Breathing In

I like the idea of using the breath as Thich Nhat Hahn suggests, thinking a specific thought on the inbreath and another one on the outbreath. It's a great tool to bring my attention - or intention - back to something. Easy to remember, easy to use.

Anyhow, it goes like this:
(breathing in) I calm my body.
(breathing out) I smile.
And then repeat for a few breaths until I can feel it working.

So for a while I was using
(breathing in) Life is imperfect.
(breathing out) I am enough.

Then when I was having sticky thoughts I wanted to release, I tried:
(breathing in) Life is imperfect.
(breathing out) Letting this go.

Seemed like a good plan. But then it dawned on me that as long as I was saying, 'Letting this go,' I was still actually pointing my attention towards something I wanted to leave in my past. By telling myself to let it go, I was actually hanging onto it.

So I switched to this one:
(breathing in) Life is imperfect.
(breathing out) Keep moving.

 And it's working much better.