Hi,
It's Danielle.
Today we will be meditating on mindfulness of our thoughts.
So take a few moments to settle into feeling the body,
Creating some space by letting your chair support you,
Or perhaps you'd like to sit up straight today.
Maybe you want to lie down,
But just find a comfortable space where you can be alert but still relaxed.
Just settling in,
Starting to tune into your natural breath,
Bringing awareness just to the inhale and the exhale.
And then bringing attention to the body,
Just quickly scanning through,
Noticing how things feel,
Any tightness,
Any relaxation or heat,
Any tingling or numbness.
When you're ready,
Letting go of that breath and body and just tuning into your energy,
Your emotion,
Naming how you showed up on your meditation pillow today,
Perhaps relaxed,
Perhaps frustrated,
Perhaps joyful,
Perhaps sad,
Just acknowledging where you're at.
And then come to your natural breath.
And throughout this practice,
This short few minutes,
When we're not in the midst of breath awareness,
Bring the attention to the steady stream of thoughts that we all have.
And instead of being carried away by the thoughts,
Being carried away into either planning for the future or remembering the past,
Replaying something,
Or perhaps just wandering thoughts and daydreaming.
Instead of getting carried away,
See if you can bring the attention directly to it,
Rest comfortable there,
And just name the thought.
Perhaps the thought might be named as planning or recalling or dreaming.
And when you name them,
Recognize the mental events,
The occurrence,
The section of the mind that is thinking,
Name it,
And then come back to the breath.
You will do this over and over and over again for the next two moments on your own.
The only goal is to notice,
To name,
And to return to the breathing.
And just leaving that last thought and coming back to the breath,
Taking a few seconds just to note if there were any patterns in the thoughts that were occurring,
Perhaps a lot of recalling or a lot of projecting and planning.
Remembering this practice is simply an act of getting to know yourself.
Being mindful of your thoughts and noting what types they are just provides additional insight.
You can sit with your breath for as long as you'd like or you might want to blink the eyes open and go ahead and return to the space that you're in.
Let's take a deep breath together.
Inhale through the nose.
Open the mouth,
Let it go.
Thank you for practicing today.
Namaste.
