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

I'm Catherine Nicolai. Please make yourself comfortable in any shape or posture.

If it feels safe to close your eyes, do that.

Relax your shoulders and your jaw

and take a deep breath in through your nose.

And sigh.

One more, breathe in.

Empty.

Good.

Shift your breath to go just through your nostrils now.

And right away, start to notice everything you can about how breathing feels. A touch and temperature of your breath.

What parts of your abdomen move as you breathe? See if you can hear the very soft sound of your breath. of. Let this be your whole world for the next few minutes.

And if at some point you notice you've slipped away world for the next few minutes.

And if at some point you notice you've slipped away from it, no problem, no big deal.

Let's see how quickly you can come back without having to tell a story about why.

It doesn't matter why. Thank you. Thank you. I've probably told you this story before, but, hey, repetition is a solid way to learn.

There's this Buddhist saying about how if you put a frog in the center of a plate,

within just a second, he'll hop off in some direction.

And if you bring him back to the center, within another second, he's hopped off somewhere else.

And so is your mind, they say.

You center it, it hops.

And what we're working on moment by moment is froglessness, losing some percentage of your frogier characteristics. characteristics. Center. Don't hop. Thank you. And here is the part that is often badly explained. You're staying in the center of this moment

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