Learning To Ride The Waves Of Our Awareness

In this live-recorded meditation, Anne invites us to nurture a receptive awareness of the soundscapes that are unique to each of us.
Then we are guided to follow a body scan, where we focus on the aliveness in breath and body. We learn to work with the waves of thoughts that come and go, taking us away from the present moment experience.
Deepening our direct sensations with the present moment, we learn to be with, or ride the sometimes tumultuous currents of our awareness.

Transcript

So I'll let you make yourself comfortable.

Let's say organizing yourself to find a space that feels comfortable.

And take a minute to look at your posture.

And so feel your feet on the ground or explore the contact of your sit bones against your seat.

I'm going to invite you to take a deep breath in.

And as you do,

See if you can elevate your spine,

Elongate,

Almost as if someone was pulling you from the crown of your head.

And now let's take three deep,

Intentional breaths in and out together.

So first exhaling all of your air out.

And take a deep breath in through the nose.

And exhale out through the mouth with a big sigh out.

Breathing in through the nose.

And releasing with a long,

Deep,

Slow sigh out.

And take one third and final breath in.

Make this your biggest one yet.

And release.

Settling into your seat and the present moment.

And just asking yourself as we get started,

What state am I in right now?

Just directing this inner inquiry just to notice,

Take stock of how you are and how you're feeling before we start this practice of mindfulness meditation.

And if you haven't done so already,

I'm going to invite you to close your eyes.

Or if closing your eyes feels uncomfortable,

You can just lower your eyelids and leave a sliver of light coming through between your eyelids and gaze at a spot a couple of feet in front of you.

The idea is we want to direct our gaze inward for the next 20 minutes.

I'm going to invite you first to explore the sounds in the room and around you.

Noticing what you can hear.

In mindfulness,

We try as much as we can not to narrate our experience,

But to simply explore it as an observer,

As a witness.

To noticing what is arising,

What noises are coming to you,

Whether near or far.

Perhaps some noises are creating some responses in you,

Perhaps some are pleasant and others may slightly annoy you,

Irritate you.

If that's the case,

Just note and go back to noticing,

Simply observing.

We don't even need to label any of the sounds.

And so whether the sounds are within your body or external,

You can notice as well that they are completely unique to this present moment.

They will never happen again in the way that they are now arising and disappearing.

Noticing as well whether your mind feels settled or perhaps a little bit agitated.

If suddenly you realize that you've gone away and stopped curiously listening to the sounds of the present moment,

That's okay.

It's when we notice that we've gone off somewhere and we make the choice to recommit,

To come back to the anchor and in our case being mindful of sound.

That's when we recommit and practice resilience and practice mindfulness.

And now we're going to start a body scan practice where I'm going to invite you to focus all of your attention one body part at a time and you will follow the guidance of my voice as best you can.

And in this exercise,

What we're trying to achieve is to feel or sense what are these sensations or the absence of sensations arising and falling away,

Coming and going but becoming intimate with the feelings and sensations in our bodies.

The value of course is that our bodies hold a lot of information about our experience.

So tapping into that and the wisdom is one of the great benefits of mindfulness practice.

So starting at the crown of the head,

Feeling and sensing for aliveness,

Tingling,

Any sensations.

Feeling around the brow,

The forehead.

As you scan your forehead,

Notice if you feel or contact any tension.

When we're concerned or anxious,

We tend to call on to our facial muscles.

And so in this moment,

You can choose to feel around.

You can choose to explore the sensations but also invite a feeling of relaxation or softening.

Moving your attention to focus around the eye area.

Notice if your eyelids feel soft or perhaps they're a little bit scrunched together.

And if that's the case,

You can blink them two or three times and let your upper eyelid rest very softly on the lower one.

And imagine that you can relax all four corners of your eyes.

Moving your attention to the nose.

And again,

As best you can,

You don't need to visualize it,

But try to feel and sense.

And perhaps the first thing you can try to come in contact with is the feeling of the air as it comes in at the tip of your nostrils.

What can you feel in this next inhale?

And you can follow that breath cycle and what can you feel at the end of it as the air leaves the body all the way down to the end of the exhale?

So as a curious observer,

You can ask yourself,

What can I feel?

And if you're noticing that it's hard to concentrate,

If your mind has gone off somewhere,

You can take a moment to note what kind of thought has captured your attention.

And as you do,

You can let it go and come back to observing the breath coming in and out of the nostrils.

Moving down to the mouth,

The cheeks,

The jaw.

And again,

You can scan for sensations,

But also inviting a sense of softening,

A sense of relaxation.

Moving your attention to the neck and the throat.

What is there to feel?

Any sense of aliveness?

And you can note as well that the absence of sensation is itself a kind of sensation,

Neutral.

Now focusing your attention on the upper back,

Your shoulders and the shoulder blades.

Noticing what is there in this moment.

Perhaps you have a connection with touch and you feel your clothes against your skin.

Maybe there's a sense of tightness or tension as most of us carry a lot of it in our upper back.

And if you find that that's the case,

I invite you to take a deeper,

Longer in-breath,

Perhaps straightening your spine a little bit and move your shoulder blades down your back with an open chest.

And with the next inhale,

Try to direct the breath in the area of tightness.

And as you exhale,

Invite a softening.

Breathing down to the front of the chest.

And perhaps to connect to the sensations of this moment,

You can choose to put your right hand at your heart center.

And let yourself be guided by the movements of the breath.

As you explore what there is to feel,

Touch or movement of the upper ribs,

Perhaps a sense of your heart beating in your chest,

Just exploring.

Again,

If you notice that your mind is full of thoughts,

Imagine that they're like waves that rise and subside.

And again,

Feel free to notice what kind of thought is pulling you from this present moment.

And over time,

You'll notice that often we can group them in themes like planning,

Memory,

Future thinking,

Worrying.

But once you've noted,

You can come back and reconnect.

What can you feel?

What can you sense in and around the chest,

In and around the heart area?

Moving your attention down to the belly.

Understanding whether you are finding a sensation of tightness or tension.

Again we can contract around this area and not necessarily noticing it.

If you'd like,

You can also choose to put your right hand on the abdomen and noticing what shifts if you can feel more directly the sensations that occur as you breathe in and breathe out.

And with the next breath in,

You can invite a sense of softening,

A deep,

Deep softening from the core of your belly.

And let any tension go away with the next exhale.

Moving your attention to the pelvis,

The sit bones.

Can you feel from the inside out?

What sensations are arising in this moment?

Now gliding your attention down to the right thigh,

The right knee,

The right ankle.

You can feel into the whole of your right leg.

And now concentrating your attention,

Not visualizing,

But sensing into your right foot.

Can you feel into each of your toes?

And what can you feel without wiggling?

Moving your attention to the left thigh,

The left knee,

The left shin,

The left ankle.

Noticing any feelings of aliveness in the whole of your left leg.

And focusing your attention now on your left foot.

Can you feel into each of your toes?

Seeing the power of your concentration,

Of your attention without needing to visualize,

Although you can too.

Perhaps sensing tingling,

Heat,

Cold,

Touch.

And now imagine that you can relax from the core of the soles of your feet.

And now widening the lens of your attention,

Taking in your whole body,

Breathing in this moment.

Letting your attention notice the sensations that are arising and falling,

Whether on the skin or in the muscles,

In the tissues.

What senses of aliveness you may have in your inner organs.

Taking in the whole dense of aliveness that is happening right now.

Noticing that if your mind goes off somewhere,

Remembering to let the waves pass.

You can note the thought content and as much as possible remain the observer of your present moment experience.

And as we come to a close,

I'm going to invite you to check in and ask yourself,

How do I feel in this moment?

What is my state?

And I will close with a quote from Jon Kabat-Zinn who said,

You can't stop the waves,

But you can learn to surf.

Thank you so much for joining me in practice.

Namaste.