Hello and welcome to this recording.
I'm Christoph and I'll be your guide.
Thank you for being here,
Thank you for being you,
And thank you for your interest in my work.
Let's get comfortable and enjoy a moment of peace.
So,
Give yourself full permission to sort of switch off for a while.
And when I say switch off,
I mean switching off from immediate distractions and big worries and stuff.
Just give yourself full permission,
Allow yourself to be here.
And that means different things for different people.
Maybe you need to relax your neck and shoulders a little bit more and just readjust your position.
Maybe you need to give yourself permission to quiet your mind for a while,
Or a combination of both.
And I'm going to invite you to very gently place one hand on your chest and the other hand on your lower belly.
That's an invitation,
It's not an obligation.
Any position is fine.
But it's always nice to reconnect with ourselves in this way.
Now we're going to walk further down the path of unwinding and fully relaxing by doing a quick scan up and down the body.
Where are you holding any tension like noticeably?
Is your jaw tight,
For example?
Are your legs restless?
Can you maybe relax the palms of your hands a little bit more?
Let them rest with more ease on your belly,
On your chest.
Maybe the tongue,
Can you unlock your tongue?
How about your feet?
This is not about falling asleep,
But about falling awake to the beauty of this present moment.
And mindfully scanning through our bodies is a great way to connect with the present moment.
It's a positive redirecting of our mind to what is.
And as the mind and the body fall more and more awake,
I invite you to bring your attention to the breath.
And there is nothing you have to do here.
The invitation is to be with your breath.
And if you feel inclined to take a few deep breaths in and out,
That is fine.
If you're happy with the beautiful natural rhythm of your breath,
That's wonderful too.
Just be with your breath for a few moments.
And it's always nice to reflect just that little bit extra and express that appreciation for our breath.
It's breathing the body,
Breathing the mind,
And in a way breathing our soul as well,
Supporting our existence,
Our beingness.
And yet it's so easy to not pay attention to our breath.
Of course we rightfully take it for granted,
And yet it's beautiful to spend some time with the breath.
So let's practice that.
And this is interesting because often people will tell me,
Chris it's lovely to focus on the breath but it's difficult at the same time because I have thoughts coming into my head.
And that's wonderful.
And here's why.
It's wonderful for two big reasons and I'm sharing them with you now so that it can help you to stop worrying about that so much.
And the first reason is,
It's a sign that you have a healthy mind.
Minds do that.
They think,
Often in the past,
Often about the future,
Very rarely about the now moment.
But they think that's what minds do and they constantly scan for danger,
They try to protect us,
And often it's helpful and often it's unnecessary.
And then the second reason why it's beautiful is because having that realization that your mind has moved your attention away from your breath to thoughts means that you have cultivated that awareness,
That metacognition,
The thinking about the thinking.
And that's extraordinary.
And that is what mindfulness meditation helps us to do.
To have that awareness that we are no longer in the now.
And then focus once again on the now moment without judging the wandering mind and without judging ourselves.
It is not a failure.
It's exactly the opposite.
It is progress in your meditation practice and in the cultivation of your meditation practice.
So stay with your breath and enjoy everything as it is.
Any sounds,
Any feelings,
Any thoughts.
Just allow everything to be a part of your experience.
Thank you.
So we're going to gently move forward.
And we're going to have a scan through our thoughts purposefully now for any reasons,
Any particular ways in which we have given parts of ourselves away recently.
Knowingly and unknowingly,
On purpose,
By accident.
Parts of you that you have given away to situations,
To people that either didn't deserve those parts of you or didn't call them into their experience.
And so this is about rebalancing the energy between us and the outer world.
Have I been too much of this recently?
Have I been too much of that recently?
And that includes the not enough being this recently and not enough being that recently.
Have a think of situations where you have been out of alignment with your usual self.
Have you been too afraid?
Have you been too nervous,
Too polite,
Trying to be too perfect?
Whatever it is,
Approach it with a non-judgmental awareness and spend some time with it.
You'll know what it is.
Maybe your values were not respected by people.
Maybe you did not respect your own usual values.
Perhaps people crossed certain boundaries.
Maybe we crossed certain boundaries.
There are some great attitudes from the world of mindfulness I feel can be very helpful in these times of significant transformation.
And as we all know,
These times are not easy.
There is anger,
Uncertainty,
Fear and so forth.
And this context often triggers us to walk out of alignment with who we truly have become.
And it happens in subtle and not so subtle ways.
And letting go and non-judgment and non-striving are three key mindfulness attitudes that can help us in these times.
Non-striving means being okay with the way you cultivate your meditation practice.
It's not about getting to any state,
To any sort of enlightenment,
Etc.
But about just being with self and with now,
With life.
Non-judgment.
Non-judgmentally looking at the situation,
At people involved.
Of course that includes us.
Remembering that we are all human beings trying to figure it all out.
So the invitation is to be more gentle with ourselves.
Letting go and letting go with kindness.
Letting go of fears.
But not in a wishy-washy way,
Not in a wishful thinking way.
Letting go by always coming back to the now moment,
Giving the mind a welcome break from the overthinking.
And keeping your attention on your breath,
We are being reminded of the magnitude of the journey.
And the complexity of the journey.
And the unstillness of the journey on one hand and the stillness that can always be found within on the other hand.
And as this practice slowly comes to a close,
Stay with this stillness until you hear the sound of the bells.
Letting go of fears.
Letting go of fears.
Letting go of fears.
And slowly begin to bring your full awareness back to the room.
And let's take a deep breath in and out together.
I love you.
Namaste.
Thank you again for joining me.
Bye for now.
