An important part of offering Mindfulness Based Techniques with therapy is practicing regularly myself.

During a guided meditation, my respected colleague Wendy had offered an image of the movement of the surf coming in to the shore on the in-breath and going out to sea on the out-breath. As I practiced breathing with that ocean imagery and tempo, filling and emptying the breath, in the meditation and in the days following, I realized this: the surf coming in and out has a rhythm that is a complete in and a complete out.

Aligning breath with that rhythm allows me to completely let go of a breath and to start anew. And the rhythm of the surf just keeps going, it doesn’t get held or stuck.

Prior to learning this image, I have sometimes hurried into the next breath, in my head and in my body, before I have completed the exhalation of the breath before.

Internalizing this surf rhythm allows me to keep starting anew and letting go, over and over.