A Guided Meditation On Deep Listening And Mindful Speaking

In this meditation, you are invited to become more aware of the basic mindful "right" speech elements. Annie will help guide you to reflect on any speaking habits you might have, like avoiding the full truth, gossiping, or speaking unkindly. You'll also reflect on listening habits like not interrupting or putting technology aside during a conversation. This can help improve our practice and become more aware of the habits we use when listening and speaking.

Transcript

So, We can begin by bringing our attention to whatever you are seated or lying on and just go ahead and feel that support that's underneath you. Feel your body resting and being supported from below and if you feel supported you can invite your body to release into that support even just a little bit more. You might begin to sense the space that you're in either with your eyes open looking around or your eyes closed just remembering the space that you're in and just feeling the safety that is there and the comfort and maybe the support of that space and just letting yourself lean into that support and comfort and safety even a bit more and you might notice any sounds that you hear in the space or outside of the space and you might let your attention remain on those sounds as you breathe in and out and if it's comfortable for you to bring your attention fully to your breath coming in and going out you can do that and if that's not comfortable you can keep your attention on the sounds or on the support underneath you whatever works for you today and if you're following the breathing you might just notice the full length of the inhale and the end of the inhale and then the full length of the exhale and again the inhale just following that as it goes around inhaling and exhaling and then sensing your whole body as you breathe just sensing the whole body my dear body I'm here I'm here for you and sending your body some gratitude and love and inviting your body to be at ease and it might be that this place here where you are now at ease and breathing or listening to sounds this might be just where you need to be today and if this is your place then you can just stay right here resting so it's really your call what feels right today and if you're following my voice you might just consider when you're in conversation which of these speech elements feels the most easy for you to do and most common for you to do so maybe not telling the full truth or telling people's stories gossiping or telling one person one thing and someone else something else or exaggerating or embellishing or idle chatter sort of avoidant chatter so maybe just noticing which of those feels sort of the most habitual for you being dishonest saying different things to different people gossiping or telling people's stories speaking harshly or cruelly exaggerating or embellishing or idle chatter talking in order to distract so just checking in to see if any of those feel like things you might habitually do or even now and then just habits no judgment at all because we all do all of these things some point so but just getting a sense of which one which one of these are ones of these feels the most like things you do and maybe even having a sense of what what's behind it and then maybe just letting that go and coming back to your breath or your body at the sounds this moment and then we're gonna just do the same kind of thing but with listening so maybe noticing which of these these sort of helpful listening habits feel the most easy for you to get to reflecting on whether you can find it possible to not interrupt when someone is sharing even if it's challenging and what that's like noticing what it's like when you try to keep compassion alive in a conversation by listening beyond the words listening for what the person's really trying to say and then noticing which whether it's possible to create conditions for a deep listening for yourself and checking in to see if you have the spaciousness to listen to put aside technology or work to maybe suggest going for a walk in order to listen so those more positive practices for deep listening just noticing which ones feel accessible to you and maybe easy to try and then letting go of all of that thinking and reflecting and just coming back to your body on the seat or whatever you're sitting or lying on coming back to the sounds in the room or you're breathing to this moment right here and right now and just trusting that whatever whatever you received in this guided practice is just what you needed