Mindfulness Of Pleasant Things

This mindfulness meditation exercise is simple, yet powerful. It'll teach you to shift from the default mode (scanning the world looking for problems to solve and dangers to avoid) to a mode of appreciation of nice things around you. When my teacher taught it to me and I practiced it for the first time, I understood how much time I spent noticing only the unpleasant things in the world. How much beauty I've missed! How many nice things there are if we only dare to look for them!

Transcript

Hi and welcome to this exercise.

You can do it while walking around or while sitting.

It's up to you.

Let's begin by taking a couple of deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.

And let go of any tension in the body,

In the mind.

Come back to the natural rhythm of your breath and form the intention of being present fully for the duration of this exercise.

I invite you to notice pleasant things around you.

It might be sounds,

Things that you see with your open eyes or closed eyes.

Thoughts that might appear either as phrases inside your head or mental pictures,

Memories that appear in the field of view.

And finally also pleasant sensations.

For example,

If you're walking,

What are sensations that are pleasant for you now?

Or if you're sitting,

Is there anything pleasant in the body?

Now I will keep silent for a few moments to allow you to immerse yourself and discover the present moment.

Pay attention to pleasant things and to keep the tempo,

The rhythm of the practice.

Simply note,

Label within yourself with the word pleasant.

Any pleasant thing that you notice.

And keep it up as a tempo,

More or less every three seconds.

You notice a pleasant sound and you repeat,

You label it within yourself.

Pleasant.

And a sensation,

A thought and so on,

Every three seconds.

With a kind voice and you can simply keep noticing the same thing that is pleasant.

There is no need to find a new one each time.

And be silent for now.

.

Remember,

Be gentle with your inner voice but keep the tempo going.

Because there is a tendency of the mind of going somewhere else,

Thinking about problems and things to do.

And that's normal,

That's fine.

The nervous system,

Your brain evolved to scan around for threats and problems to solve,

That's fine.

You kind of have to work a little bit against this tendency here.

Your brain is not used to looking for pleasant things around you.

You can educate it.

.

And if you like this exercise,

You can keep practicing,

Keep noticing pleasant things.

This audio meditation will end soon but you can keep going on.

Either way,

I'd like you to notice how it's possible with such a simple exercise to wake up to the pleasantness of things around you and inside you.

Realize how we quite often forget to appreciate things around us.

We're so caught up in our default mode of solving problems and noticing unpleasant things that we forget to look for what's nice and appreciate it.

So see this exercise as a way to compensate and rebalance your brain and your attitude towards things.

You need to be well balanced and happy and grateful to notice the beautiful and pleasant things around you.

Reviews

Thank you. It was pleasant! A great wat way to start a new day with a smile. Namaste🙏🏻