All right,
So following the previous video about the difference between mindfulness and meditation,
I wanted to offer a mindful practice or a meditative process,
Which might help to explain it more,
But also to give us an experience of how do we start to get into that meditative place or the meditative process where things fall away and we simply are.
And so the first practice I'm going to do,
I'm going to probably do more,
But for today what I want to do is more of a presence practice.
And so if mindfulness is about sort of getting out of our thoughts and then focusing on something,
All I want to focus on is just being here,
Whatever that means.
And so one way we can start to do that is just notice how we are in the space around us.
So if you're sitting or you're standing or you're lying down,
All of those are totally okay.
And just notice,
How am I lying down here?
Now we're not going into a story,
Oh my foot is in this way,
It should be in that way.
Oh this should be happening.
We're just noticing,
All right,
I'm here and there's,
You know,
There's weight.
I'm standing,
There's weight on my feet.
I'm sitting,
There's weight on my sitting bones or on my glute muscles or wherever it is,
The top of my back,
The top back of my thighs.
If we're lying on the ground,
What part of our body is on the ground?
We're not going into an analysis,
That's irrelevant.
We're just noticing what's there,
However much we notice it.
And so we're just having a sense of our presence in the room around us.
How is our body in space?
That's almost all we need to do.
We don't need to do the other stuff,
We can do them later on,
But for today we don't need to do anything else.
Just notice,
How is my body in the space around me?
Without a judgment,
Without a good or a bad,
Just noticing how do we take it to be.
And it's almost inevitable,
Especially for those who are just newer to meditation,
That they will start to think about something,
Get distracted.
Oh I have to pick this up later,
Oh I need to do this,
Oh this is uncomfortable,
Oh I should be doing this other position,
Whatever.
That's almost inevitable because that's how you've been trained to be.
And we know that's how you've been trained to be because that's what you're doing.
Okay,
It's not good or bad,
It simply is.
And so what we can then do is notice,
Oh look at that,
That's interesting,
That's what I'm doing right now,
But I don't need to be doing that.
I can just go back to focusing on myself in space.
And there'll be a constant going back and forth,
Getting pulled into something and then coming back in.
Now there are times when we need to maybe be pulled away,
Especially if we're having some sort of traumatic response or some feeling of unsafety in our body.
And if that's the case,
Please stop what we're doing and take care of yourself.
But if that's not the case,
Just come back to noticing the weight of your body and the space around you,
And that's it.
Whenever you get pulled away,
Just come back,
Just come back,
That's it.
And this can be a short few minute practice,
This can be a longer practice.
You could spend a half hour,
You could spend a whole day with this,
Both would be fine.
I think I mentioned this in a previous video about somebody talking about a micro meditation,
And this isn't a micro meditation,
It could be a micro mindful practice,
But a micro meditation is actually,
Makes no sense because meditation simply is,
There's no short or long,
There just simply is.
So this might be a micro or macro mindful activity that may lead to meditation,
However long that will be.
And that's cool if that happens.
But that again is besides the point,
All that matters right now is sitting with the weight of our body and the space around us,
That's it.
And I'm going to sign off here,
You're welcome to stay as long or as little as you want,
You're welcome later to respond and say what worked,
What didn't work,
If you'd like to know more.
It's all a process of unlearning,
Simply be with life as it is.
Until our next time,
Be well up there.
