Meditation

STOP

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To do a STOP means to drop whatever you are doing and take only a few moments of time to connect with your being, right here right now. There are many ways to do a STOP, and here are just a few,

Timeframe: 1-5 min

Type: Individual and/or group activity

Tips: Choose and play with any of the variations listed below and design your own STOP practice

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Stop doing whatever you are doing and…

Breath awareness

Close your eyes, or just pick a spot to look at and become aware of your breath. Feel the air coming through your nose and filling up your chest and softening you as you breathe out. Get curious about your breath today. No need to change it, just get curious about it and observe. After a few breaths open your eyes and come back to your task at hand.

Connect to a sense

Connect with one of the 5 physical senses…

  • Sight – choose a random mundane physical object in your environment to look at it in detail and notice something you’ve never seen about it before. Alternatively, you can also just lean back and “zoom out” your perspective as you bring the awareness to the edges of your sight frame and relax the “focus” your eyes muscles.
  • Smell – close your eyes, and as you breathe notice any smells present in the space where you are at. Even the smell of nothing is a smell.
  • Sound – close your eyes and become aware of the sounds that reach you. Take note of which one are the furthest, and which ones are closer, and finally which ones are within you.
  • Touch – invite your attention to anything that touches your skin at the moment and explore the sensations.
  • Taste – grab a snack or a drink and as you consume it close your eyes and bring your awarness to the richness of its taste.

Grounding

Close your eyes and bring your attention to your feet touching the ground, and/or any of the surfaces your body sits/lies on. Feel the weight of your body and the gravity pulling you towards the ground. Count the breaths from 10 to 1, and with every out-breath release more of your body weight to be held by the ground.

Visualisation

Close your eyes and connect with your breath. Visualise yourself as a ball of light that expands with every breath in and contracts with every breath out. Alternatively, you can visualize what could it look like for you to breathe in energy, light, vitality and love, and breathing out worries, pain or frustration.