Introduction To Meditation

In this audio, I introduce myself and why I started mediation. I discuss some of the benefits of meditation and then guide you through a 10-minute meditation. The meditation focuses on breathing and thought then ending with a compassion meditation.

I hope you enjoy it.

Transcript

Hello everyone.

Thank you for joining me today for this mini meditation retreat.

My name is Robert.

I'll be your guide today.

How I'm gonna structure this is we're just gonna have a little introduction.

I'll talk about myself,

Why I got into meditation,

Some of the benefits of meditation.

Then we'll go over just some basic information about meditation and how we're gonna have our sit and find a comfortable spot,

How to sit,

How to relax,

And get ready for the actual meditation.

Then we will begin a 10 to 15 minute meditation process.

I'll be your guide through that.

We'll go over a little bit more of that as we get closer to that time.

Right now,

As I said,

My name is Robert.

The reason I started meditating is about,

Geez,

I think maybe two or three years ago,

I was diagnosed with something called cyclothymia.

It's a mood disorder.

It is in the bipolar family,

But it's not as extreme of differences from your highs and your lows,

You know,

But it's still very life-altering.

It's a challenge and it can be a struggle as with any mood disorder.

So I wanted to get into meditation.

It turned out that I've been thinking about this for about 15 years.

I actually had a Facebook post pop up and it was from like 15 years ago,

This year.

So I've been thinking about meditation and so obviously I was drawn to it for a while and there was a reason why I should look into it.

So I finally had the resources to take a look.

Online became a great thing.

I could start listening to guided meditations and I found that there was great improvement for me.

It allowed me to manage my thoughts better.

They were less controlling for me and so it gave me a chance to really realize that my thoughts are not me.

Meditation gave me that gap between my thought and my reaction and it allowed me to really be able to say,

Okay wait a second,

Is this just a thought that's entering my mind and how should I react to that thought?

Is it rational?

Is it really what's happening or am I looking through this through different lenses than what is the reality of the situation?

So it improved my life greatly.

Also along with meditation just gave me that stress relief.

It allows me to unplug but also unplug it in that analog way.

So what I mean by that is yes I can unplug from technology and I could stay off social media and I can put my phone down but my mind might still be racing.

So this allowed me to even unplug from I guess my own mind,

My own thoughts and allow me to have some peace and some calmness with it.

Now that's my story.

Everybody's story will be a little bit different.

Why they started it and what they received from it.

What are some of the benefits?

Well for me it was that gap.

It was being able to say I am NOT my thoughts.

I am the observer of those thoughts and that is what really helped me along the way.

For other people one of the most interesting things I think about is that meditation can improve your immunity.

So you can actually help heal your own body through taking time just to meditate.

Now you might think how long a day do I have to meditate to have some sort of benefit like that?

Well not long.

Basically just eight to nine minutes a day will drastically improve and it will also improve the amount,

Increase the amount of gray matter in your brain.

And so just nine minutes a day can have dramatic results and benefits to you.

Definitely you know as you do it you may want to do longer sits and really test yourself and see how that helps or hinders and find that point that seems to work best for you.

Also it's better to do it daily instead of oh today I can do 30 minutes and then you don't do it for another week or two weeks.

It's the consistency that has been proven to offer the best benefit.

Now if you miss a day or even a week just start again and just keep going.

That's the most important thing is that you just keep going and you keep trying and every time you do a sit you've succeeded.

You might not feel like it was successful.

It might not have been what you were expecting or hoping for but you did it and the benefits are there.

If you know it or not the benefits are there and that's the wonderful thing.

You will notice a difference.

I know that some days I don't think that I had a great meditation sit but something was bothering me all of a sudden no longer is bothering me or I see it in a different light or I understand why I had those emotions and this could be a day later could be hours later but sometimes that happens and it feels nice and when that happens for me it's a release and it's kind of just floated away and it's done with it's gone so I don't have to worry about it anymore and I can have that release that I was obviously needing.

So hopefully some of these things will be something that you may experience if you were to start your daily meditation practice and as I said and even if you don't make it nine minutes maybe one day you make it five minutes that's great who cares you did it you did five minutes you did more than probably most people around you would have done and the next day maybe you get to seven minutes but you do what you can and if you keep it consistent and you keep growing you're gonna see the benefits all right so that's enough about me that's enough of some of the meditation after the class if you do have any questions we can definitely sit around and answer them and hopefully you know you'll find something that was beneficial during this sit so as we get ready for our meditation practice I'm just gonna go over a little bit about the posture how to sit you're welcome to sit in the chair or my my preferred for myself is I like to sit on a cushion on the floor I have my legs crossed if you're sitting in the chair make sure your feet are flat on the floor you don't want them cross you don't want anything that you may feel will cause your foot to go to sleep or any sort of discomfort if you can make yourself comfortable you're gonna have a better sit that way as I said for myself I like the head of my legs crisscross sitting on a cushion on the floor I find the most comfortable for myself as far as your posture you wanna make sure you sit up probably a little bit straighter than normal but again you want it to be comfortable for you so we're gonna sit there back straight we're gonna keep our chin pretty up tucked in a little bit and top of our head will be parallel to the ceiling so once you find that comfortable position next will come our hands how do you want to place your hands I personally play some with palms up I keep my two fingers connected like this in the circle and I have those resting on my thighs you may have your palms down palms up hands comfortably in front on your lap whatever is best for you so let's begin all right so now I invite you to close your eyes or if you are more comfortable feel free to leave your eyes open but just have a softly gaze a couple feet in front of you so we close our eyes and we're going to focus on the breath to begin with I want you to take a deep breath in through your nose and also exhale through your nose and keep it with that breath breath in through the nose and out through the nose as you breathe in I want you to pay attention to the breath and what the sensations you feel focus on the nostrils and as you breathe in what are some of the sensations perhaps you feel the air coming in and you feel a little tickle in your nostrils just pay attention to that feeling and as you exhale take a moment to consider how it may feel different is the inhale cooler and the exhale a little warmer notice each breath as we breathe in and we breathe out as you continue focusing on the breath perhaps you notice the breath as it goes through your body perhaps as you inhale you feel your chest rise you feel your chest compress allow your breath to become natural and as you inhale and exhale just allow for a natural breath our breath can be very grounding for us if you find yourself in a situation that you may be feeling some anxiety some stress you can always return to your breath in this meditation and throughout your life your breath is always with you and so it's there to be able to ground you take a few more breaths noticing the inhale and the sensations you feel the rising of the chest the falling of the chest as you continue to breathe you may notice that some thoughts enter your mind that's okay take a moment to recognize those thoughts and then it's like a leaf glowing in the wind it swirls around and the wind carries it off on that leaf allow your thoughts to drift away with it allow them to just float away we have no attachment to that thought we can just let it be we can recognize it and we can go on we're not our thoughts what we are our observer of our thoughts we navigate our life by those thoughts we let them come and we can take a moment and we can take that gap to determine how we want to react to it and we can let that thought just drift on and after you let that thought drift on you can always return to the breath because the breath is what will ground us so we breathe it in through the nose and we exhale through the nose paying attention to the sensations again perhaps you're noticing another thought comes into your mind by allowing yourself to notice that thought what we are doing is we're observing that thought we're realizing that we are not our thought that we can let that thought go that we can observe it but we don't have to place a value on it and we can just let it be and as we let that thought be we can return to our breath remember that your posture should be straight I now say if you're comfortable relax your shoulders keep a straight posture and drop your shoulders allow your tongue to relax in your mouth enjoy the sensation as you breathe sometimes offering our self compassion is one of the hardest things we can do right now what I would like to ask everyone to do as you breathe and you take a breath and tell yourself that you are love as we breathe in I am love and exhale on your next breath to yourself I am safe continuing with the breath I am free to live without suffering I want you to continue those three thoughts I am loved I am safe I am free to live without suffering I am love I am safe I am free to live without suffering I am love I am safe I am free to love live without suffering now I want you to think about someone that you care about someone's close to you if it helps think about sitting at a table and that person is sitting across from you for myself I cannot actually visualize so for me I just think about that person and what they mean for me and they get the feeling and the emotion that their love gives me and as if you're sitting across the table from them I want you to tell them you are loved you are safe you deserve to live a life without suffering you are loved you are safe you deserve to live a life without suffering you are loved you are safe you deserve to live a life without suffering at this point bring it back to yourself again and remind yourself you are loved you are safe you deserve a life without suffering I want you to continue with your breath pay attention to your breath and while you do that I would like to share with you a quote from young Pablo time does not heal all wounds it just gives them space to sink into the subconscious where they will continue to impact your emotions and behavior what heals is going inward loving yourself accepting yourself listening to your needs addressing your attachments and emotional history learning how to let go and following your intuition remember to love yourself and be kind to yourself as you continue to take a couple more deep breaths I invite you to start coming back wiggle your fingers wiggle your toes and I invite you back into this space and when you are ready I invite you to gently open your eyes welcome back I hope you enjoyed that guided meditation it means a lot to me that you joined me today and I would like to hear what you thought about this did it help you did it help you feel more grounded and what were you feeling if anyone would like to share I would love to hear what you think about it if you do have any other questions about today's meditation or any sits I am available and I would love to try to answer your questions I don't know everything and I will admit that if I'm not 100% positive but feel free to ask and if I don't hopefully I may have some resources to share it with you or at our next session perhaps we can discuss that farther once again my name is Robert and it really was a pleasure to have you join me today and I really am thankful that you took time to listen to this meditation and I hope that it helped you and you may find some relaxation and groundedness to this thank you