Invite the Stillness Meditation

This is a short meditation to help you step away from the busy and invite the stillness and calm into your day. Kate Zourkas will guide you through a meditation practice to connect to your breath and calm your mind and body. This meditation is great for beginners or advanced meditators.

Transcript

Welcome and today's meditation is going to be honoring our mind and inviting the stillness into our mind.

If you are like me,

There is a lot of chatter,

A lot of chaos,

Multiple tabs opened all the time in our mind.

We are jumping from one thing to another.

So there is a meditation I want to take you through today which is a great meditation for beginners and a great meditation to help you step away from that participant of your mind because we often get caught up and get absorbed and participate in our mind and without ego we participate with it rather than observing.

So today we are going to sit back and I am going to invite you to observe your mind and observe and notice what is going on in your mind and invite that stillness and that quiet into our mind and see if we can find that quiet place in our mind.

So for meditation you don't have to completely quiet or still your mind and a lot of the time for most of us that is impossible to do.

So we look at meditation and go I can't do it because I can't quiet my mind to that extent and it doesn't matter if you cannot quiet your mind.

It's the first thing I want to say with meditation and there are so many techniques that you can use to help you observe your mind or to help you at least calm your mind or balance your mind or help you get out of your mind and into your body.

So there are so many techniques and different types of meditations that you can do.

So today I am going to take you through an awareness meditation.

So this awareness meditation means we do sit with our thoughts,

We do sit with our mind and that is a meditation as well.

So we are going to be moving away from that participant mode in our minds and moving towards that observer mode.

I often say observe don't absorb.

So one of the techniques to mindfulness is learning to observe more,

Learning to notice more rather than to participate to judge as well.

So a lot of what we do when we go into our own minds is we judge ourselves constantly and that inner critic can really run away and get carried away in our minds.

So today we are going to know all of that exists and we are going to honour our mind with an awareness meditation.

So again get into a comfortable position.

You can be seated or lying down.

Lengthening up through your spine.

So the main thing if you are lying down or if you are seated is just to have a straight spine.

Relaxing those shoulders,

Lengthening up through the crown of your head,

Relaxing your arms.

Just feeling your body relax and just feeling yourself as you just connect with the ground below you.

Settling into your space here,

Gently closing your eyes or down casting your eyes,

Whatever you feel comfortable with.

Starting to focus on your breath,

On your inhale and your exhale.

I want you to gently take your attention just to the room that you are in.

And just with your eyes closed or down cast,

I just want you to just observe some of the sounds around you.

Just being aware of the room that you are in.

Just noticing if there's any other sounds that you can hear and taking your attention from one sound to another.

Just being aware of the sounds around you.

And then just starting to notice the temperature on your skin.

Is it cool?

Can you feel a little cool breeze?

Is there a draft coming through?

Can you feel the warmth of the sun?

Just noticing and observing how it feels on your skin.

And then gently starting to take this awareness inward into your internal body.

Just starting to observe how your body is physically feeling today.

Just gently scanning through from the top of your head down to the tips of your toes.

Just scanning through your body.

Just observing and noticing how your body is feeling today.

Is there any tightness,

Any tension anywhere in your body?

Gently taking your awareness to those areas that might be tight or tense.

And just taking your breath and breathing into those areas.

And then exhaling out.

Just noticing how your body is feeling today.

Scanning through your body.

From your head to your shoulders and to your chest.

To your stomach and your hips.

Your legs.

Your feet.

And to your arms.

Just scanning through,

Noticing how your physical body is feeling.

Checking in with that physical body.

Just being aware of our physical body.

And observing this amazing physical body that we have that is the home of our mind and our souls.

And now gently taking your awareness to your mind.

I want you to take your awareness inward to your mind.

And just observing what is going on in that beautiful mind of yours.

Just observing the chatter that is still going on in your mind.

Observing the thoughts that are popping up.

The different conversations that you are having with yourself.

And while that chatter is still going to be going on and that's okay and we are completely okay with that chatter and that noise that is in our minds.

I want you to step away from being that participant and engage,

You know,

The ones we're constantly engaging with our mind.

I want you to move away from being that participant.

And I want you to just observe.

And when I say observe,

I want you to observe without any expectations,

Any interaction or engagement with your mind,

And any judgement.

So we're stepping away from that inner critic that is always commenting on our thoughts in our mind and we're just observing.

And we're just curious about what is popping up in our mind,

Increasing that awareness.

And there might be things that might be popping up now that you're like,

Wow,

I can't believe I am still thinking about that.

Or you might be thinking about what happened this morning,

What you need to get done for the rest of the day.

And right now,

That's okay,

But just don't engage with it.

Just let it pop up.

Go,

Thank you,

I'll get back to that later.

And just focus on the present moment,

Inviting your mind into the awareness of the present moment,

Into this observation mode,

Where we are just observing without any judgement or any criticism.

Inhaling here,

And then just exhaling.

And just giving yourself this time just to focus on yourself.

And a lot of our stress and anxiety comes from worrying or replaying what has already happened in the past and we constantly replay events and conversations and scenarios in our minds and things that have happened in the past that we cannot change and we worry and we dwell on these.

Or we focus on the future,

Which we have no control over.

And we think we have control over it.

And we worry and we get anxious and we get concerned about things that may happen in the future.

And a lot of the time we worry about the worst case scenario that might happen in the future.

And both of these,

Worrying about the past or dwelling on the past,

Worrying about the future,

Take us away from the present moment.

So right now,

I want you to come back to this moment if you can feel your mind now starting to go back and replay events from the past.

Just invite it back to the present.

If you can see yourself moving into the future with your mind,

Just gently coax it back into the present moment.

Staying here within yourself for these few moments in your state of awareness.

Going within yourself,

Creating that awareness.

Focusing on the present moment,

The here and now.

And one way for us to invite more stillness into our mind is to know that all this chatter is still going on.

And our mind is like a house.

And there is a lot of chatter that is going on inside our house,

Inside our home,

In our minds.

And I want you to gently see if you can find a quiet room inside your mind.

See if you can see a door.

Open a door and just walk in,

Closing that door behind you.

And it is a quiet room.

There might be a chair or a lounge or something.

Something inviting in that room that you want to go and just sit on.

And it is quiet.

You might see your favourite picture on the wall,

Favourite artwork.

And just stay in this quiet space,

This quiet room in your mind that always exists while all the noise is going on.

Taking yourself into that quiet room and giving yourself permission to stay in this quiet room by yourself.

Just going within and energising yourself from within.

And this quiet room is always there no matter how much noise is going on in your external environment.

Taking yourself,

Sitting in this place,

Looking at your favourite artwork.

It could be a pot plant.

It could be your favourite blanket.

Favourite photo.

Favourite family photo.

Favourite books.

All of this can exist in this room in your mind.

Anything that nourishes you is in this room.

And you know that you can go into this room and connect with yourself whenever you need it.

Taking a big breath in here.

Exhaling out.

And you can stay for as long as you like at the moment in this room.

I'm going to start with a little bit of a meditation.

And then I'm going to start to close out this meditation.

So if you wish you can stay in this room or if you need to get on with the rest of your day you can gently walk out of that room knowing you can go back whenever you need to.

It is there with you all the time.

Taking one big breath in.

One big exhale out.

You can gently start to bring that awareness back into your physical body.

Into the room you are in.

Bringing this level of awareness and stillness with you throughout the rest of your day.

And you can gently open your eyes when you are ready.

Getting on with the rest of your day.

Bringing this stillness with you.

Namaste.