The Art of Arriving

Hello,

I am Colleen Fletcher.

Today's meditation is all about mindfulness.

About the art of arriving.

I invite you to take a moment to sit down.

Maybe even lay down for this one if that's more comfortable for you.

Find a place where your body can be at ease as well.

And I know that.

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Mindfulness it's often misunderstood as that emptying of the mind Not necessarily how it is.

Because the mind's job is to think.

What we're going to be doing is not noticing it in the same way.

So I invite you to arrive right here.

Right now.

Not who you were a few minutes ago.

But right in this very moment.

One that is sitting with me comfortably.

Being with yourself comfortably.

Breathing in.

And breathing out.

And noticing.

We're gonna take a couple more intentional breaths together.

Calming our body further,

Calming our mind further.

And noticing.

So breathing in.

Down into your belly,

To your low back.

Wherever is comfortable for you.

And releasing.

Breathing in.

And breathing out Oftentimes in mindfulness,

What we do is we have something we're going to focus on,

An anchor.

And we use this anchor.

When there's something that takes us away from being in this present moment.

Right?

So let's say we're sitting here and a thought comes in.

And now's not the time to be taken care of that thought.

We know we can do it later,

But right now it's just not that time.

So what we want is that anchor to bring us back into this moment.

So I invite you to choose.

I'm going to give you a couple examples.

I invite you to choose which one works for you.

The breath.

Maybe it's that feeling at the very tip of your nose.

Maybe it's your hands.

Maybe your hands are resting comfortably wherever you're sitting.

And it can be the sensation of your palms on your lap.

So right now my hands are face down so I can feel the heat of my hands.

So maybe that's what your anchor will be.

Maybe it's a sound.

Maybe it's that subtle hum in the room around you.

Pick one of these now and have that be your home base.

Sit comfortably with whatever you have chosen.

And oftentimes it is a thought.

Pulls us away.

As our brain is doing its job.

Brain is there to think,

To move.

Right.

So.

What you do is in that moment when you have drifted away.

Think of whatever your anchor is to bring you back into this moment.

For me,

It was my hand.

So that's what brings me back into this moment.

There's no heavy thinking.

There's no judgment on the fact that your brain did its job and thought of something.

It's just a gentle easiness of hours.

I'm going to come back to that feeling of my hands.

You know,

To that feeling of that presence of where you are right now.

Just coming back to your anchor.

You need to think of what it's like.

It's like the training of a puppy,

You know?

Keep doing it with kindness and over and over and over again.

And that's what we're doing with our brain.

Getting off.

With thought or a freeway is how I describe it.

You're on a freeway,

You're calm,

You're at ease.

Thought comes in,

You get off on a freeway exit.

You come back to your anchor.

Get right back onto that freeway.

And then again,

Like the puppy,

You do it over and over and over or every single exit you need to get off.

Back to your own.

Anchor.

And you're right back on that freeway.

And this mindfulness is something that we carry with us.

And do it while walking.

Do it in the office.

I understand that it's not always possible to get into a space like this to do it in your office.

But it's that thought.

I can feel my hands on my legs.

Bringing that anchor back to you.

Join a few more intentional breaths.

Really compounding that anchor.

Into your body and into your mind.

That anchor you do brings you back.

This stain.

I invite you to open your eyes.

So.

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Back to this present moment.

And thank you for being with me.