Life can get downright messy sometimes and we all could use some reprieve once in a while.

This day in age most of us get inundated with so much information, stimulus and the to-do-list a mile long. Everyone has busy lives and sometimes it just seems to much. We wish we could just take a break from it all. Need not fret, we don’t need to take a week’s vacation or go sit in the Himalaya’s for months we can re-calibrate our being and calm down our nervous system in just a few minutes.

We don’t need to be four years old to claim a time out. 

This is a very powerful technique to strongly bring your awareness into the present moment. It can be done mostly anywhere. Just stop! was used by the enlightened master George Gurdjieff. He was an influential spiritual teacher from the early to mid-twentieth century.

By nature we are wired to be doing and not being. We can put so many demands on ourselves which is unnecessary. Just try this once or twice a day when you feel like you are in a pressure cooker and are about to explode.

This can also be done when we are feeling impulses like hunger, thirst, the need to check Facebook, or grab that piece of chocolate. Most of our impulses are unconscious and we do them out of habit and to pacify our perceived needs. It is also a great one to do when we are feeling strong emotions like anger, frustration, impatience, and insecurity.

This meditation will slow down our whole being and flood our system with awareness. By shutting our external stimulation for a few moments we start to breath properly again and slow our heart rate down bringing us into the present moment.

How to do this:

Just stop!  Just stop whatever it is you are doing, right where you are.

Close your eyes and allow yourself to expand your belly fully with deep breaths.

Just witness what is going on inside of you without any judgement.

Don’t try and problem solve or plan just allow yourself to be.

With just a few minutes you will notice that you feel a lot calmer, your breath is deeper and the urge to throw a temper tantrum is all gone now! Who needs that last cookie anymore?!

This meditation will move us into the space from ‘doing to the space of ‘being’ which is our true essence.

Meditation was taken from the Living Enlightenment book by Paramahamsa Nithyananda. 

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Editor: Bryonie Wise

Photo: elephant archives