15-minute guided letting go practice for concentration — between calls

About this practice

When concentration shows up between calls, this 15-minute letting go session gives you somewhere to put it down. A guided session of about 15 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: concentration

Concentration fails for two reasons: the task is uninteresting, or the body is too activated to hold anything steady. The second one is fixable in minutes.

It tends to show up as:

• Attention sliding off within seconds
• Jumping between tabs
• Feeling physically unable to sit still

Lowering arousal raises the ceiling of what attention can hold. Practice first, then the task.

Doing this between meetings

• Start it in the gap, not after the next one begins
• Write down the open thread from the last meeting first, then let it go
• Two minutes done beats five minutes planned

The back-to-back day is exactly why the gap has to be protected rather than used for one more task.

How letting go works

Letting go is about loosening grip rather than dropping things. It works on the effort attached to a problem — the holding, rehearsing and bracing — which is separable from the problem itself.

• Pick one thing you are gripping and loosen a single finger
• Release the effort with the exhale, not the issue
• Set down temporarily; you can pick it up again after

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00Let your eyes soften. Not closed, just less busy.
2. 0:11Ask yourself what you could stop holding for the next sixty seconds. That one is a good start.
3. 0:27We're going to let the body lead and the mind follow for a while.
4. 0:41Imagine your thoughts as traffic on a road you're standing beside. You don't have to flag any of it down.
5. 0:58Breathe in for four, out for six, if you'd like something to count.
6. 1:11Let the breath be shallow if shallow is what your body wants.
7. 1:24Feel the soles of your feet. All the weight of you goes through them.
8. 1:38Feel your belly. Let it be soft instead of held in.
9. 1:50Now the right shoulder. Let it be a centimetre lower than it was.
10. 2:03Notice your ribs on both sides. Wide, not squeezed.
11. 2:14Notice the space between your shoulder blades.
12. 2:24Remind yourself, slowly: I am safe in this moment, even while the urge to check something else is here. Safety and difficulty can share a room.
13. 2:43Feel the weight of the difficulty of staying with one thing somewhere specific, then let the floor take a share of it.
14. 3:01Follow three breaths and let the fourth one go unobserved.
15. 3:13Notice where the attention that keeps sliding off lives in your body. Chest, throat, stomach. Rest your attention there without trying to change it.
16. 3:32You are allowed to be unimpressed by the urge to check something else. Indifference is a legitimate response.
17. 3:48Notice where your body is still holding something. Leave it alone.
18. 4:00Stay here a little longer.
19. 4:09Follow one full breath from the moment it starts to the moment it ends.
20. 4:23Notice your ears, which mostly just receive things.
21. 4:34Let it be this simple.
22. 4:43Let the out-breath be a little longer than the in-breath, without forcing it.
23. 4:56Let your whole body be as heavy as it wants to be.
24. 5:09Let the quiet do its work.
25. 5:19Let the exhale fall out rather than pushing it.
26. 5:30Notice your lower back. Let it curve however it curves.
27. 5:42A few seconds more.
28. 5:51Let your breathing get quieter rather than deeper.
29. 6:02Let the whole of your right foot be heavy.
30. 6:13No words for a moment. Only the next breath.
31. 6:24Notice any part of you that wants this to be over.
32. 6:36Stay with it.
33. 6:44Let your breathing be boring. Boring is good here.
34. 6:55If you're irritated, that's allowed. Irritation is just weather.
35. 7:06Let's rest here in silence. It's short.
36. 7:16Feel your knees. They're just hinges, but they've worked hard.
37. 7:28Let the breath move at the speed of a sleeping person.
38. 7:40Let the pause stretch out.
39. 7:49If you've lost track of where we were, you haven't lost anything important.
40. 8:02Silence. Let your shoulders drop again if they've crept up.
41. 8:14With each exhale, let a little of the effort go. Not the problem — just the effort.
42. 8:29If a song is stuck in your head, let it play in the background.
43. 8:43Silence for a few breaths. Nothing to do in it.
44. 8:55Pick one thing you are gripping — a plan, a worry, a grudge — and loosen a single finger.
45. 9:11If your mind is quiet, don't grab at it. Quiet comes and goes too.
46. 9:25A few quiet breaths. That's all this is.
47. 9:36We are not solving anything in the next few minutes. We are setting it down, temporarily.
48. 9:51Notice if your attention is in the future. Bring it back to the room.
49. 10:05Let's pause. Just the breathing for a while.
50. 10:16Setting something down is not the same as giving up. You can pick it up again after.
51. 10:31If you feel numb, that's a valid thing to feel. Nothing to fix.
52. 10:44Feel your breath move down your back, all the way to your lower ribs.
53. 10:58A short silence. Let it be empty.
54. 11:08Say to yourself: this is uncomfortable, and I can stay with it for one more breath. Then take that breath.
55. 11:25When the attention that keeps sliding off arrives, name it once, quietly, and go back to the breath. Naming is not fixing, and that is fine.
56. 11:44Notice that you don't have to start a breath. It arrives by itself.
57. 11:57If the urge to check something else is loud right now, make your attention smaller. Just the next breath. Nothing beyond it.
58. 12:15Think of the difficulty of staying with one thing as a guest that arrived without knocking. You can let it stand in the hallway.
59. 12:34Breathe as if you had all evening. There's no rush in this part.
60. 12:47Notice the tone of your own inner voice. Is it kind?
61. 12:59If nothing much is happening, that's not a problem. Nothing much is often the point.
62. 13:13If a worry shows up, name it quietly and let it sit beside you.
63. 13:27A few seconds of nothing now. That's on purpose.
64. 13:38You have been carrying this competently for a while. A few minutes off will not undo that.
65. 13:53Take the next breath slowly.
66. 14:02Come back at your own speed. The room will wait.
67. 14:14When you're ready, look around properly.

Questions people ask

Meditation is a practice, not a treatment. If you are dealing with ongoing distress, please also reach out to a professional.