Working With Perfectionism, Impatience, And A Busy Mind

This meditation was created in honor of World Meditation Day. The practice is brief and encompasses an explanation of the benefits of meditation for folks with busy minds. It is made for those who struggle with impatience and who may feel frustrated with themselves during meditation. We enter into a space to turn inward and to accept ourselves and our minds as they are, using an anchor point to steady the mind. We then gently arrive back into our day, bringing with us the intentionality we cultivated throughout the meditation.

Transcript

Hello, Everyone. My name is Autumn, And this is a brief guided meditation in honor of World Meditation Day. So, To begin, You can either be seated upright or lying down, Whatever works best for you. We're going to take a moment and either close our eyes or soften our gaze. From here, Take just a few deep, Slow breaths. See if you can inhale through the nose, Filling up through your belly and your chest, And then exhale either out the mouth or out the nose through your belly and your chest. A couple more breaths, A little bit deeper, A little bit slower, A little bit fuller. And now from here, You're going to choose an anchor point, Something to keep your attention on. It may be the sensation of your breath. Maybe you feel it in the belly or the chest, Maybe at the tip of the nose and the nostrils. Maybe you feel your whole body breathing. If it feels hard to connect with your breath or like it's causing a bit of stress, You might want to choose to connect with the sensation in your hands. So whichever anchor point you choose, Your breath or the sensation in your hands, That's where you're going to come back to. In meditation, In life, Your mind naturally wanders. The goal is to keep bringing your attention back so that eventually you can get a little bit more agency. When we're able to pause, When we're able to slow down, When we're able to come back from whatever our thoughts are telling us, That's when we're able to make a decision from a place of calm rather than a place of reactivity. So choosing your anchor point and keeping your attention there. When the mind wanders, Rather than feeling frustrated or like meditation isn't working for you, Simply come back to that anchor again. Bring that awareness back to the anchor. Taking just a few moments in silence to practice this. Now you might notice that you're feeling fidgety or restless or like your mind is taking you in all different directions. And that's okay. That's normal. There's nothing wrong with that. And in time with this practice, Trust that it's going to get a little bit easier to bring that attention back to your anchor point, To bring your attention back to the current moment. So taking that awareness back to the anchor point, See if you can pay attention to something that seems simple, Boring, Uninteresting maybe. And see if it can feel like the most interesting thing in the world. Just the breath or just the sensation in the hands. What can you notice about the breath without going down a rabbit hole of thought? What do you notice? What do you notice about the sensation in the hands? Maybe naming, Oh, Tingling or cold. Whatever it is that you might observe. Maybe you're noticing something else come in. Maybe a sensation in a different part of your body or a thought. Maybe a thought that's kind of judgmental or critical. Maybe you notice an emotion. See if you can nod to or smile at whatever it is that's coming into your awareness. And then just see if you can come back to that anchor point, To the breath or to the sensation in the hands. Even if they don't feel like the most interesting thing in the world, See if you can be curious about the possibility of them being interesting, The possibility of them being enough, The possibility of you not needing to get up and move or to have something that's more stimulating. And now take a moment to acknowledge your effort. This doesn't mean measuring how successful you were or how distracted you were. This means acknowledging that you took the time to pause and to attempt to meditate, To practice meditation. Whatever it is that comes up with however uncomfortable it might be, To practice, To welcome the moments of peace and to trust that this process leads to the capacity for patience, Resilience, Adaptability, Trust, Peace. Thank you so much for taking the time to practice with me. Feel free to stay as you are or if you begin to move, See if you can move slowly, Paying attention to your movements, Paying attention to the sensations that you feel as you move, Paying attention to your surroundings as you open your eyes. See if you can set an intention to come back to stillness and to take some more time to pause throughout your day, To take some more time to move slowly and pay attention to the sensation of your foot on the floor as you walk or the water on your hands as you wash your hands. Really simple, Seemingly uninteresting little things can be the most interesting things in the world. Thank you and have a wonderful, Wonderful day.