Photo Credit: Frank Vessia

Bring more peace and joy into your life by adopting this 7-minute daily practice. Just listen to the recording and follow along each morning. Then remember to take three or more mindful pauses throughout your day.

Below the recording, you’ll find:

• Tips to help you implement this practice

• The insights you will gain by doing this practice.

• The many skills you will develop by doing this practice.

• A transcript of the recording for your reference.

Enjoy!

Top Tips

• Prerequisite: None. Mindful pauses are a foundational practice we encourage all people new and experienced with meditation start.

• Listen to and implement this Slogan Guide recording every morning. It will help you set a strong intention to take three or more mindful pauses throughout your day, and bring more peace, ease, creativity, and joy into your life.

• Use the slogan “Breathe” to remind you to do this practice. Hang the slogan “Breathe” in your bathroom, on the refrigerator, at work, in your car, and in other locations that you visit freFquently to remind you to take mindful pauses throughout your day.

• Give this practice your full attention. Do not listen to the Slogan Guide recording while doing anything else.

• Do this practice daily for a week or longer. Continue this practice until you have developed the habit to take mindful pauses three or more times a day.

Why do this practice?

Listening to this recording daily will help you develop the following insights and practice the following skills that will utterly transform your life.

If what you read here makes no sense to you, be patient and kind with yourself and my writing. Through practice, repetition, and personal experience, what I am saying will become clearer to you, and the power it gives you over your inner life, will become apparent.

Insights Developed:

• We will start to see how believing our thoughts creates our emotions. When we mistake our thoughts to be true, personal, or important, they create emotions in the body. By taking a mindful pause in response to stress and other emotions, we withdraw our attention away from our thoughts, and this helps calm, settle, and soothe the mind and body. It also allows emotions to move through the body and dissipate.

Our mindfulness practices allow us to see thoughts as thoughts: invisible, temporary, impersonal mental forms that flow through the mind based on past conditioning. The more we relate to thoughts in this way, the fewer afflictive emotions we feel, and the more we live with peace, ease, and joy.

Skills Learned

Regularly taking three or more mindful pauses a day will help you learn the following skills.

• How to sooth the body and mind. Mindful pauses help us soothe our nervous system and infuse our day with more mindfulness, peace, creativity, and resilience.

• How to savor pleasant experiences. We too often gloss over pleasant experiences without savoring them. Mindful pauses can be used when seeing beauty, eating delicious foods, smelling delightful aromas, hearing wonderful sounds, and so on to help us mindfully appreciate and enjoy them.

• How to release emotions. With repetition and practice, you can use mindful pauses to release afflictive emotions. The sooner you notice the emotion, and the sooner you take a mindful pause, the easier it will be to release the emotion. The longer the emotion has had to grow and establish itself, the longer a mindful pause you may need to release it.

Don’t expect miracles right away. Practice, practice, practice. As you gain proficiency, then you will start to see it help you in addressing more difficult and long-standing emotions.

• How to see with dual awareness. Mindful pauses withdraw our mind away from our thoughts and onto the sensations of breath. By repeatedly withdrawing our awareness away from our thinking, we start to notice this pattern: When I mistake my thoughts to be truthful, personal, or important, they are activated, and I suffer emotional storms. When I mindfully see my thoughts to be temporary, impersonal mental forms that arise based on past conditioning, I deactivate them, and can relate to them from a place of peace and ease.

Most of us, live most of our lives, activating our thoughts and suffering the resulting stress, fear, anxiety, anger, and frustration.

On the other hand, in contrast to our thoughts there is reality. Reality is what we experience through our five senses (sight, sound, tase, smell, and touch) when our mind is free of activated thoughts. Seeing the difference between thoughts and reality helps us develop the dual awareness we need to see thoughts as thoughts and reality as reality. This dual awareness allows us to be more peaceful, healthy, and loving.

Now Test It

Can such a simple practice really give a person all of these benefits? Test it and see! Do this practice diligently, every morning, out of love for yourself and all life.

As you explore your inner life, notice the patterns. Notice what you can control and what you are unable to control. Experientially learn the difference between an activated thought and a deactivated thought. Experientially learn how to deactivate your thoughts.

I believe in you. Through loving and persistent actions, you will see results. Be diligent and be kind to yourself and see how these skills and insights benefit your life.

May love and wisdom guide and protect you,

Freeman Wicklund

Transcript of Recording

Linking "Breathe" to Conscious Breaths

This guide will help prime you to take three or more mindful pauses throughout your day. 

First, let's link the slogan "Breathe" to starting a mindful pause. 

Say "Breathe" out loud. 

Then move the body into a confident, powerful posture. If able, lovingly place one hand on your heart and one on your belly as you anchor your awareness on the sensations of breath. Slowly breathe in through the nose, if able, deep into the belly for about five seconds.

Now slowly exhale for about five seconds while keeping awareness on the sensations of breath. 

Continue to mindfully breathe in this way for ten breaths, or for as long as it takes to soothe the mind and body and create a sense of wellbeing. 

Mindful pauses may be done with eyes opened or closed, depending on what makes sense, given your situation.

Wonderful!

Return to starting position -- hands lowered, eyes open -- and begin again. Say the slogan "Breathe" out loud. 

Then adopt a powerful posture, place your hands, anchor awareness on the breath, and calmly inhale for one, two, three, four, five.

Now exhale: two, three, four, five.

Continue to breathe in this way and feel how this calms the mind and body, and creates a sense of peace. 

During mindful pauses, maintain an uplifting posture and place your hands on your heart and belly, if able. In daily life, the hand placement may not be possible, and that's fine.

When you take a mindful pause during your day, take ten full breaths. As you become proficient in this technique, you may need fewer breaths to get the same results, but for now, do ten long, slow, belly breaths. 

Beautiful! 

Return to starting position -- hands lowered, eyes open.

Repeat the slogan from memory, silently to yourself. 

Assume the posture, place hands, anchor awareness, and inhale for one, two, three, four, five.

Exhale. Two, three, four, five. 

Feel the peace, power, and possibility. 

Continue breathing as I share ideas for when to take a mindful pause. Take a mindful pause as often as possible, whenever you remember to. Take one to help you savor delicious foods, delightful aromas, marvelous music, or the beauty of nature and art. Take one before an important meeting, speech, interview, call, or performance to help you calm your nerves and show up with more presence. Take one whenever a difficult emotion arises, to allow the emotion to move through and out of your system. Take one when listening to others, to help quiet your inner voice and focus on what they are saying. Take one whenever waiting in line or on the phone, to give your mind a break and feel the joy of mindfulness.

Excellent!

Skillful Intention Setting

Next, out of love for yourself and all life, we set some skillful intentions for the day.

Repeat after me, out loud, if able: At least three times today, I will think "Breathe" and take a mindful pause. 

Magnificent!

Again, and really mean what you say: At least three times today, I will think "Breathe" and take a mindful pause.

Superb! 

Visualize Taking Conscious Breaths

Finally, we use visualizations to rehearse taking a mindful pause. Imagine a situation you may face today where it would be helpful to take a mindful pause. 

Gently visualize yourself experiencing the situation and mindfully responding by thinking "Breathe" and taking a mindful pause. Do this visualization now. 

Feel how the mindful pause cultivates calmness, compassion, and creativity, and allows you to respond to the situation skillfully and kindly. 

Marvelous! 

Again. Imagine a second situation you may face today where a mindful pause would be beneficial.

Now compassionately visualize yourself experiencing the situation and mindfully responding by thinking "Breathe" and taking a mindful pause.

Feel how the mindful pause produces peace, power, and possibility, and allows you to respond with skill and compassion.  

Lovely! 

Encouragement and Blessings

Whenever you remember to, take a mindful pause today.  

Practice aids proficiency. Repetition aids mastery. Do your best, and success will follow.

Stay committed to your meditation and slogan practices. You will be rewarded for your efforts. 

I love you and Life loves you. May you live mindfully in joyful service to truth and love.