can be held in a larger space, in which they emerge and dissolve, leaving you to rest in awareness itself.


    it’s a sense of being complete and whole that is independent of your preconceptions. At the end of this course, many people report knowing, deep within themselves, that this feeling of profound stillness, of being happy, content and free, is always available to them, it is only ever a breath away. 


    We wish you well as you continue along your path of increased mindfulness. 

Guide for this mindfulness practice

Aim to commit yourself to regular daily practice of the formal and informal breath meditations to ensure that you continue to connect with the concept of focused attention.



  • Schedule your formal breath focus practice sessions with the recording below for 3 consecutive days initially and set reminders to help you not to forget.


  • Allow 15 minutes for each practice session at least once each day. (You may want to schedule 2 practice sessions each day in the early stages if time allows.


  • Listen with headphones in a place where you won't be disturbed.


  • Never listen to this recording whilst driving.


There may be days where you don't want to practice or don't have the enthusiasm to. This isn’t a problem on its own but you don’t want to get in to the habit early of having a day off!


In these instances remind yourself that the breath meditations are the centre piece of this mindfulness course and that regular practice is required to acheieve the aims of the course.

The guided recording

Now that you have read the guiding notes for the breath focus meditation - it's now time to get started.


It is said that practice makes perfect and that patience is a virtue!


You are encouraged to practice the breath focus meditation regularly with the recording below and at least once each day for the first 3 days of your introduction to the breath meditation.


Remember to schedule your practice time and listen with headphones for maximum benefit.

moving to session 3

  • A few moments for reflection

    Reflecting on your mindfulness practice is paramount. The goal of mindfulness for the purpose of this anger management is to help you develop ways to distract and re-focus your awareness when you experience a trigger. 


    We have spoken about triggers and they can be an array of things including: thoughts, interpretations, tense feelings, stress, irritation, frustration and interactions with others. 


    Mindfulness practice is not about having a set of tools that completely stop these triggers from occurring (although the train metaphor can help with this) but having the ability to take a mental and physical step back to let the moment pass through. 


    Reflecting on the breath meditation


    When you have completed the first 3 days of your formal practice take some time to reflect on your practice. 


    Some people have expectations that are too high and unfortunately this can have an impact on the willingness to continue. 


    The breath meditation is a mindfulness technique that you can turn to whenever you need as a means to trigger a pause, like a reset button. 


    The technique is a simple one: focus on the flow and sensations of the breath as you breathe in and out - and when you notice you are distracted to gently bring your awareness back to the breath. 


    Simple as one might say -  but we all know and you may have experienced that it’s not al ways that easy!


    So this is where your continued and non-judgemental practice is required. 


    Your reflection


    Take a little time to reflect on your initial few days of practice. 


    • Did you give the formal practice enough attention? If you didn’t, do you need to spend another 2 or 3 days to do this?

    • Did you schedule your practice times and stick to them?

    • What was your experience of focusing intently on the flow and sensation of the breath as you breathed in and out? 

    • Did you become distracted? How did you react to this? 

    • Do you recognise how focused attention will help you step back from an anger trigger? If so, focus on how you see this - start the mental training of creating this new habit. An example: “when I experience critical thoughts I will use the breath meditation to distract my attention.”


    So when you experience distraction in your mindfulness practice, you are to just label this as a distraction and bring your awareness back to your mindfulness practice - if you get distracted again, you simply bring your awareness back again. - this is what the continued practice is about. 


    Focused attention


    One last point - we have spoken that mindfulness for anger management can be described as an effective distraction tool. 


    When we take the decision to focus on one thing and do so intently, we cannot focus on something else at the same time. 


    Yes, your mind will try to distract you but you make the decision to focus on your mindfulness practice. 


    So, although your mind will try to distract you with the triggers, if you deliberately focus on your mindfulness you cannot also focus on the trigger. 

Session 3 is the next step with your breath focus meditations.


Over the last 3 days you will have already practiced with the formal guided recording many times. The next step is to continue learning this effective mindfulness practice as an informal practice.


This is where your breath meditations will go from the formality of practicing with the guided recording to a practice that you can start to develop and instil in to your day to day life.


It won't be long now until you begin to notice an a trigger such as a run of negative or hostile thoughts or when you begin to feel tense, irritated or frustrated or when you feel the urge to be reactive - where you will be able to say stop - and turn to the breath as a means to re-focus.


But for now...your continued and regular practice is of the upmost importance. Breathing is one thing but being able to hold your focus on the breath when your autopilot mind is trying to distract you is another.


Stick with this practice - the rewards you will benefit from will be unmeasurable.

Session 3 - Informal breath meditation
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