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Today we're going to do an internal awareness meditation.
First start by just checking in with your posture.
If you're sitting in a chair,
Just notice your feet on the floor,
Your bum in the seat,
Feeling grounded and supported.
Checking with your spine,
Make sure it feels straight but not forced.
And the same with your neck.
Should be straight but not straining.
Perhaps you can even picture a string pulling you up from the crown of the head,
Holding you up without putting any strain on your spine or neck.
Next just check in with your hands.
You can be resting on your knees or perhaps you have one hand inside the other with your thumbs touching.
Your eyes may be closed for this meditation or if you prefer you can have them at a 45 degree angle,
Looking slightly below the horizon with your gaze blurred.
Not looking at anything in particular.
Finally just check in with your mouth and your jaw.
Make sure your jaw is relaxed,
Your tongue is relaxed,
Sitting at the floor of your mouth,
Perhaps just touching the back of your teeth.
Now just take a moment first to connect with your breath.
Notice the coolness of the air as it passes your nostrils or your mouth as you inhale and the warmth of the breath as you exhale.
Perhaps just take a moment to notice where the breath is stopping today.
Maybe today it's getting all the way down into your belly.
Maybe it's stopping at your chest or in your throat.
Wherever it's at,
Don't force the breath.
Just notice where it stops.
This meditation will be focusing our attention on our internal environment.
The things that are happening within our bodies,
Within ourselves.
There's four labels we'll be giving things that we notice today.
I just want you to notice things that are happening in your internal environment and just label them before taking another inhale and noticing what you notice then and again giving it a label.
Another inhale,
Notice what you notice,
Where your attention goes,
And just give it a label.
There are four labels that we give to what we notice in the internal environment.
The first is feel.
Feel is anything that we notice within our bodies,
Physical sensations that are directly related to an emotion.
If you have a shoulder pain or a twitch,
That's not really what we're focusing on with this meditation.
Instead,
Perhaps you have some butterflies in your stomach.
Perhaps you're feeling excited today and you feel a bit of tingling in your chest.
Or perhaps you're feeling anxious and you're feeling tightness in your breastbone.
Perhaps you're feeling nervous and you're feeling tension in your legs,
They want to move.
Whatever it is,
Just notice those physical sensations that are connected to your emotions and label them feel.
The next label is talk.
Talk has to do with any of the internal verbal dialogue that goes on in your mind.
Perhaps it's critical,
This is hard.
How long is this going to last?
I don't know how to do this.
I don't understand what's going on.
Perhaps it's planning,
I have to do this today.
When I get to work I'm going to do this or that.
Or perhaps it's just banter of reliving conversations.
That verbal dialogue is called talk.
The next label is image.
Image or any of the images you may notice in your mind's eye.
Picture an event or an item.
It's those kind of visual thoughts that we have.
Finally,
You may have moments where when you try to check in and see where your attention is noticing anything in your internal environment,
You notice nothing.
There's just nothing that your attention is sitting on in the moment.
That is called all rest.
Again,
The labels that you'll use for this exercise are feel,
Talk,
Image,
Or all rest.
Now just reconnect again with your breath.
On your next inhale just check in and see where your attention goes in your internal environment.
You will do this silently to yourself but it may sound a little like this.
Feel.
Feel.
Talk.
Feel.
All rest.
Image.
Feel.
On your next inhale just continue silently to yourself every inhale just noticing what your attention notices internally giving it a label.
If you notice that your mind has wandered it's perfectly natural.
On your next inhale just come back to just noticing and labeling anything that's happening in your internal environment.
Again,
If your mind has wandered it's perfectly natural.
On your next inhale come back to noticing and labeling your internal environment.
Without judgment,
Without self criticism,
Just come back.
If you notice your attention has drifted again on your next inhale just come back to the exercise noticing and labeling your internal environment.
If you notice your attention has drifted it's perfectly natural.
Like a puppy our minds just need to be trained to just keep coming back and paying attention.
Just keep bringing it back on your next inhale just notice and label your internal environment.
At this time if you'd like to continue with the meditation feel free to just pause or stop the video and continue as long as you like.
If you're ready to finish the meditation just come to the question if you'd like to finish the meditation finish by considering the question what do I now know?
What have I learned from this experience?
You can continue to contemplate the answer as you hear the three bells.
At the end of the third bell you can open your eyes and come back to the room.
The End.
