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

I'm Catherine Nicolai and I'm glad you're here.

Please make yourself comfortable.

Adjust, unlock, unclench, let your walls down.

Take a deep breath in and sigh it out.

Again, breathe down deep and release it. Good. Let's take this by degrees. We'll go bit by bit.

If you're comfortable with closing your eyes, do.

Let your breath become natural, moving at its own relaxed pace through your nostrils.

And this bit is important. Don't try too hard.

Don't force.

Would your mind be like the surface of a lake.

Maybe there are ripples, maybe the wind blows and waves crest.

Your job isn't to wade out into it and somehow try to stop it, hold it all still.

This is much simpler.

You're just sitting beside it.

Observing.

Thoughts come and go.

You do less. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do less.

In a world that's constantly telling you to look at this, hear this, worry about this, can so easily become overwhelmed.

And all that back and forth, that task switching, it puts a heavy cognitive load on your brain.

And there's an energy cost to that.

Even just trying to decide where to put your focus as more and more stimuli enter the chat.

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