Hi friends,
Welcome back.
Thanks for joining me on this Tuesday and congratulations on making it through Monday.
So in today's meditation,
I want to go over some more simple techniques for maintaining mindfulness and how to handle those thoughts when they come up.
So before we do that,
Go ahead and get settled in.
Have a seat either in a chair,
On your meditation cushion,
Or on the floor.
Get a big stretch in if you need to.
Go ahead and get out any fidgets or settling that you need to do to be comfortable.
Don't worry about changing your breathing just yet.
Just breathe normal.
So now that we're here,
If you feel comfortable,
Go ahead and allow your eyes to close.
You also have the option of just picking a point to softly gaze at,
Spot on the wall,
Maybe a candle flame.
Make sure you have a good straight back.
Maintaining that good posture will allow you to sit and not be distracted by getting back pain or tension building up while we're sitting.
Alright,
Now that we're here,
I want you to focus on your body and any sensations you may be feeling.
I like to start with the feet.
They're contacting the floor,
Maybe the feeling of them resting against your legs if you're sitting with legs crossed.
Note any points of contact with your seat or the floor,
Maybe in your legs.
Notice your breathing.
Notice how it feels as maybe a cold sensation on the tip of your nose as it comes in,
Goes down into your chest,
Expanding your ribcage.
As you breathe out,
Note the feeling of your ribcage contracting,
Lowering down,
Maybe feeling that air leave a little warmer than it did when it came in.
Maybe note the temperature of the room.
Just little things to to note your presence,
Feel grounded.
As we go through the meditation,
We'll keep it simple.
We're just going to do some basic counting.
We're going to count to ten,
Starting with breathing in.
You'll count to yourself,
One,
And out,
Two.
The next inhale is three,
And then four,
And continue that all the way to ten.
If you lose count,
Go ahead and start over or maybe just pick up where you left off.
As I've mentioned before,
The point of this exercise is not getting to ten,
Seeing how many times you can get to ten,
Seeing how far you can get before you get distracted.
It's just for the exercise.
It's for the practice.
Getting some reps in as you would if you were lifting weights,
Or doing a training run,
Or any other practice or training that you're doing.
Just this is mental,
So no sweat.
As we're going through this,
You can continue to count as I'm talking.
Feel free to pause and listen if you will.
But I want you to imagine your stream of thoughts as exactly that,
A stream.
Picture yourself sitting comfortably on the banks of a stream or a lazily flowing river.
And if you've ever done this before out in real life,
You'll you'll note that sometimes things will float down the river.
It may be a stick,
Or a leaf,
Or maybe a duck,
Turtle.
You see these things float by and just as they come into your awareness,
They just as simply continue to float by.
And this is a good metaphor for how to address thoughts as they come up in our meditation practice.
When the thought arises,
You can note it,
Just like you would that that duck going by.
Okay,
That's a duck.
And then you let it float on.
You don't have to fight it.
You don't have to push it along.
It'll just pass if you let it.
So that's what we do with our thoughts.
I will oftentimes think of something I want to talk about in my next meditation I'm recording while I'm trying to have a quiet meditation for my own practice.
So it happens to everybody.
Those thoughts come up.
You just let it continue to drift.
Let it continue to float on.
Let it go on its way.
If this is something you continue to have the same thought popping up over and over,
Or if maybe you have something that comes up and you have anxiety over not being able to remember that later,
You can always have a small notebook by you when you do your meditations.
So when that thought comes up and you let it go,
You're having problems letting it go,
Maybe it comes back,
You can always grab that notebook,
Jot down the thought,
And set the notebook back down so you're free to get back to your practice,
Back to your breathing,
Back to the count,
And back to being present.
So let's sit in our silence and continue to breathe for a little while longer.
Continue letting those thoughts float in and float out without any judgment.
You can maybe note that thought,
Comes up and go,
Hey that's a thought.
You can go now,
Float.
I describe these meditation techniques as being for beginners or being basic,
But you can always feel free to come back to these at any point.
Even if you've been meditating for years,
We can always go back to the basics to help keep our practice stronger,
To help keep us grounded,
Or maybe as an SOS on a stressful day,
We can come back to something short and simple.
So as we're coming to an end here,
Getting close to the 10-minute mark,
If you would like to keep going,
Please feel free to pause the recording and go for as long as you would like.
Or if you're ready to come out of this meditation,
You can go ahead and get some gentle movements.
Wiggle the toes and fingers,
Maybe the wrists or ankles.
Maybe move the neck a little bit,
Turn the head side to side,
As you allow the eyes to gently open back up,
If you chose to close them earlier.
Or allow that focus to drift away from whatever the point you were looking at,
If you chose to go with the soft focus.
And as you go through your day,
Remember what it was like to sit and be present and mindful.
Know that you're just a few moments away from getting back to that state at any time that you need to.
I thank you very much for joining me today and know that you are always welcome here.
Your presence matters and you matter.
Go in peace.
