July 4, 2025 • 25 mins
Each day is so full of putting fires out and dealing with problems that arise that it is very hard to remember to take some time to relax and clear our minds so we can go through the rest of the day with some balance, perspective, and clarity. Meditation can help us with one of the most important things we could do for ourselves, remember to take a rest between two deep breaths. One breath at a time.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Greetings, fellow meditators. Welcome to mindful meditations with calm the
bleep down. As always, I am your guide Michael Beckameier,
and today we are going to rest. Let's get started.
(00:23):
As always, we have a mindfulness quote to help us
go into our meditation with some intent and purpose and
some guidance. And today our quote comes from Ellie Hillsome
and it reads, sometimes the most important thing in a
whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.
(00:47):
I like that quote because of its tie into our
theme of the week, which is the gap, the space
between thoughts, the space between breaths, stillness. But when I
when I read that quote for the first time, what
I really got out of it was sometimes I think
of between breath as the in between the breathing in
(01:11):
and the in between of the breathing out. But really
a whole breath is breathing in and out, and then
you have your rest between two full breaths. But if
you think of it as a rest between inhale and exhale,
(01:36):
and then a rest between exhale and inhale, it's this
circular process of rest, breath, rest, breath in, rest out,
rest and again, just continuing to create a gap, a
(01:58):
space between breath, which is for me symbolic of the
space between thoughts. I've said this in a previous meditation,
But so many times we don't notice how busy our
minds are, and because we have stuff happening all around us.
(02:19):
We got traffic, we got a thousand other things happening,
phone calls, text message, people talking in this year, ticket
people talking in the other ear, chaos, work life, deadlines,
and we don't notice how busy our minds are in
that process. Our minds don't stop thinking. They're just maybe
preoccupied with the chaos that's coming at you full force.
(02:41):
But even in the back of even in the back
of those thoughts, are the negative stuff that we still
have constantly going on, you know, the stuff that belongs
to us, our inner demons or our traumas or whatever
you want to call them. And when we sit down
and try to be quiet, try to find some stillness,
(03:05):
to meditate, or just to be quiet for a few
moments and rest, that's when we start to notice how
loud the internal thoughts are. They're not loud now saying
that we can't quiet our minds. They're always that loud.
(03:25):
But when we remove all the other distractions, then they
come to the foreground and we notice how they're just
screaming at us. And that's when we start to think, oh,
I don't think I can meditate because my mind is this.
I'm one of those people that can't meditate. And that's
not true. But we do look at those serenes zen
(03:49):
you know, to you know, the Tibetan Buddhist monks who
just like always look at ease and zend out and
meditating like they're about to start levitating because they're so
at peace. They just know something that we don't, which
is my mind is going to keep doing its thing,
(04:09):
and I have to find this space between my thoughts,
and over time I can create a bigger space between
my thoughts. But the other thing I like about that
quote is the fact that our minds are spinning so
much that we are just mentally drank a lot, and
(04:33):
it's exhausting. Right, So even if we're just using meditation
for nothing more than to relax, to find just a
few moments of like quiet so I can rest. Have
you ever sat down and meditated for ten or fifteen
minutes and it felt like you had a solid two
hour nap. That is because I think for me, I've
(04:57):
always equated it to while you spend some time shutting off,
you spend some time not stressing about your thoughts that
are going on in your mind. So that's the other
thing I like about this quote is the rest we
take between two deep breaths. So that's what we're going
(05:20):
to do today in our meditation. We're going to find
some rest in between two deep breaths, which would also
lend itself to the space between our thoughts, and we're
just going to do that over and over and over again.
The more I meditate, the more I'm comforted by the
(05:41):
process of oh, I can just start over, Because when
I first started meditating, I would just, like everybody, get
really frustrated with how hard it was to you know,
every three seconds it felt like I was like I
lost track of my breath. Again, I have to start
all over. But for me, the longer I do it,
the more I'm comforted by the fact that I can
(06:03):
do that, Because if I couldn't do that, meditation would
not work. It wouldn't be helpful, it wouldn't be comforting
or soothing or anything. If I couldn't start over. If
it really was a detriment to my meditation that I
couldn't pause my thoughts for long enough to breathe in
and breathe out a couple times, then what people think
(06:30):
about meditation about how they can't meditate would be true,
and that would be awful. But we can start over,
We can begin again. We can get to the bottom
of a breath and go there's my mind again. Let
(06:51):
me breathe in. Okay, breathing in. It's a process of
letting go over and over and over again, which again,
as I always say, letting go of your thoughts and
starting a new breath in a meditation is practice for
life because we are constantly being forced to let go
(07:14):
of things that we are trying to hold on to good, bad, ugly, indifferent. So,
like I said, that's what we're going to meditate on today.
So find yourself in a comfortable seat, or you can
lie down for this. You can neither sit down or
lie down. The main thing is to find yourself comfortable,
(07:37):
close your eyes and start to feel the sensations in
your body, watching your breath coming in, watching your breath
go out. Maybe it'll help you to release some tensions.
(08:08):
Sometimes it does me if I take a deep breath
in and then cigh it out really loud, just like
almost physical, the physical sound of just like just expel
whatever tension I have in my body. It helps it
at least. So let's try that. Take a long, slow,
deep breath in and sigh it out. Let's do it
(08:36):
one more time, breathing in. Feel if you feel like
I do. And after you do that, it's very relaxing,
very calming. It's a good release of tension. It creates
(09:02):
a rest full vibe. Since that's what we're looking for today,
is the rest we take between two deep breaths, scanning
your body from head to toe, maybe imagining the breath
(09:24):
as a wave coming up your body all the way
from your toes as you breathe in, all the way
up your body to the top of your head, breathing
in once you reach the top of the breath, breathing out,
and watching that breath create a wave of relaxation all
(09:46):
the way down your body, all the way to your toes,
breathing out, relaxing in, relaxing out. See if you can
(10:12):
create a bigger, wider space than between your breaths. If
you have to breathe slower to do this, Go ahead
and do that, breathing in and rest up at the top,
feeling that stillness circulate in your body, and then let
(10:35):
it out, resting again down at the bottom of the breath,
feeling the stillness. Settle in breathing on your own now,
breathing in and out, paying attention to the sin says
(11:00):
in your body, but also again recognize the stillness in
between your breaths. We have to be aware and alert
(11:30):
to pay attention to the space between our breasts because
we're actually the ones creating that space. Your body wants
to breathe in and wants to breathe out naturally, in out,
in out, But to create a space between the breaths
a gap, we have to take control and we have
(11:56):
to be the ones saying breathe in, hold, breathe out. Hold.
So it's the observing of our breath that creates that gap,
and then over time we can learn that we have control.
(12:19):
We have control. We create the gap, continuing to breathe
(12:55):
in and out, just paying very close attention to the
sensations in our body as we breathe in, follow our
breath in and breathe out, following our breath out. As always,
(13:22):
it is inevitable that your mind will wander if at
some point you recognize this, just observe that final thought,
acknowledge it, recognize it as a thought, non judgmentally, and
(13:43):
return to your breath, doing your best to not get
frustrated or annoyed. It is part of the process. In fact,
you cannot practice mindfulness without recognizing that your mind has
in fact wandered. So you need your mind to wander
(14:03):
so you can recognize it as wondered. So that's why
it's called a practice. Breathing in and out, continuing to
(14:25):
take a rest between two deep breaths.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
M m m m m m in.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Okay, it's time to return to the meditation. Return to
your body, return to this present moment, allowing your silence
and your stillness and that serene relaxation that comes from
the rest you have taken between your breaths, Just letting
(21:01):
us settle in for a few moments while we take
one more long, slow, deep breath in together, breathing in
and out, beginning to recognize the space between your thoughts
(21:33):
in a non judgmental, observational way, it's really how we learn.
You don't learn by judging something. You come up with
an opinion by judging something good, bad, ugly. If you
can remove the negative connotations toward judgment, if you like
(21:57):
the color red, you've made a judgment in that direction.
If you don't like the color red, you've made a judgment.
That's nothing negative about liking or disliking red. It's just
a judgment. But the moment straight right before you decided
you like the color red was observational. It was purely
(22:23):
awareness of the color red, where you were just watching it,
and then a split second later you made the decision.
This is how we learn about ourselves. This is how
we learn about other people. This is how we make
decisions about the world that we live in, is by
observing it and making a decision about it or having
(22:45):
a thought. We have moments in between our thoughts all
the time. That is yet again, another comforting thing to
me about this process is recognizing that I have thoughts,
but I also have space in between my thoughts where
I am just watching, just observing, or just being aware
(23:09):
of a thing by looking at it or listening to it.
And if we can start to recognize those moments in
our everyday life, we can start to realize that, oh,
we do have a little bit of control over things,
and we do have moments where we're not being completely
(23:32):
yanked around where it's not wag the dog. What we
notice are the moments when we're being yanked around where
it's moments where it's waged the dog, because those we
don't like those as much, so they stand out to us.
We don't often notice the moments of serene peace where
we're just aware of a thing, but they are there.
(24:00):
And the more we practice getting into that space where
we're watching, where we're observing, it can help us realize
that it's not all one way, it's a two way thing.
And by practicing it, we can actually train ourselves to
(24:20):
get into that space where we are in control again,
where we're just observing or we're just aware, instead of
constantly being pulled a million different directions constantly, where we
feel like we're beaten up by what's going on around us.
It's not easy, it doesn't come quickly. It comes with practice.
(24:45):
Some days are always going to be better than others.
So with that, when you're ready, you can open your
eyes and go about your day, be well, and have fun,
one breath at a time. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
That's it for this time on Calm to bleep down.
If you like this meditation, please feel free to send
us an email, post a comment, hit us up on
Instagram or TikTok, where we're posting a lot these days.
We'd love to hear from you. Once again. I'm Michael
Beckamaia reminding you to please calm the bleep down. We'll
see you again soon. Thank you for meditating with us.
(25:25):
Be well, have fun, and no mistake
Greetings, fellow meditators. Welcome to mindful meditations with calm the
bleep down. As always, I am your guide Michael Beckameier,
and today we are going to rest. Let's get started.
(00:23):
As always, we have a mindfulness quote to help us
go into our meditation with some intent and purpose and
some guidance. And today our quote comes from Ellie Hillsome
and it reads, sometimes the most important thing in a
whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.
(00:47):
I like that quote because of its tie into our
theme of the week, which is the gap, the space
between thoughts, the space between breaths, stillness. But when I
when I read that quote for the first time, what
I really got out of it was sometimes I think
of between breath as the in between the breathing in
(01:11):
and the in between of the breathing out. But really
a whole breath is breathing in and out, and then
you have your rest between two full breaths. But if
you think of it as a rest between inhale and exhale,
(01:36):
and then a rest between exhale and inhale, it's this
circular process of rest, breath, rest, breath in, rest out,
rest and again, just continuing to create a gap, a
(01:58):
space between breath, which is for me symbolic of the
space between thoughts. I've said this in a previous meditation,
But so many times we don't notice how busy our
minds are, and because we have stuff happening all around us.
(02:19):
We got traffic, we got a thousand other things happening,
phone calls, text message, people talking in this year, ticket
people talking in the other ear, chaos, work life, deadlines,
and we don't notice how busy our minds are in
that process. Our minds don't stop thinking. They're just maybe
preoccupied with the chaos that's coming at you full force.
(02:41):
But even in the back of even in the back
of those thoughts, are the negative stuff that we still
have constantly going on, you know, the stuff that belongs
to us, our inner demons or our traumas or whatever
you want to call them. And when we sit down
and try to be quiet, try to find some stillness,
(03:05):
to meditate, or just to be quiet for a few
moments and rest, that's when we start to notice how
loud the internal thoughts are. They're not loud now saying
that we can't quiet our minds. They're always that loud.
(03:25):
But when we remove all the other distractions, then they
come to the foreground and we notice how they're just
screaming at us. And that's when we start to think, oh,
I don't think I can meditate because my mind is this.
I'm one of those people that can't meditate. And that's
not true. But we do look at those serenes zen
(03:49):
you know, to you know, the Tibetan Buddhist monks who
just like always look at ease and zend out and
meditating like they're about to start levitating because they're so
at peace. They just know something that we don't, which
is my mind is going to keep doing its thing,
(04:09):
and I have to find this space between my thoughts,
and over time I can create a bigger space between
my thoughts. But the other thing I like about that
quote is the fact that our minds are spinning so
much that we are just mentally drank a lot, and
(04:33):
it's exhausting. Right, So even if we're just using meditation
for nothing more than to relax, to find just a
few moments of like quiet so I can rest. Have
you ever sat down and meditated for ten or fifteen
minutes and it felt like you had a solid two
hour nap. That is because I think for me, I've
(04:57):
always equated it to while you spend some time shutting off,
you spend some time not stressing about your thoughts that
are going on in your mind. So that's the other
thing I like about this quote is the rest we
take between two deep breaths. So that's what we're going
(05:20):
to do today in our meditation. We're going to find
some rest in between two deep breaths, which would also
lend itself to the space between our thoughts, and we're
just going to do that over and over and over again.
The more I meditate, the more I'm comforted by the
(05:41):
process of oh, I can just start over, Because when
I first started meditating, I would just, like everybody, get
really frustrated with how hard it was to you know,
every three seconds it felt like I was like I
lost track of my breath. Again, I have to start
all over. But for me, the longer I do it,
the more I'm comforted by the fact that I can
(06:03):
do that, Because if I couldn't do that, meditation would
not work. It wouldn't be helpful, it wouldn't be comforting
or soothing or anything. If I couldn't start over. If
it really was a detriment to my meditation that I
couldn't pause my thoughts for long enough to breathe in
and breathe out a couple times, then what people think
(06:30):
about meditation about how they can't meditate would be true,
and that would be awful. But we can start over,
We can begin again. We can get to the bottom
of a breath and go there's my mind again. Let
(06:51):
me breathe in. Okay, breathing in. It's a process of
letting go over and over and over again, which again,
as I always say, letting go of your thoughts and
starting a new breath in a meditation is practice for
life because we are constantly being forced to let go
(07:14):
of things that we are trying to hold on to good, bad, ugly, indifferent. So,
like I said, that's what we're going to meditate on today.
So find yourself in a comfortable seat, or you can
lie down for this. You can neither sit down or
lie down. The main thing is to find yourself comfortable,
(07:37):
close your eyes and start to feel the sensations in
your body, watching your breath coming in, watching your breath
go out. Maybe it'll help you to release some tensions.
(08:08):
Sometimes it does me if I take a deep breath
in and then cigh it out really loud, just like
almost physical, the physical sound of just like just expel
whatever tension I have in my body. It helps it
at least. So let's try that. Take a long, slow,
deep breath in and sigh it out. Let's do it
(08:36):
one more time, breathing in. Feel if you feel like
I do. And after you do that, it's very relaxing,
very calming. It's a good release of tension. It creates
(09:02):
a rest full vibe. Since that's what we're looking for today,
is the rest we take between two deep breaths, scanning
your body from head to toe, maybe imagining the breath
(09:24):
as a wave coming up your body all the way
from your toes as you breathe in, all the way
up your body to the top of your head, breathing
in once you reach the top of the breath, breathing out,
and watching that breath create a wave of relaxation all
(09:46):
the way down your body, all the way to your toes,
breathing out, relaxing in, relaxing out. See if you can
(10:12):
create a bigger, wider space than between your breaths. If
you have to breathe slower to do this, Go ahead
and do that, breathing in and rest up at the top,
feeling that stillness circulate in your body, and then let
(10:35):
it out, resting again down at the bottom of the breath,
feeling the stillness. Settle in breathing on your own now,
breathing in and out, paying attention to the sin says
(11:00):
in your body, but also again recognize the stillness in
between your breaths. We have to be aware and alert
(11:30):
to pay attention to the space between our breasts because
we're actually the ones creating that space. Your body wants
to breathe in and wants to breathe out naturally, in out,
in out, But to create a space between the breaths
a gap, we have to take control and we have
(11:56):
to be the ones saying breathe in, hold, breathe out. Hold.
So it's the observing of our breath that creates that gap,
and then over time we can learn that we have control.
(12:19):
We have control. We create the gap, continuing to breathe
(12:55):
in and out, just paying very close attention to the
sensations in our body as we breathe in, follow our
breath in and breathe out, following our breath out. As always,
(13:22):
it is inevitable that your mind will wander if at
some point you recognize this, just observe that final thought,
acknowledge it, recognize it as a thought, non judgmentally, and
(13:43):
return to your breath, doing your best to not get
frustrated or annoyed. It is part of the process. In fact,
you cannot practice mindfulness without recognizing that your mind has
in fact wandered. So you need your mind to wander
(14:03):
so you can recognize it as wondered. So that's why
it's called a practice. Breathing in and out, continuing to
(14:25):
take a rest between two deep breaths.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
M m m m m m in.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Okay, it's time to return to the meditation. Return to
your body, return to this present moment, allowing your silence
and your stillness and that serene relaxation that comes from
the rest you have taken between your breaths, Just letting
(21:01):
us settle in for a few moments while we take
one more long, slow, deep breath in together, breathing in
and out, beginning to recognize the space between your thoughts
(21:33):
in a non judgmental, observational way, it's really how we learn.
You don't learn by judging something. You come up with
an opinion by judging something good, bad, ugly. If you
can remove the negative connotations toward judgment, if you like
(21:57):
the color red, you've made a judgment in that direction.
If you don't like the color red, you've made a judgment.
That's nothing negative about liking or disliking red. It's just
a judgment. But the moment straight right before you decided
you like the color red was observational. It was purely
(22:23):
awareness of the color red, where you were just watching it,
and then a split second later you made the decision.
This is how we learn about ourselves. This is how
we learn about other people. This is how we make
decisions about the world that we live in, is by
observing it and making a decision about it or having
(22:45):
a thought. We have moments in between our thoughts all
the time. That is yet again, another comforting thing to
me about this process is recognizing that I have thoughts,
but I also have space in between my thoughts where
I am just watching, just observing, or just being aware
(23:09):
of a thing by looking at it or listening to it.
And if we can start to recognize those moments in
our everyday life, we can start to realize that, oh,
we do have a little bit of control over things,
and we do have moments where we're not being completely
(23:32):
yanked around where it's not wag the dog. What we
notice are the moments when we're being yanked around where
it's moments where it's waged the dog, because those we
don't like those as much, so they stand out to us.
We don't often notice the moments of serene peace where
we're just aware of a thing, but they are there.
(24:00):
And the more we practice getting into that space where
we're watching, where we're observing, it can help us realize
that it's not all one way, it's a two way thing.
And by practicing it, we can actually train ourselves to
(24:20):
get into that space where we are in control again,
where we're just observing or we're just aware, instead of
constantly being pulled a million different directions constantly, where we
feel like we're beaten up by what's going on around us.
It's not easy, it doesn't come quickly. It comes with practice.
(24:45):
Some days are always going to be better than others.
So with that, when you're ready, you can open your
eyes and go about your day, be well, and have fun,
one breath at a time. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
That's it for this time on Calm to bleep down.
If you like this meditation, please feel free to send
us an email, post a comment, hit us up on
Instagram or TikTok, where we're posting a lot these days.
We'd love to hear from you. Once again. I'm Michael
Beckamaia reminding you to please calm the bleep down. We'll
see you again soon. Thank you for meditating with us.
(25:25):
Be well, have fun, and no mistake
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