Urge Surfing Mindfulness Meditation

This is a brief exercise intended to help you practice riding the wave of an urge, allowing you to experience the urge without acting on it. Practicing urge surfing can allow you to remain in the driver’s seat when urges arise naturally throughout the course of the day, allowing you to choose whether to act on them or not, in accordance with your deepest values.

With gratitude to Chris Collins for the background music.

Transcript

This is a mindfulness exercise intended to help you practice sitting with unhelpful urges without acting on them.

These can be any kind of urges.

An urge to yell,

An urge to pick up a cigarette,

An urge to eat something sweet,

An urge to scratch your nose.

Practicing surfing these urges can allow you to remain in the driver's seat when urges arise naturally throughout the course of the day.

Allowing you to choose whether to act on it or not according to your deepest values.

Begin by settling into a comfortable position,

Feet flat on the floor,

Shoulders relaxed.

You can either soften your gaze or close your eyes,

Whatever is most comfortable for you.

Begin by noticing the breath,

Watching each inhalation and exhalation.

Notice the sensations of breathing,

Wherever they feel most prominent for you.

There's nothing here to be fixed,

No need to change anything.

Simply observe.

Now noticing the urge showing up for you,

Just as it is.

Are there any thoughts arising?

Just noticing with curiosity.

Then turning the attention toward how the urge is showing up in your body.

What sensations are present for you?

Where do you feel this in your body?

Notice the boundaries of the sensation.

Is it small and limited to one area or bigger?

See if you can just notice these sensations with curiosity,

Gentleness and compassion.

Take the next few breaths to watch this urge,

Simply observing how it moves through your body.

Now notice how the urge has changed as you've continued to sit.

Perhaps it shows up differently now,

A different sensation,

Body part.

The intensity or size of the urge may have changed.

Notice how the urge rises and falls like waves on the ocean.

Can you practice simply riding those waves,

Like a surfer,

As they rise and fall.

If your mind becomes caught up in thinking,

Simply notice there's been thinking and then turn your attention back to the physical sensations of the urge as it passes through your body.

You can return to this practice whenever an urge arises,

Practicing surfing the urge instead of being swept away.

Now taking a moment to simply return to observing the breath,

Noticing each in-breath and each out-breath.

Then returning to the room whenever you're ready.