Mindfulness Practice

This is a lovely mindfulness exercise that is designed to be a time just for yourself so you can be open with a sense of interest during this practice. You may use this track to increase self-awareness and presence in the current moment.

Transcript

Welcome to this guided mindfulness meditation.

Start by sitting comfortably and relaxed,

As upright as possible,

In a posture that expresses dignity and interest in the practice you are about to do.

Being aware of the contact points,

The contact of your feet and maybe legs to the floor,

The contact of the buttocks with the chair or cushion or bench,

And the contact of your hands touching each other or touching your legs.

Then being aware of the whole of your body sitting here,

The back in its natural curve,

Maybe tracing the spine from the tailbone up to the neck,

Tucking the chin in slightly so that the neck is long,

Paying attention to the face,

Then being aware of just sitting here,

Maybe slowly rearranging your posture a little.

Now,

As you are sitting here,

Aware of your body,

You are becoming aware of the breathing.

How do you experience your breath right now?

Not judging your breath,

Not manipulating it,

But simply observing it,

Being interested in it as it is right now.

Now,

Gently withdrawing the focus from the breathing and paying attention to sensations in the body.

The body is filled with countless sensations which you might be aware of and feel at times.

Sensations like coolness or heat or warmth,

Maybe sensations like tingling,

Vibrations,

Pulsations,

Stinging,

Pounding,

Throbbing.

At times you might feel lightness or heaviness or pressure,

All boiling down to either being pleasant or unpleasant or neutral.

Being aware of whatever sensations you experience moment by moment.

Maybe making a gentle one-word note in the back of the mind of the quality of the sensation you feel and observe,

Like warmth or cold or pressure or whatever it might be.

Now,

As you are sitting here,

Aware of your body,

You are becoming aware of the breathing.

With the small movements around you as๓ each movement also requires you to develop your confidence,

You swim with the uncertain rhythm,

You fight,

And終 soon feel your volume deepening,

Thank you.

Being aware if a sensation is pleasant.

If so,

You might make a mental note of pleasant.

Bringing awareness to it.

If a sensation is unpleasant or even painful,

You might make a mental note of unpleasant.

Highlighting the experience with a gentle label.

Being aware when the quality of sensations change or when a sensation disappears and another one appears somewhere else in the body.

Gently and kindly staying with the sensation for as long as it is in the foreground of your experience.

Observing and feeling the ever-changing sensations within your body.

Raise awareness.

Point an eye at your feeling.

Also,

Being aware of the reaction in the mind when you're confronted with an unpleasant sensation.

There might be an immediate sense of aversion,

Of not liking the discomfort or pain.

Being aware of aversion and maybe also making a mental note of aversion or not liking.

And see if you can stay a little longer with the discomfort or pain.

Maybe becoming aware of any change in the quality of the discomfort.

Now,

Gently withdrawing from sensations in the body and opening your attention to sound,

To the fact that you are hearing.

Being aware of sounds from within your body maybe or sounds from within the room or sounds from the outside.

Being aware that hearing is happening.

Hearing sounds as they arise and pass.

Also being aware of the reaction in the mind.

Liking a sound or not liking a sound.

And simply staying with it as it is.

And see if you can stay a little longer with the discomfort or pain.

If it is very still,

Being aware of the sound of silence.

Notice you don't have to change or manipulate the sound to hear it.

You just open your awareness to it.

And hearing is happening all by itself.

Whatever sound is there arises in your awareness.

You are present for it just as it is.

And at some point it changes or it disappears again.

Being aware of the ever-changing experience of sounds.

And being aware of it all that happens.

Now,

Withdrawing from sounds and starting to pay attention to thoughts and mind states.

A continuous stream of thoughts and images is moving through the mind.

Rather than trying to get rid of thoughts,

We pay attention to them and we learn to see their ephemeral fleeting nature.

We're not trying to change or get rid of any thoughts or images or mind states like planning or remembering or worrying.

But we're simply observing thoughts as they come and go.

Just like sounds appearing and disappearing,

So too thoughts and images appear,

Move through the mind and disappear again.

It can be helpful to highlight what you're observing with a gentle label in the back of your mind.

For example,

Saying worrying if worrying is happening or planning when you find yourself planning your life or remembering when you're thinking about the past.

Whatever appears in the mind,

Observing it without getting lost in the stream of thoughts,

But staying present and aware of the ever-changing experience of the mind.

It is a habit of the mind to get easily distracted by memories and thoughts of all kind.

Just as a child might gently open the hand to let go of a string attached to a helium balloon,

So we can also let go of thoughts,

Stories,

Memories,

And fantasies.

You Whenever you notice you got lost in thoughts,

In that very moment you are back to being present,

Waking up once again to being aware of the stream of consciousness rather than being lost in it.

You now for the last part of this sitting meditation you're practicing choiceless awareness gently focusing on the anchor of your breathing and then just sit being aware of what presents itself moment to moment without getting lost in the content of thoughts or images without judging what is happening but simply observing the ever-changing process of body and mind sensations in the body arising and passing sounds coming and going thoughts and images appearing and disappearing maybe emotions are a part of the experience being aware of what is most predominant at any given moment allowing it all to come and go in its own way over and over anchoring your attention in your breathing when you got lost in thoughts you you you you as this meditation comes to an end maybe you like to take a moment to appreciate yourself for having taken this time to let the world go by without you being actively involved but doing this precious practice of being quiet and observing the ever-changing process of body and mind grounding yourself in the present moment to meet your life with more understanding calmness and equanimity now opening your eyes to your world and taking some of this quality of attention and presence to your next activity you

Reviews

Wonderful guided mindfulness meditation! Excellent balance of guidance and quiet as we practice.

Nice general mindfulness practice moving through areas of awareness (body, sounds, thoughts, etc.)

Enjoyed the meditation. Gentle voice and good amount of time.

Excellent! Beautiful voice and just the right amount of silence to allow you to practice. Thank you!

Perfect guidance with long stretches of silence for practicing. Exactly what I was looking for today. Thank you.

This was a wonderful mindfulness meditation. Thankyou. 🙏

The perfect all-in-one meditation if there ever was one

This is beautiful

Wunderschöne Meditation, danke dafür

A really superb guided meditation, clear instructions and lots of space to practice so lots of trust 🙏🙏

That was brilliant. Thank you for these techniques to incorporate into practice

Nice & quiet and gentle guidance.... offering plenty of space and time to truly be observant of whatever is presenting itself...

Excellent meditation. Guidance is good and brief, with lots of silence in between sections.