Breakdown of Houd je aandacht bij de ademhaling om je bewust te focussen.
bij
at / near / by
je
your (unstressed)
te
to (infinitive marker)
om
in order to
Questions & Answers about Houd je aandacht bij de ademhaling om je bewust te focussen.
There are two "je"'s in this sentence. Are they doing the same thing?
No. The first je is a possessive pronoun meaning "your" (je aandacht = your attention). The second je is a reflexive pronoun meaning "yourself", which is needed for the verb focussen (om je ... te focussen = to focus yourself).
How do we know which reflexive pronoun to use in the om ... te clause?
In an om ... te (in order to) clause, the reflexive pronoun must match the subject of the main sentence. Because the main sentence is a command directed at "you" (Houd), the implied subject is "you". Therefore, the reflexive pronoun in the second part becomes je.
Why is there a reflexive pronoun for "to focus" at all? We don't use one in English.
Many verbs that aren't reflexive in English are reflexive in Dutch. While English just uses "to focus", Dutch often uses zich focussen (literally "to focus oneself").
The English translation says "on the breathing", but the Dutch sentence uses bij. Why not op?
It depends on the verb phrase. The set expression is je aandacht houden bij (to keep your attention at/with). If the sentence were built around the verb focussen instead, you would use op, as in je focussen op de ademhaling (to focus on the breathing).