Letting Go Meditation With Sounds Of Nature

Helen guides this end-of-week meditation to encourage letting go. Throughout the meditation, sounds of nature come and go, just as thoughts and feelings visit during meditation. Each sound is invited as a prompt to let go.

Transcript

And it's also a good idea to get into a supportive posture. The most common posture for meditation is sitting but you can also meditate standing up and walking. I do have a walking meditation I think that might be a premium track or lying down. Now lying down can be a bit tricky because it can be easy to fall asleep. It's about finding the posture that works for you so if you're sitting as I say which is the most common posture it's important that your body is well supported and your back is straight but not too stiff. Legs uncrossed and feet flat on the ground and if you need to put a cushion or something underneath your feet so your your thighs are parallel to the ground so you're not sort of sinking going forwards like that that can be helpful as well. And if there's anything else you need like sometimes it's nice to light a candle some incense or have some flowers or a beautiful view. I've got all my lovely trees to look at but when I look at that window they're building a house so I can see a bright orange digger as well. So when you're take that time to set up and feel into the body and take some deep breaths and we breathe away the week letting go anything that's happened we're still holding on to anything that's not serving us maybe there's a lot on your mind things you've got to do just notice whatever's present for you right now and as you breathe in just feel the support of the earth underneath you and you can feel that through the parts of your body that are in contact with support or with the ground so that might be your legs or your feet sitting bones and just feel those points of contact and let the earth support you and take your weight and sometimes you know when we bring our attention down out of our head and down into the body it can help to calm our minds as well and that's something you can do anytime I'm just feeling the breath going in and out of the body and the chest rising and falling and if there are any areas of tension in the body for example I just noticed that my jaw was tense so I just breathe into that and relax and if you feel at any point that the tension is creeping back into your body just breathe and let it go and you can use the breath as an anchor anytime that your mind wanders off gently come back to the breath feeling the movement in the body and the connection with the ground and in this meditation the invitation is to pay attention or just notice any sounds in your environment another misconception about meditation is that you need somewhere silent but that's unless you're on the top of a mountain but probably even that wouldn't be silent you'd probably have the wind or something and we can look at how our mind responds to the sounds and that's a good indication about how we respond to things that we like or we don't like so there may be sounds that are pleasant that you want more of or you don't want to stop or there may be sounds that you don't like and you wish would go away and there may be sounds that are just continuous in the background maybe like sounds of traffic or or a river or the wind or rain or there may be sounds that come and go like you might have just heard the bird in the background and just like thoughts as they arise just let the sounds come and the sounds go observing without judgment and if you do have any judgment or response notice that too there's no right or wrong it's just a case of noticing and you also might notice that the mind has a tendency to label things now sometimes that can be helpful but sometimes it can be a bit of a distraction because that could lead into making up a story about the sound and if that happens notice that too and if you get lost in the story when you notice that's a moment of awareness and then you can come back to the breath and feeling the movement of the breath in the body just letting the sounds carry on in the background passing in and out of your awareness so one of the sounds that you will be hearing is the sound of my voice so there will be periods when i won't be talking to enable you to connect with your own environment and the sounds around you coming back to the breath if you get distracted and letting the sounds come in and out of your experience sometimes they come from far away get louder and then fade some sounds will just be a continuous noise in the background and others will appear and disappear quickly and suddenly and the idea is that we sit we observe and we don't react but as we're human there may be some reaction so you can observe that because you're not your thoughts you are the consciousness observing the thoughts and the sounds and the reactions all our experiences are neutral until we start adding labels and stories just allowing the sounds to come and go just as the breath flows in and out of the body just letting the sounds come in and out of the body everything in our experience is changing moment by moment and when we learn not to react and to go with the flow then our lives become happier and more peaceful feeling the breath in the body and letting the sounds pass through your awareness without reacting without judging and notice as well if you're if you have any tendencies to want anything that is in your experience to be different to how it is because of aversion or if there's craving and you want more of what's happening just notice without judgment feeling the support of the earth feeling the breath going in and out of the body letting life flow through you breathing away the weak and coming back to the breath as often as you need to and now for the last few minutes just letting go of any effort and just sitting and just being there's nowhere else to go nowhere else to be just sitting here in this moment in this body breathing while the world just carries on you don't need to do anything and allow the benefits of the meditation to ripple through your body your mind and beyond the physical body because we don't just meditate for our own benefit but for the benefit of all beings as we breathe away another week and move into the weekend and so may the merit gained in our acting thus go to the alleviation of the suffering of all beings and now if you want if your eyes are closed you might want to gently open them make some movements just listen to your body and what it needs before you go into your next activity thank you for meditating with me today