Welcome to First This, a short mindfulness practice and message for any time.

I'm Catherine Nikolai, and I'm glad that you're here.

This is a good time to move into a comfortable, seated position.

You can be in a chair or on a cushion on the floor. And if none of that is comfortable, you can certainly lay down or find

any shape that feels good. Pause me if you need to.

Once you're there,

take a slow, deep breath in through your nose.

And let it out with a sigh.

I think we need one more.

Breathe in and out.

Good.

We'll spend a few minutes flexing our muscles of focus and concentration. So I want you to find the place in your body where it is easiest to feel your breath. It might be at your nostrils or in your throat, or it might be in your lower belly.

Once you find it, just rest your attention there. Notice as many details about how it feels as you can. If and when you realize, you realize your attention has gone somewhere else, without any hesitation, just begin again. Still there. Notice the sensations of breathing in, breathing out.

Breathing out. This idea of beginning again, it's a pretty useful one.

It's a skill worth cultivating.

We get better at what we do habitually.

So letting go of what has passed takes practice.

Many years ago, when I was sitting my first full 12-hour day of meditation,

my own teacher repeated over and over as we sat,

the advice that we begin again.

Start again. Start again.

Let's keep practicing just a little longer.

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