Finding Peace & Stillness When You're In Busy Surroundings

Helping you find peace, presence, and stillness when you're out in the world, particularly in busy or overwhelming environments. This track was recorded while I, too, was out and about so, while I have tried to minimise background noise, some may remain. In this track, there is no mention of particular body parts or postures. Your attention is invited to settle on the breath, but alternatives are also offered.

Transcript

Hi everyone and welcome to this guided meditation that is created to be used when you're out and about. We can often think that to meditate well we need to be completely undisturbed in a space on our own but often life doesn't work like that and I fully believe that you can meditate anywhere so this track is designed for you to listen to and practice when you're not in that quiet undisturbed space but out in the world. So to start we're going to take some time to really ground ourselves where we are right now and we're going to start with drawing our attention to our bodies and how they're positioned in this moment. So first of all drawing your attention to the places where your body is meeting a surface whether that's the floor or a chair wherever you find yourself in the world drawing your attention to those places where your body is meeting the surface and you may notice that you feel that it's difficult or challenging or less than ideal a less than ideal environment to draw your attention to those places but just seeing if you can notice those thoughts and those emotions coming up we can honor them because they're valid thoughts and we're not going to just brush them aside seeing if instead we can notice them even perhaps thank them for showing up before gently seeing how it would feel to gently draw your attention to those places in your body where it's meeting a surface if you feel there are lots of distractions around you perhaps focusing on just one place where your body is meeting the surface keeping things as simple as possible while things perhaps feel distracting outside of you you then seeing if we can bring the breath into our grounding practice taking an inhale and an exhale and with the next inhalation seeing if we can stretch it just that little bit making the inhale slightly longer and then seeing if you can stretch the exhale making that a little longer seeing if you can really follow the journey of the breath into and through your body you perhaps seeing if we can send the breath to that place in our body that meets the surface you you and see what feels easiest for you right now to focus on whether that's following the journey of your breath through the body visualising sending the breath to that part of your body that meets the surface or noticing your body on that surface and see if you can let your attention settle there let your attention settle there just for a few moments you you and now from this place of stillness drawing your attention to your surroundings in whatever way you're experiencing that you whether that's the sounds you can hear the smells so perhaps the things you can see and seeing if we can gently bring these in to our awareness these environments out into the world can sometimes feel overwhelming and so drawing our attention to too many of these stimuli whilst we're meditating you may not feel the most comfortable thing to do right now perhaps choosing one of your senses the one that you find most enjoyable or easy to let your awareness settle on and seeing being curious about how that sense is experiencing the world around you so you may notice thoughts coming up for you about the environment opinions on them or ways that you wish that they were different and that's okay those thoughts are welcome just seeing if we can notice the thought and acknowledge that that is all it is all it is just a thought seeing if we can we can simply notice without getting caught up in a line of thinking or an emotion about what's going on around you just noticing and seeing what's going on you you you you you you you anytime you notice yourself feeling overwhelmed with perhaps the amount of what you're noticing or what you're noticing itself bringing your awareness back to yourself whether that's the way your body feels on the surface or your breath as it travels through your body and this tool of bringing your awareness back to yourself is always available to you that is always there so wherever you are whether you are out in the world or in a quiet space on your own the option to draw your awareness to yourself something absolute something that you know to be true is always available to you so whenever you're feeling perhaps overstimulated or overwhelmed by the environment you are always there you can always bring your awareness back to yourself and if you can ending your meditation by bringing your awareness back to yourself perhaps the places or place where your body meets the surface really letting your awareness drop down into that place or seeing if you can really feel your breath as it moves through your body so and when you feel ready gently moving into your day