Working With Restlessness

A guided meditation with discussion of working with restlessness.

Transcript

Welcome everyone to our Thursday mindful awareness meditation.

I'm Diana Winston.

I'm the director of mindfulness education at UCLA's mindful awareness research center.

We've been meeting here now for I don't know something like three years plus to meditate together and have this refuge in the midst of our busy lives and busy days.

Mindfulness is the art of paying attention to our present moment experiences with openness and curiosity and a willingness to be with what is.

And that's the definition I like to use and I probably say it every single week.

But it's about showing up and being present for life instead of checked out of life instead of lost in our thoughts,

Lost in the past and lost in the future,

Which is where stress tends to lie and instead really showing up for this life right here,

Right now.

Last week when we met I talked about obstacles that arise in meditation,

Which also arise in our lives.

But how do we apply,

How do we work with these obstacles that come up that seem to make our meditation difficult?

So for instance,

We focused last week on sleepiness,

How do we deal with sleepiness when it comes into our meditation?

We have great intentions to have very peaceful meditation,

But the next thing we know we fall asleep.

So we talked about that last week and we learned some standing meditation,

Which I still encourage you to do if you feel drawn to it.

The wisdom behind the idea of obstacles is the idea that obstacles aren't really obstacles.

Obstacles are part of our path.

So when we look at life as though,

Oh no,

This is conspiring against me to prevent me from doing something.

In that way we can feel really bad about life,

We can live in resistance to life.

Or if we take approach of,

Wow,

This is something that actually is my path,

This difficult thing that I'm perceiving as difficult is my path and I can use it and work with it with a completely different attitude.

So instead of being in resistance to life,

To fighting it,

To thinking,

Oh it shouldn't be this way,

It's supposed to be such and such a way,

We open to it.

We bring the quality of mindfulness,

Of curiosity and interest and self-awareness to whatever experience we meet.

And in that way the thing that appears to be the difficult part of our path is actually just what's happening right now and we open to it with curiosity and interest.

So just to give an example,

When my daughter was young,

Was a baby,

And she would wake me up in the middle of the night because she was hungry and sometimes I would wake up and I would just be so mad because she's ruining my sleep and I'm never gonna sleep through the night again ever,

Which is not true,

I do now.

But I would just,

I would have resistance and frustration and irritation and then I would kind of grudgingly nurse her and put her back to sleep.

Well that was some nights.

Other nights she would wake me up,

The exact same situation,

She's hungry and I would wake up with a smile on my face,

I would feel so much,

I don't know,

Just joy and connection and oh here's our special time,

It's the middle of the night,

It's great,

No one else is awake.

Well it was the exact same situation but I had a completely different approach to it and it was dependent on a lot of factors.

But what I'm suggesting is whatever life brings we can meet in different ways.

We can meet with resistance,

Frustration,

Irritation,

Blame or we can meet with openness,

Curiosity,

Welcoming,

With humor,

With joy and it really doesn't matter what that thing is,

It's how we relate to our experience.

Our obstacles become the path.

So restlessness is a great obstacle to work with because just raise your hand if you've ever been restless in your meditation.

Did anyone not raise their hand?

I don't think so.

It's a very very common thing and why are we restless when we meditate?

We're restless because we have a lot on our minds and most of us have been trained for 20,

30,

40,

50,

60 plus years to have a busy mind that is not focused,

That is restless and you can say we live in a restless culture,

We live in an ADD culture.

And so when you start beginning to meditate the invitation is to stay present with what's happening but of course our mind goes off in a hundred different directions.

It's really normal.

With restlessness also there may be other things at play.

I mean it may just be that it's a busy week and so you sit down to meditate and your mind is very restless and maybe you have a lot on your mind or it may be that there's you're juggling a lot of like I know with my job there's a lot going on so I'm juggling and there's a lot I have to keep in my mind.

Sometimes with restlessness there's a quality of there's something we're avoiding and our mind is restless because we don't want to maybe feel a feeling that we're having.

Maybe we're sad about something so our mind keeps popping out and thinking about a hundred different things.

So restlessness and restlessness and meditation manifests as a really racing mind as a feeling of just energy in our bodies,

Energy and maybe discomfort.

So we can work with it in a couple ways.

We'll do this in the meditation which I'll begin in a moment.

We can open our eyes.

We can gently move our bodies a little bit to help calm us down.

We can do a more a broader meditation,

A wider open meditation like a hearing meditation.

We will practice those things in a moment and you can also just be present with restlessness.

What is it like?

What is it in your body?

What's it feel like?

In this way it's not an obstacle.

It is the meditation.

So let's begin by settling back in our chair.

Taking a few breaths with each deep breath allowing us to relax more and more fully if that's possible.

With each breath coming more fully into the moment.

With each breath letting go of anything that's been troubling you today if that's possible.

And we can begin by noticing our bodies present on the chair.

What is happening in this body in this present moment?

There's so many things to be aware of.

Body sensations,

You can become aware of the areas that your body touches the chair or the floor where your hands touch.

What kind of obvious sensations do you notice?

There might be tension,

Discomfort,

Maybe pleasant sensation,

Vibration,

Tingling,

Movement,

Warmth,

Temperature,

Cold.

So gently in your mind's eye,

Which really isn't an eye,

It's a sensing.

What I'm asking you to do is sense.

Sense your body and notice what is happening.

And if you find areas of tension,

See if you can gently soften the area,

Soften around it or breathe into the area a little bit.

Noticing maybe your body makes some shifts,

Some postural changes happen.

And let's begin with some hearing meditation.

Turn your attention to the sounds in the room or outside the room.

As we listen,

We notice that sounds come and go.

Some sounds appear to stay constant.

There's pleasant sounds and unpleasant sounds.

See if you can simply listen and neutral sounds too.

But just listen with curiosity,

With interest,

With openness.

Oftentimes when we listen to sound,

Our mind likes to categorize.

There's an air vent,

There's a person coughing.

That's normal.

If it happens,

Just let it be there.

But focus on the sounds.

What we do want to avoid is a mind that gets lost in stories about what we're listening to.

So we hear a sound and we think,

Wow,

Doesn't that person know that they should go outside to cough,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

I'm just making that up.

You're not supposed to do that.

But that's what our minds do.

They go into stories,

Judgments,

Liking,

Disliking.

See if you can merely listen.

When you go off in the story,

Come back to the sound.

So this meditation of listening is always available to you.

If your mind spaces out,

When you notice it,

Just bring it back to the listening.

Otherwise,

Let's turn our attention to our breathing,

Feeling our breath in our bodies,

Abdomen or chest rising and falling,

Air moving through our nostrils with tingling sensations.

Choose an area to focus on where you feel the breath the clearest,

Your abdomen,

Chest or nostrils.

Let your breath be natural.

No need to change it in any way.

And we'll practice what we do most weeks,

Paying attention to our breathing one breath at a time.

When your mind wanders off,

Which it will likely,

Not necessarily,

But most people it does,

And notice your mind has wandered.

Say a soft word in your mind,

Like wandering or thinking,

Gently return to the breathing.

When other things arise,

You might acknowledge them.

There's an emotion or a sound or body sensation,

But only if they're predominant,

If they're just in the background,

Stay with the breathing.

Last thing I'll say is if restlessness arises,

You can try a few things.

You can try to pay closer attention to your breathing,

Or you can open your mind wide by listening to the sounds.

See if that relaxes you,

Gives you something more to attend to.

You might even open your eyes for a moment just to reorient.

And some people find some gentle stretching with mindfulness can be helpful when we're restless.

So let's try this together in silence.

Don't close your eyes if hearing loss is the noise.

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You might check into your meditation right now to notice if your mind is restless.

Has it been restless for these past ten minutes or so?

Minutes or so.

If restlessness is present,

Let's make it our meditation to sense our bodies and mind and notice what restlessness feels like.

Erasing mind,

Some discomfort,

Energy in the body,

Feeling of I want to get up,

Just a distracted feeling.

So as I mention these,

Check into yourself and what do you notice where there is restlessness if it's here?

If it's not,

Just keep going as you've been going.

Or maybe you're sleepy.

How do you experience sleepiness in your body and mind?

Heaviness,

Bogginess,

Woozy.

So we bring our mindfulness to the so-called obstacle to discover what we can about this present moment.

Not necessarily to get rid of it,

But to understand it and to develop the capacity to be present in the face of whatever life brings.

In that way,

Sleepiness or restlessness,

Are not obstacles.

They're just part of the meditation.

Take another minute or two to take a breath.

We can end by bringing a little bit of kindness to ourself for wherever we are,

For whatever obstacles we're facing in our meditation and out in our lives.

Just offer yourself some kindness,

Some compassion.

Many of us are having very similar experiences.

You're not the only one.

And after the next mindful breath,

You can open your eyes.

I think you've done a great job.

Thank you for your practice today.

You want to continue with the awareness of how these obstacles show up in our lives.

You can do that.

So for instance,

Where do you experience restlessness in the course of a day or sleepiness?

When you see it and feel it,

You can work with it on the spot.

Oh,

Restlessness is here.

What does that feel like in my body and mind?

So we learn not to be at the mercy of these states of mind,

But just be present and mindful.

Then we're less reactive and we show up more for life.

If you're interested in more information about mindfulness classes,

Programs that are center,

There's a poster flyer on the right,

A yellow flyer when you exit.

We have a whole new set of upcoming classes coming up,

But they're not advertised yet.

So it's the old stuff,

But take a look and I'll be in the hallway if you have any questions.

And these meditations are always podcast,

Although a few weeks later from now,

So you can get them off of our website if you're interested.

All right.

Have a great day.

Reviews

Thankyou Dianna. Its long time sinceive been meditatating with you. I used to meditate with you on UCLA alot but I've found you on here now. I really like you . ♥ please stay if you can. If you cannot it doesn't matter. I will just find you on here to meditate with you when I can..

Great techniques for even seasoned mediators on how to approach distractions during meditation. A live recording featuring a +/- five minute talk preceding a +/- 20 minute practice. Great sound quality for a live recording.

Very helpful, even though I’ve been meditating a long time. Thank you.

Thank you, this meditation actually taught me that I have a restless mind, it was helpful to me, to know that I can listen to the sounds in the room and my breathing to be mindful.

You are talking, rather than reading. I like that! 😄🌻🌷

Thank you very much

This is great for me before I sleep. I can be a very restless person when trying to shut my eyes...It’s made me understand how to relax and let go more...It’s a family trait methinks. Thankyou..🙏✨🙌✨😊

Excellent guidance on how to work with my restlessness. This helped me to relax into the present moment and let go of my self judgement. Thank you 🙏🏻

Informative and very helpful for the topic given.

Soothed my mania

I loved the gentleness of this meditation. Namaste.

I love these podcasted meditations 🧘‍♀️ and I’m so happy I can track it on this app now. ❤️

Very relaxing voice, thank you 🙏🏻

Superb guidance and loved the talk on obstacles! Thanks for the guidance and look forward to more such sessions 🙏

This is something I have been trying to work on. Most helpful

Spot on!!! I was waiting for this acknowledgement

Very helpful. Namaste.

Excellent awareness of restlessness.