Middle Way Management
Practice

Mindful breathing

Two phrases, one on the in-breath and one on the out-breath.

A short breathing practice you can run at your desk or in the middle of a meeting to come back to where you are and what you are doing. Reach for it when ego or fear is getting the better of you, and again through an ordinary busy day to keep your awareness up.

How it goes

  1. Choose two brief phrases now, before you need them. They can be anything you find meaningful, and should be something positive that calms you and helps settle your racing mind.
  2. Assign one phrase to the in-breath and one to the out-breath. His own pair is “I am breathing in here, now,” and “I am breathing out here, now.”
  3. Silently recite them while breathing in and breathing out.
  4. When everything is busting loose around you, use it to return to your own island of calm.
  5. Use it again through your busy day, not only in a crisis, as a way to increase your awareness.
  6. In a meeting you cannot excuse yourself from, concentrate on your breathing to bring yourself into awareness. In the later essay on refuge he says breathing in awareness “may be the best approach” because it helps you focus intently on the present, preventing the wandering of mind that is so easy to slip into when refocusing.

A caution

He fences the practice himself: this is not a mystical or religious practice; it simply brings him back to an awareness of where he is and what he is doing, so that he is living now rather than in a “coulda woulda shoulda” space. He also concedes its limit — not every situation will allow you to stop what you are doing to calm your breathing, which is why he offers anchoring a calming association as a second approach for the meetings where the fur is flying. In the later essay on refuge he adds a boundary: it is one of the primary responsibilities of the manager to be present at all times, so take refuge when and where appropriate.

One of the best ways to practice mindful breathing is to silently recite a phrase or two while breathing in and breathing out. The phrase(s) you choose can be anything you find meaningful and should be something positive that calms you and helps settle your racing mind. For instance, I use two brief phrases: "I am breathing in here, now," and "I am breathing out here, now."

— Walking the Middle Way Management Talk