Mindfulness Meditation (For Everyday Life)

come to on another inbreath. As much as possible,
allow all the breathing to be through your nose.
You don't have to do lying-down meditation as
systematically as in the body scan, however. You can
also focus on particular regions of your body at will,
or as they become dominant in the field of your
awareness, perhaps due to pain or a problem with a
particular region. Entering into them with openness
and attention and acceptance can be profoundly
healing, especially if you practice regularly. It feels
like a deep nourishing of cells and tissues as well as
of psyche and spirit, whole body and soul.
Lying-down meditation is a good way to get in touch
with your emotional body, too. We possess a
metaphorical, a mythical heart as well as a physical
one. When we focus on the region of the heart, it can
be helpful to tune in to any sensations of constriction
in the chest, tightness, or heaviness, and be aware of
emotions such as grief, sadness, loneliness, despair,
unworthiness, or anger which may lie just beneath
the surface of those physical sensations. We speak
of broken hearts, of being hardhearted or heavy-
hearted, because the heart is known in our culture as
the seat of our emotional life. The heart is also the
seat of love, joy, and compassion, and such emotions