Welcome and thank you for being here.
It's very good to come together and practice 20 minutes or so of mindfulness meditation to get grounded and to stay hopeful and positive,
But not in a cheesy way,
In a genuine way.
And so let's see what comes up for us today.
So welcome to practice.
I am going to ring the bells three times and I invite you to get as comfortable as possible.
You can do this meditation lying down or sitting down,
Whatever feels safe,
Whatever feels comfortable.
You're welcome to close your eyes or simply lower your gaze and maybe focus on the wall opposite you or the ceiling,
Tuning into the body,
Checking in with yourself.
What does my body need right now?
What is the most comfortable posture?
You're welcome to close your eyes or sit down.
Allowing yourself to fully arrive here in this moment,
In the knowledge that this is a shared space we are practicing together today.
And that comes with a sense of comfort,
Holding space for each other without doing anything per se,
Simply by being here and sharing in that energy.
And let's begin with taking three full breaths together and ideally inhaling through the nose and holding for a moment and exhaling through the mouth or whatever feels comfortable to you.
Och Okay.
Cool.
Now allowing the breath to return to its normal rhythm,
Trusting that it takes care of you.
And this moment,
And every moment.
And some of you are regulars to this practice and other people are here for the first time today.
So welcome,
And it's really nice to have you with us.
And for all of us,
I invite you to,
As a little bit of a support system perhaps,
Think of an anchor for this meditation.
And by that I mean something you can return to whenever you feel that you want to reground yourself and come back to the present moment.
So this could be your breath.
This could be any part of the body.
This could be an image of a person or a pet,
For example.
An anchor.
Not that anything scary is going to happen,
Of course it isn't.
But just to learn this new tool,
So to speak,
Which can be very helpful in these rather uncertain times.
And even when times are certain and everything is going really well for us,
An anchor is usually a sensible tool to have in the meditation toolbox,
So to speak.
And allowing your attention to rest on this anchor for a few moments.
Further allowing yourself to be fully here,
Fully present.
And as ever,
The mind will try very hard to wander off.
Hey you,
Why are you sitting down?
Why are you resting?
What is this meditation malarkey?
That's what minds do.
Keeping us alert.
So it's quite beautiful and it's quite healthy.
However,
As we all know,
Too much of the mind overtaking and spending too much time in the past or the future is not always helpful.
And that is why we practice.
So for the remainder of our time together today,
Whenever you notice your mind has wandered off,
You can either bring it back to your anchor or simply bring it back to the now.
With kindness and with compassion.
Hey mind,
Thank you for protecting me.
Thank you for wanting to run away with all the thinking and all the doing,
But I've got this.
I'm safe.
Taking this time to stabilize the mind.
And it can be helpful to call on your senses.
The senses provide a highway to the now moment.
For example,
What can I smell in this room?
What can I hear in the house?
Including things that I wish wouldn't be here.
Can I see anything,
Even if my eyes are closed?
What does that darkness look like?
What does the touch of my body against the furniture feel like?
The touch of clothing against my skin.
Nowhere to go,
Nowhere to be but here.
Nowhere to be but here.
And I personally believe that now more than ever,
Appreciating the difference between the doing mode and especially the driven doing mode and the being mode can be very helpful.
The doing mode which is wanting the situation to be different,
Feeling the need to change something,
Not really loving ourselves.
That doesn't mean passivity or complacency.
I don't think anyone wants to be in this situation that we're in.
But this is the situation,
Apparently.
And so the doing mode may not serve us.
Whereas the being mode,
On the other hand,
Invites us to reduce the need to change things.
And to allow things to be as they are.
Again,
Doesn't mean accepting things blindly.
But knowing that resisting can be more exhausting than simply allowing things to unfold.
And to remember that we are enough.
Feeling yourself.
I'm going to give you a few moments to simply be here and now.
And when the mind wanders,
Gently bring it back to your anchor,
Back to your breath,
Perhaps,
And back to the now.
Staying present.
Staying awake.
Whilst relaxing into this moment.
Holding space for yourself.
We practice grows stronger.
And so often we practice things that are not necessarily helpful to us.
Such as worrying.
Or fear.
Overthinking.
Doing something.
Doing,
Doing,
Doing.
Anything to outperform our anxieties.
Anything we are trying to run away from.
And it's exhausting.
So what we are practicing now is stillness.
So that can grow stronger.
Sitting down for a few moments.
Realizing that the world doesn't stop turning.
And that we can give ourselves some much needed breathing space.
And once again,
Bringing the mind back to the now.
Perhaps noticing what exactly,
If you can,
What exactly made your mind wander off,
If it did.
And then tracing it back,
So to speak.
Back to the now.
It can be the slightest sensation in the body,
Emotion,
Thought,
Sound,
Whatever.
That can prompt the mind to go off in a world of its own.
And when we learn to recognize that,
We can say thank you mind.
And then non-judgmentally bring it back to the now moment.
Judgment is such a big part of the doing mode.
And it's quite normal to have judgment.
But there's a difference between judgment and discernment.
It's okay to have an opinion.
But what's more helpful is to become aware of your opinions.
To become aware of your reactions.
So that you can create that beautiful space between the stimulus and the response instead.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And as we come towards the end of today's practice,
I would like to invite you to keep your eyes closed if that is still comfortable.
And I'm going to share a short poem with you,
Which I thought is very relevant.
And it is called Wild Geese by Mary Oliver.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair,
Yours,
And I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile,
The world goes on.
Meanwhile,
The sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes over the prairies and the deep trees,
The mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile,
The wild geese high in the clean blue air are heading home again.
Whoever you are,
No matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese,
Harsh and exciting,
Over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
So simply resting in this space until you hear the sound of the bells.
You do not have to be good.
You only have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
The wild geese high in the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes over the prairies and the mountains and the rivers.
So gently opening the eyes if they were closed and you may want to do a little stretch.
Neck roll or shoulder roll if that is comfortable.
Fingers and toes.
And it can be useful to,
After this session,
To reflect for a few moments on what has come up for you and perhaps jot a few things down in your journal or on a piece of paper.
So,
I love you.
Namaste.
Bye for now.
