So how to completely relax the brain.
An ideal meditation to try if you're having difficulty falling asleep,
Especially if the reason you're finding it difficult is you've got too many thoughts keeping you awake.
But before we address the thoughts,
We're going to start with the breath and mindfulness of the breath and three steps with the breath,
The first three of the six steps.
And the first very simple step is to simply become aware of your breath.
There's two things I like to remind myself of when I do become aware of the breath.
The first is not to concentrate or focus on the breath.
That is not to exclude anything else from my awareness.
Sometimes when we practice mindfulness of something like the breath,
We try to focus on the breath and move away from other things,
Ignore other things that are happening.
I find it much more effective to have a really nice open and light awareness.
So I welcome everything that's happening in this moment,
My thoughts,
Sensations in the body,
Sounds,
Emotions,
Feelings,
My body,
My environment,
External and internal.
And all I'm doing with this first step of awareness of the breath is just gently bringing the breath into the foreground or the center of my awareness.
Just taking a little more interest in the breath and allowing everything else to continue just as it is around the breath or just in the background.
So not focusing or concentrating.
A nice open awareness.
And the other thing I like to remind myself of is to really feel the breath,
Feel the physical sensations of the breath in the body.
So it's not a mental exercise of concentration or analysis,
But really feeling the breath in the body and holding that experience within the center of our awareness.
So let's spend a few moments with this awareness of the breath.
Right?
We'll do this in three seconds.
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Keeping your awareness nice and open and just bringing the breath gently into the foreground of your awareness.
And feeling the physical sensations of the breath in the body.
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And the second step for the mindfulness of the breath is to see if you can subtly shift your experience of the breath so you don't feel like you are breathing,
But that the body is being breathed.
The body is being breathed by the breath.
This means you're not having to make any effort to breathe.
The breathing is happening to you,
To the body.
It means we're not going to make any effort to affect or change the breath in any way.
We're allowing the breath to happen to us.
We're not making the breath happen.
We accept the breath just as it happens to us.
We allow the breath in as freely and as fully as the breath wants to enter the body without restricting the breath at all.
And we fully,
Completely let go of the breath and allow the breath to leave as fully and freely as it wants to without holding on to the breath at all.
And spend a few moments experiencing the breath,
Breathing the body.
The third step is just to check the body for any tension,
Particularly from the shoulders,
Down to the chest,
The back,
The arms and the legs.
Just have a scan through the body.
Just check if you're holding on to any muscles,
If there's any tightness,
Any tension.
Allow any tension to just dissolve and drift away.
Really allow the body to relax and see if you can feel the response from the breath.
So the more relaxed you allow the body to become,
The easier the breath will flow through you,
Through the body.
A few more moments with the breath,
Relaxing the body so you can really allow the breath to flow through the body.
One more.
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Okay,
So for the second part of the meditation,
Steps 4,
5 and 6,
We're going to apply the first three steps from the breath and apply it to our thoughts,
Our mind,
Our brain.
So for the fourth step,
Simply become aware of your thoughts,
Be aware of the experience of thinking and as we did with the breath,
Just gently hold your thoughts in the foreground or the centre of your awareness,
Still aware of the body,
The breath,
Sounds,
Your environment,
How you're feeling,
Simply paying a little more attention,
Having a little more interest in what it's like to think whilst you're being aware that you're thinking.
So really exploring how that feels to think with awareness.
If the mind is particularly busy and you find yourself getting a bit lost on a train of thoughts,
I find it really useful to see if I can hold the breath and the thoughts together within my awareness.
So it doesn't matter what I'm thinking,
I can only be thinking in the present moment.
If I can be aware that I'm breathing as well as thinking,
Then that keeps me grounded in the present and I don't get too lost in the thoughts.
The fifth step is again,
Copying what we did with the breath,
See if you can subtly change your experience of your thoughts so it doesn't feel like you are thinking,
That you are doing the thinking,
But the thoughts are happening to you.
The thoughts are occurring to you,
They're arriving in your mind,
In your awareness,
But you don't have to make any effort to create those thoughts.
You don't have to remember to think.
The thoughts can just arise naturally,
Spontaneously or automatically.
So how does that feel to experience your thoughts occurring to you without any effort?
Share it with me here.
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And as we did with this step with the breath,
Don't make any effort at all to change your thoughts in any way.
Don't try and stop thinking,
Don't try and redirect your thoughts,
Don't try to have positive or peaceful thoughts.
If we're really to experience our thoughts happening to us,
We need to really give those thoughts complete freedom and welcome and allow any thoughts at all to come into the mind.
So being really open,
Welcoming and allowing any thought at all to come into your awareness.
Before we begin,
We can Okay,
So the final step is to consciously relax the head.
So if we start with the face first of all,
Become aware of all the small muscles around the mouth and the jaw,
The eyes and the forehead.
And allow your face to completely relax.
Then becoming aware of the top,
Back and sides of your head,
The scalp and the skull.
And allow all these parts of your head to relax completely.
And then approaching the relaxation of your brain just exactly as you would any other part of your body.
Give yourself permission now to allow your brain to totally relax.
How does that feel to completely relax your brain?
Okay?
Becoming aware of the whole head,
The face,
The skull,
The brain.
Allow your whole head and brain to completely relax.
And just as when we relax the body we could feel the breath flow that much more freely through the body,
Now we're allowing the brain to completely relax.
We can feel the thoughts also flow more freely through the brain,
Through the mind,
Through our awareness.
Free flowing thoughts through the relaxed brain and free flowing breath through the relaxed body.
Helper.
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