Being present: 5-minute letting go meditation, on a train journey

About this practice

Slow, spoken guidance for being present. A letting go session you can do on a train journey. A guided session of about 5 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: being present

Life happens in the present while attention is busy elsewhere. Nothing is missing except the noticing.

It tends to show up as:

Days blurring together
Feeling absent from your own week
Only registering moments in photographs

Sensory attention is the shortest route back. Sound, contact and breath are always in the present.

Doing this on a train

Pick a window seat if you can and let the view do part of the work
Set an alarm for your stop
Keep the bag on your lap rather than unfastening to find it later

The motion can make reading or screens uncomfortable, which is another reason audio works better here.

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

0:00Let your shoulders drop about a centimetre. That is roughly where most of us keep the day.
0:15We are not solving anything in the next few minutes. We are setting it down, temporarily.
0:30Let the last hour go on its own. You can pick it up again afterwards.
0:44Nothing here needs to be pleasant. Neutral is fine. Dull is fine.
0:57Let your breathing be boring. Boring is good here.
1:08Feel the pause at the top of the in-breath. It's shorter than you think.
1:22Let your throat soften. There's nothing to swallow right now.
1:34Notice the weight of your thighs, all the way down.
1:46Notice your shins, which take small knocks all day and never complain.
1:59No rush to move on.
2:08With each exhale, let a little of the effort go. Not the problem — just the effort.
2:23If you're judging your performance, that's the same habit as judging everything else.
2:36Picture the wandering back to now as a weather front passing over. You are not the weather. You are the sky it moves through.
2:55Imagine softening the edges of the life happening while you worry. Not erasing it, just letting the sharp parts go a degree softer.
3:13Notice the breath you're taking right now. That's the only one that exists.
3:26You have been carrying the texture of this exact moment for a while. You can set it down for the length of this session and pick it up after.
3:47Notice how quickly your mind labels things: good, bad, boring, nice.
3:59A few seconds of nothing now. That's on purpose.
4:10Ask yourself what you could stop holding for the next sixty seconds. That one is a good start.
4:26Let your breathing go back to whatever it does when nobody is watching.
4:39A few seconds more.

Questions people ask

What does this session help with?

Life happens in the present while attention is busy elsewhere. Nothing is missing except the noticing. Sensory attention is the shortest route back. Sound, contact and breath are always in the present.

Where and when should I do this one?

Pick a window seat if you can and let the view do part of the work. The motion can make reading or screens uncomfortable, which is another reason audio works better here.

What actually happens during the 5 minutes?

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.

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