Softening for low energy: 3 minutes, at the end of the day

About this practice

Slow, spoken guidance for low energy. A softening session you can do at the end of the day. A guided session of about 3 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: low energy

Low energy is a flat battery, not laziness. Pushing through it further drains reserves and produces worse work, faster.

It tends to show up as:

• Everything feeling like an effort
• Procrastinating on simple tasks
• Tiredness sitting deep in the body

A short practice will not restore the reserve, but it removes some of the tension that is draining it.

Doing this after a long day

• Something physical first — shoes off, hands washed, water drunk
• Do not review the day during it
• Keep it short rather than thorough

Replaying the day in the practice just carries the day further into the evening.

How softening works

Softening is the practice of releasing held tension degree by degree rather than all at once. It targets the physical grip — shoulders, jaw, gut — that persists long after the stressor has passed.

• Soften one place per exhale rather than everything at once
• Let warmth and gravity do the work instead of muscular effort
• If a place will not soften, leave it and go somewhere that will

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00Let the first out-breath be longer than the in-breath. Nothing dramatic, just longer.
2. 0:13Let the exhale do the work. On each one, allow a little more give.
3. 0:27We'll work through this slowly. If you lose the thread, the thread will wait.
4. 0:41Feel your breath move down your back, all the way to your lower ribs.
5. 0:55Let the exhale empty you a little more than usual, but not to the point of strain.
6. 1:10Move to your forehead. Let it be smooth instead of gathered.
7. 1:22Whatever the effort everything takes is doing right now, your breathing can keep going underneath it.
8. 1:37the flat battery feeling may quiet down, or it may not. Either is fine. We are practising staying, not performing calm.
9. 1:54Breathe in for four, out for six, if you'd like something to count.
10. 2:07Picture the tiredness that sits in the bones as a weather front passing over. You are not the weather. You are the sky it moves through.
11. 2:26If your body wants to move, let it move, then come back.
12. 2:39With every out-breath, soften one place. Shoulders first, then jaw, then the space behind the eyes.
13. 2:54Let the last of the stillness stay with you for a few more seconds.

Questions people ask

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