Welcome to the Daily Meditation Podcast. I'm Mary Meckley and I'm a meditation teacher who shares a different meditation technique every day on the podcast. And each technique is customized around a weekly theme. And I want to congratulate you for giving yourself permission to slow down today as you meditate.

In fact, our weekly theme this week is slowing down.

So you are in the right place to giving yourself more peace,

energy and clarity as you slow down. And in today's episode, which is episode 697,

you're going to be guided in a breathing technique.

Every Tuesday I share a breathing technique on the podcast.

So you'll be guided as you relax your body and start to notice your breath and then go into a guided breathing technique.

Now this breathing technique is going to kind of energize you a little bit.

And that might sound a little bit odd if you're doing a slow down meditation. And the reason why I'm

going to have you do a breathing technique that's a little bit more energizing is because, and I

think you'll be able to relate to this if you have children especially sometimes in order to really slow down

it's important to energize yourself just a little bit because when we have pent-up energy and

we feel a little bit restless sometimes we need to kind of get that energy out

before we can relax and slow down.

And people often tell me that one of the most challenging parts of meditation is that

they get all ready, they sit down and they're nice

comfortable meditation spot. No one's interrupting them. Everything seems ideal for them to meditate.

And then the mind starts to wander or they feel like they have an itch to scratch or they just

can't stop this restless feeling so if that issue you are going to really

appreciate today's breathing technique.

Now, you could also compare energizing yourself

before you go into more of a state of stillness,

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