Hello,
Lovelies,
And welcome to Wise Puppy Meditations.
This meditation is for those of us who are just getting into meditation or those of us who are looking to practice some beginner's mind and get back to the basics.
If you are just starting to explore mindfulness and meditation,
Maybe it's because you read that mindfulness can reduce stress and feelings of anxiety or FOMO or improve focus,
Our self-awareness and emotional self-regulation.
Or maybe it's to improve your mind-body-spirit connection,
Quality of sleep,
Pain management.
Or maybe it's to boost a sense of creativity,
Social connection,
And general happiness and well-being.
Each of these benefits and many more have been studied extensively and are beautiful intentions for starting and continuing a mindfulness practice.
This is what brings us to our mat.
And yet,
You will hear many teachers say that the goal of meditation is to have no goal at all.
You see,
Each of these distinct benefits are a result of cultivating an embodied sense of nonjudgmental,
Open curiosity that is grounded in the present moment,
Right here,
Right now,
And motivated by a deep sense of compassion,
A desire to alleviate suffering that starts inward and radiates outward to all beings.
We can take a moment to just ponder these qualities,
Open,
Curious,
Compassionate,
Nonjudgmental,
Right here,
Right now.
When you think about it,
These qualities are actually quite radical.
So many of us have been taught to base our worth in what we do,
In what we accomplish.
Many of us are in a perpetual state of doingness and we rarely slow down and let all of our thoughts and all of our feelings catch up to us.
We have been conditioned to react instead of respond.
To view ourselves and others through the lens of judgment.
To focus more on our differences than our shared humanity.
Many of us have been taught that in order to deserve love,
From whom I don't know,
We have to be something,
Live in a particular way,
Hold a particular set of beliefs,
Dress a certain way,
Hold ourselves a certain way.
Now,
My intention is not to say that there's anything wrong with what you're doing,
How you're doing it,
Or why you're doing it.
That is something that only you can find clarity about.
My intention is to hold a loving space for you to find a sense of balance,
To find opportunities to enjoy peace and just be,
To teach you practices that will allow you to find that inner clarity and openness so that you can choose the life you want to live rather than simply finding yourself in it as a result of reactivity to what you think you have to be and,
Of course,
Experience all the benefits we discussed before revolving around health and general well-being.
So how do we do it?
There are many methods from many traditions.
The simplest,
Most accessible,
And arguably the most immediately effective is working with the breath.
I love working with the breath because it's always with us,
It's quiet,
And it supports that mind-body connection,
Allowing us to find a sense of alignment.
The breath can be used involuntarily,
Where we simply watch and observe it as it is,
Or voluntarily,
Where we can actually change the quality of our breath to alter our nervous system,
Either activating or deactivating it.
Today,
We are going to be keeping things really simple,
Using the breath as our focal point,
And practicing those qualities of open,
Nonjudgmental,
Compassionate curiosity.
During the course of this practice,
Likely within the first three seconds,
Maybe even half a second,
If you're like me,
Your mind will start to get distracted.
This is totally normal and to be expected,
And this is actually our golden opportunity.
It's where we practice.
In these moments,
What we do is simply notice that we're no longer focused on our breath and we bring it back.
Maybe I'm noticing my breath and I'm experiencing the rise and fall of my shoulders or my belly,
And all of a sudden,
I start thinking about what I'm going to have for dinner tonight.
In that moment,
I've lost focus,
Totally normal,
I've conditioned my mind to do things like plan what I'm going to have for dinner,
And I go,
Maybe I'll label it as planning,
Just to make it a very objective thing,
And then I just bring it back to my breath,
Maybe reminding myself of my intention so that I continue to stay motivated in my practice.
In these moments,
We might also experience a sense of judgment toward ourself for getting distracted.
Like I said earlier,
We've been really conditioned to see things through the lens of judgment.
I might say to myself,
Like,
Oh,
I'm so bad at this.
What we notice is that this is just more thoughts and feelings,
And the practice is to observe those two,
See if we can cultivate a sense of compassion for ourselves,
A sense of forgiveness,
And simply,
Again,
Bring it back to the breath,
Knowing that this is a practice and it's not about being quote unquote good or bad,
It's about setting the intention and engaging.
So we can start by finding a comfortable,
Balanced position.
You can lie down or you can sit up.
There's really no need to put a whole lot of pressure on your posture when you're just starting out.
The priority is to focus on a sense of comfort and balance in the body.
So if you're laying down,
I'll encourage you to find a sense of symmetry in both parts of your body.
I always like to have my palms up just to really embody that sense of openness.
And if you're sitting up,
Then consider sitting at the edge of a chair so that you can really practice that upright position.
I like to use the word dignity,
So embodying a sense of dignity when we're sitting for meditation.
But totally up to you,
Meet yourself where you're at,
And ultimately,
However you are in this moment is okay.
You can really practice meditation in absolutely any posture or position.
These are simply recommendations.
Once you've gotten comfortable,
We'll then bring our attention to the breath.
I like to start by taking three deep breaths.
So we can start by sealing the lips,
Taking a deep inhale through the nose,
And exhaling through the nose.
Two more deep inhale through the nose,
Exhaling through the nose.
One more,
Just activating our breath,
And exhale.
Now we can drop that practice and just allow ourselves to breathe normally.
We don't need to change anything about the breath.
The breath doesn't need to happen in any particular way.
We don't need to project a judgment of what we think the breath should be like in this moment.
We're just allowing and experiencing the breath,
Sitting behind the breath as it does what it does.
All day long,
Our body breathes for us,
And we don't give it a second thought.
Right now,
We're just noticing what the body does when it's breathing.
That's all you have to do.
If you feel any nervousness or anxiety about the fact that you should be doing more in this moment,
Again,
That's totally normal.
It goes back to our conditioned sense of prioritizing our worth based on what we do,
This feeling that we need to be accomplishing something.
When right now,
We're just focusing on our sense of being,
We can practice some curiosity about where in the body you feel yourself breathing.
Maybe you notice that as you inhale,
There is a slight rising of the chest and shoulders,
An expanding of the belly,
And as you exhale,
There's a slight falling.
I find it helpful to label this as I breathe.
That way,
As your mind starts going a million different directions,
As it surely will,
We can bring ourselves back to the breath as well as our labeling of the breath can be more of an active observation,
Just rising and falling.
As the mind starts to maybe ruminate on something that happened yesterday or plan for something we're doing later today or question what we're doing right now,
We can remind ourselves,
All I am responsible for doing right now is breathing,
Is sitting back and watching my breath,
Trusting that the accumulation of this practice is what leads to all of those benefits that we discussed before.
It really can be this simple,
Just rising and falling.
Everything doesn't have to be so complicated.
Believe me,
I love to overcomplicate things.
I feel you if that's where you're at.
Maybe just surrender to this moment,
Surrender our thoughts,
Surrender any feelings that come up and bring it back.
So now I am going to be quiet for a few moments,
Allowing you to practice,
Allowing you to tune into yourself and tune out me and I will be practicing right along with you.
I'm here on my mat and I'll be focused on my own breath and just know that we're in this together,
Just watching the breath do what it does in this moment,
Being open and curious and allowing our judgments to fade away.
We can drop the practice,
Bringing our attention to the rest of our body,
Maybe bringing some movement into our fingers and our toes,
Rolling out our neck and our shoulders,
Just continuing to be really gentle with ourselves.
I like to seal my practice by doing something called dedicating the merit.
It involves just taking a moment to appreciate ourselves for taking the time to invest in our quality of being,
Reminding ourselves of all of the incredible benefits that doing so has for our mental health,
Our physical health and so on,
Our impact on the people around us,
So our social health.
It's very simple.
I'll invite you to bring your hands to your heart.
I'm doing it right along with you and we can simply say,
May I be well so that I may do good for myself,
For those around me and for the planet at large.
Thank you so much for joining me today and I look forward to continuing to meditate with all of you.
And in our next meditation,
We will be working with the metaphor of training the puppy of our mind,
So stay tuned for that.
This has been Wise Puppy Meditations.
I'll be with you again soon.
Peace and blessings,
Everyone.
