Middle Way Management
Practice

Breathing on a quality

Sit with the breath first, then hold one quality on each breath.

A few minutes of quiet breathing during the work day, followed by holding a single quality — humility, compassion, accountability — in mind on the in-breath and the out-breath. Reach for it when the thing you want to work on in yourself is a way of being rather than a task.

How it goes

  1. Take time during your busy work day to sit quietly and concentrate on your breathing. This is what prepares you to move into concentrating on the quality itself.
  2. Breathe in and recognize your breath. Breathe out and recognize your breath.
  3. Then breathe in and consider humility. Breathe out and consider humility.
  4. Do this for a few minutes every day. The same pattern carries other ideals — compassion, accountability — into your thought processes.
  5. Where what you are working on is how you define yourself, combine the same breathing exercise with the phrase “I am more than my job.”

A caution

He places this under the “way of being” half of the approach: because humility is a way of being, the single best way to become humble is to reflect upon it during your busy work day, and he says it takes very little effort. He does not claim it is the whole answer — deftly applying the practice methodology, he adds, will also help you change your habits and behaviors in long-term, lasting ways. On the “I am more than my job” variant he says only that combining the breathing exercise with that phrase is a way to calm yourself and discover your true nature, set alongside devoting time to reflective thought and aware breathing. He does not restate the breathing mechanics there, and he does not say how often or when to use that particular phrase.

Once again, taking time to sit quietly and concentrate on your breathing will prepare you to move into concentrating on humility. Breathe in and recognize your breath, breathe out and recognize your breath. Breath in and consider humility, breath out and consider humility. It takes very little effort to incorporate ideals like humility, compassion, and accountability into your thought processes simply by concentrating on them for a few minutes every day.

— Middle Way Management and Humility