Still Waters | Observing Thoughts & Feelings

This gentle meditation invites you to slow down and observe the subtle sensations in your body that arise from your thoughts. With mindful awareness and a soothing lake visualization, you’ll learn to calm your inner world, allowing your mind to settle like still water. A practice to bring clarity, peace, and presence to your day.

Transcript

So my name is Kari. Pleased to meet you. Thank you for coming and listening. Let's meditate together. If you'd like to close down your eyes, Shut out the rest of the world first of all. Let's fall into the present moment, Where we're at, What we're feeling. Check in with your body and just get an overall sense of what your body feels like. In general, Maybe your body feels good, Maybe your body feels heavy, Tired, Energized. What's your body feel like right now in this moment? And then where is your mind at? Pulling yourself into your meditation mind, More of the observer rather than being in it. Observing your mind right now, Just kind of sitting back. And a nice way to do that is if you can imagine that you're sat inside of your own head, Like a little Buddha at the back of your head space as if your head, Your mind, Your thoughts are like an attic of sorts and you're sat up there observing everything that's going on in the mind. What's your mood feel like? What kind of thoughts are popping into your head right now? From the observer perspective, Just watch them, Their attention, But don't attach. So if you have a particular thought that encourages another thought and another thought that comes with those thoughts, Try not to engage, Just watch your choice of thoughts. Watch what goes on in your body. This is very subtle, So you'd have to be very, Very still and quiet. Be the Buddha in your mind and just observe, But watch what goes on in your body. See if you can recognize any slight shifts of energy with particular thoughts. What I mean by that is certain thoughts may bring on a very quick, Very subtle drop in your energy. For example, If you have to do something today that you don't want to do and that thought pops into your mind, Your body will respond with a sense of heaviness. It's almost as if the cells are waiting to respond to what energy the thoughts put out in your body. See if you can feel that for the next couple of thoughts. Maybe do it on a purpose and see if you can feel your body respond. Still feeling into your body and your thoughts, I'd like you to think about the sunshine. Start to think about the sun and see if your body does anything. See the sun in the sky. See the sky around the sun. Think about the sun shining down on your face. Do you feel the subtle shift inside of your body? There's a slight pull as if your body wants to rise just a little bit higher. Your cells open and there's a pulling sensation as if gravity is pulling you closer to the sun, As if your body needs the light. Intuitively, You might want to raise your face up slightly, Let your head fall back slightly and allow yourself to just soak in the sun. Then watch your body very closely. Pay attention to the inside and think about being sat on an iceberg. What happens inside of your body? Think about the cold on your sit bones. Can you feel the inside of your body moving away from the ice? Contracting and pulling up and away as if it's being pulled upwards. Gravitating away from the sensation. It's so subtle but you can feel your cells move inside and respond. Shift your attention and watch closely what happens, Especially in your hand. Using your left hand, Just imagine in your mind that you're running your fingers down the bark of a tree. How does your body respond to the thoughts of that? What do you feel inside of your hand and your fingertips? Just keep your hand there on the tree, Feel it. You may feel an investigation kind of feeling like the cells in your hand and in your fingers are searching, Reaching for a connection, Pulling closer so they can get a sense of feeling or a reading of the tree. These are all very subtle feelings and sensations but the more you meditate, The more you can sit in this space and just be in the present moment. Be very present inside of your mind and your body. Going back to the visualization of you inside of your mind, Sitting there in crisscross applesauce as if you're a tiny little Buddha at the back of your mind. What if your mind that was there in front of you, The space that was there in front of you was like a big giant lake and you're sat at the edge of the lake. Maybe you're sat on like a boardwalk type thing or maybe you're sat on the ground and you can feel the earth and the banking underneath your sit bones. You're sat close to the water and as you look out at the water, You can see all the ripples and the subtle movement at the top of the lake but it's not very choppy, It's quite still, Quite peaceful looking big dark lake. It seems to go on for as far as your eyes can see and there's trees and forests on either side. It feels big and vast and endless just like your mind. Metaphorically, This lake is like your mind and the more you think, The more choppy the waters become on the surface and the more you just observe and don't attach, The calmer, The more peaceful the waters of your mind become. You're in charge of this lake as the tiny Buddha part of you looks out onto the lake. The only way to keep the lake calm is to keep your thoughts calm and unattached but if you start to think too much in your meditation, If you start to subconsciously follow a thought and get attracted to the thought and then multiply the thought, You multiply the ripples in the lake in front of you. So the lake is like a mirror of your mind that you can watch in your meditation practice. This particular visual is a very good visual if you would like to start to do a daily meditation practice where you just sit for maybe five or ten minutes and you watch the waters of your mind there in front of you and you keep the lake calm. You have a visual that helps you. So if the waters get choppy, You come back to your breath, You breathe slowly, You relax the body, You focus on the breath, You focus on the visual there in front of your mind of the lake and you bring it back to a place of calm. Using your breath as the anchor, Always come back to your breath if you get lost in thought. So if we sit for a couple of minutes and just watch the activity of our mind from that perspective, Let's see if you can lay and bring the waters back to calm if they start to get too choppy. Your waters may become choppy quite frequently and that's very normal, You're not failing in any way, This is just the activity of your mind that you're observing, You're becoming more of a closer friend, Getting to know yourself in this way. The objective is not to scold yourself or feel disappointed if your waters become choppy, That is not the point. The point is to just lay as if this is a game of attention and you bring your attention back. It's about exercising the mind, Exercising your control of your mind, That's all. Sometimes just being still and quiet in your meditation can automatically make the mind respond and get a little bit chaotic because we're so uncomfortable most of us with silence, With stillness. We have so many things that occupy the mind constantly that when the mind is not occupied with all of the distractions it gets a little bit spooked. So you might be dealing with your mind feeling a little bit spooked, Not knowing which way to turn, So it would rapidly start to think about all different things. Just bear witness, Pull yourself back to your breath when needed, Feel the sensation of your inhale and your exhale, But enough focus on your breath that it breaks the loop of thoughts in your mind. So now all that you're thinking about is just the breath, Bring it back to that steady place if needed. And now what I'd like you to do is something that we don't normally do in meditation obviously, But there is many, Many hundreds of types of meditations so maybe they do. What I'd like you to do is unusual but just open your eyes in your space and let yourself start to register what the brain does. Feel it as it looks around your space and takes in and observes all the different things that now start to happen in your mind and your brain. Feel if your body is responding in any particular way, Maybe I felt the subtlest drop like I was back in my day, Which means I've got to do all the things I have to do, Back in my reality, And I felt the subtlest wave of heaviness come into my body just by opening my eyes and coming back into my space. Notice what you felt, Did you feel anything or was your mind just consumed by all the visuals? And now even more coming back into a different kind of focus, Focus on ending your meditation practice. Focus on maybe just whittling your toes for me, Whittling your fingers as a closing, A feeling of closing to that meditation state. Feel your body come back into your body completely, Feeling hopefully a little bit more aware of how wonderful your body is, How expansive your mind is. Just feeling a little bit more aware of who you are, Hopefully. And I'll close it right there. Namaste, My friends.

Reviews

Cory is a remarkably gifted guide to the internal world where mind, body and spirit come together. She has many ways (including this track) of helping one to “become the observer”.