Meditation For Stress And Anxiety Relief

A gentle meditation and reflective talk on working with intrusive or inappropriate attention—such as unwanted thoughts, images, or sensations—that often arise with anxiety and stress. This offering supports you to meet these experiences with awareness, nervous system safety, and compassion, helping to reduce reactivity and restore a sense of inner steadiness.

Transcript

Hi there.

So today I'm going to teach you a teaching called Inappropriate Attention.

And it's a really valuable teaching.

It's so helpful when we've got such sticky thoughts where our thinking becomes stuck and we're stuck in this time warp of going over and over the same thoughts.

And if we look really closely when we're in this pattern,

The energy that we feel is quite uncomfortable.

We can feel fearful,

We can feel angry,

We can feel sad.

We feel tight in our bodies.

There's a lot of tension that's going on.

So inappropriate attention means to focus your attention on a contaminated object and exaggerate it.

Make it bigger than what it is or catastrophize it.

So a contaminated object is something that we believe to be true but isn't true.

So the object can be a thought or an emotion but we don't know it to be exactly true.

We just have learned over time to believe these thoughts or believe these emotions or stories that happen in our head.

So with inappropriate attention we learn that when we start to experience that tightening in our body or we feel not so good in ourselves or we notice that we're doing that loop where we go over and over and over thoughts,

We can see that we're practicing inappropriate attention and it's causing us harm.

And so it's good to then stop and just pause and bring our awareness into the present moment.

Become aware of your surroundings.

Feel your body.

Feel your breath.

Notice probably a lot of uncomfortable sensations because you have been in this inappropriate attention focusing on this object that isn't actually true.

So how we can break this or how do we know if that's not true is that we can ask those questions of when we're thinking about something or we're believing something we can actually question that question is that really true for me right now?

Can I really 100% be sure that that is true or that it's real or is it even necessary?

How is it helpful to me right now?

All these questions actually lead us away from focusing on this object and to continue that pattern of creating more tension,

More suffering for ourselves.

So we want to actually practice prajna which is clear seeing and the only way we can do that to allow prajna to rise,

To be able to see clearly the truth,

To know that this isn't true,

Is to be able to bring ourselves back into the present moment.

So when we're in the present moment and we're aware of the breeze touching my face,

Where I'm aware that I'm sitting here on the chair,

That I can feel my feet connected to the ground,

We're aware of this present moment.

There's no story,

We're just simply aware of it.

So as soon as the story comes in or the labels come in and judge that by just saying my feet are on the ground or by saying my feet are hot or it's really hot today,

It's really sticky,

We've judged our experience,

We've labelled it,

We've made it our truth.

But when we go deeper and we question some of our thoughts,

So we might be afraid that you know your partner's going to leave you or your friend,

You're going to lose a friend,

We can ask ourselves is that really true in this present moment?

Have I lost my partner?

Have I lost my friend?

What's really happening here?

So what's happening here is I'm sitting on the chair,

I can see the trees,

I can hear the birds,

We become really aware of our present moment.

So when we ask the question is this really true?

It's not because I'm not living the experience of not having the friend or not having the partner.

And we can do this with every single thought that's there because the truth is 99.

9% of the time it's our thoughts creating something we don't want.

It's our thoughts worried or our imagination trying to create something that we don't want.

It's trying to protect us from what we don't want yet it's causing us suffering right now.

And we ruminate and we go over and over and over.

So we want to stop that loop,

We want to stop that inappropriate attention and create appropriate attention where we instead of following that and thinking about that and believing that because it is a contaminated object it is not true.

So the contaminated object is the belief that my partner is going to leave me and then the attention is inappropriate because we're focusing on that and it's not true.

So we're creating something that we don't want,

Not that it is actually true in this present moment.

So what is true in this present moment?

We come back to that,

We break that habitual pattern that is probably coming from a place of loss is where we felt lost previously and we don't want that to happen again.

We need to just keep on cutting that habit so that we're living more from the present moment and we're living more fully from our heart.

So therefore we're not having fear come in,

We're not having anger coming,

We're not having those sadness.

Those emotions are either past or present.

So the past emotions are sadness,

Hopelessness,

Aloneness,

Grief and the future moments are anxiety,

Tension,

Nervousness,

Worry and also we have jealousy which is past and we have anger which is past as well.

So all of those emotions actually aren't even the present moment,

They're based on either previous events or potential future events,

So they're not our reality.

So when we come into our true reality of what is here,

There is no suffering and therefore we can drop the labels around the emotions that are rising when we can do that.

So we can actually allow what is coming up in us to just be here without the labels around it.

It's very freeing when we can really be aligned to our experience as it is,

Free of the experience er and just with the experience of what is.

Look it takes time,

This isn't something that you can just do even though some people do get it and they just practice that way.

But for most of us we've got these strong patterns,

The mind likes to wander,

It likes to roam,

It likes to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

It's gotten very very good at that pattern and so it's going to take you some time to keep reminding your mind,

Hey your natural ability is to come back to the present moment.

You know how to do that,

Mind naturally resides in the present moment,

It has that ability to do that,

That's its natural state,

It just has created a habit that's causing you the suffering.

So we come back to the teaching,

Inappropriate attention is focusing your attention on a contaminated object.

We change that by realizing that we are focusing on something that isn't true,

Isn't real and we have put that all of our attention into that object and we're exaggerating that.

The moment we recognize that we bring our awareness back to this moment,

We give ourselves that appropriate attention,

That present moment attention of feeling the body where it is,

Connecting to our environment,

Breathing in through the nostrils,

Breathing out through the nostrils or breathing out through the mouth to let go,

To surrender to what's here.

And we practice again and again and the more we practice we create a healthy habit,

A healthy habit of the mind recognizing,

Oh I'm doing it again,

There it is,

Come back,

Here I am breathing in,

Breathing out,

Here I am feeling the feet connected to the earth or here I am driving my car,

I feel my hands on the wheel or here I am talking to my child,

Talking to a friend and I'm deeply present with them.

There's many moments that we can practice appropriate attention and where we can actually start to soften that habit of inappropriate attention.

So I invite you now just to take a moment to just either sit down or lay down to get comfortable and just practice a little bit of this practice.

So take a moment to scan through your body and just notice what you're experiencing in your body and just see if you,

As you scan from the top of your head all the way down to your feet,

Can you notice anywhere that you feel some tension,

Some suffering,

Some pain?

Maybe it's emotional,

Maybe it's mental,

Maybe it's physical,

Maybe there's a sound that's annoying you.

Just bring your awareness to where that is in your body and you may like to place your hand over that part.

I just invite you now to breathe in through the nostrils and breathe in to that place in you that feels tight,

That feels trapped.

And then as you exhale,

Just exhale surrendering into that feeling,

Surrendering into what you're experiencing right now.

Let the labels fall away,

Let the thoughts fall away and just be with your hand connecting to the aliveness of your body and feeling that energy that may feel stuck.

It's all that is,

Is energy that's contracted and by breathing and giving it attention without any judgment,

We're freeing that energy,

We're allowing it to move,

To expand.

So breathing in again,

Nice deep breath and exhale falling into that sensation,

Just feeling it,

Just allowing it to be there.

Maybe you can feel the heat of your hand as it connects to that area.

Breathing in again,

Nice deep breath from the belly to the heart,

Giving all of your awareness to that area.

And exhale surrendering.

Two more breaths in your own time,

Just breathing in,

Feeling the heat of your hand,

Softening that area in your body.

Exhale,

Falling in to where you are,

Just letting everything go.

Just being here,

Just relaxing your hand when you're ready.

Just noticing that energy,

Just feel that area again,

Just notice if it's different from when you started.

Maybe you feel softer,

Lighter throughout your whole body.

Just with a simple practice of appropriate attention,

We move from contraction into expansion and that's our practice on the Mahayana path of the middle way,

Is coming back again and again to expanding whenever we contract.

Thoughts,

Stories,

Emotions,

Situations,

Patterns,

Labels,

Judgments,

They contract us.

And each time we bring prasna,

Awareness,

Clear seeing to the present moment,

We open into this moment as it is,

We expand.

We experience inner peace,

Connection,

And a sense of calm.

So just take your time,

When you're ready,

You can sit up and go about your own day when you're ready.

Om Tare Tutare Ture Soha.

May all sentient beings move quickly and swiftly through any suffering and know true inner peace and happiness.

Namaste everyone.