Mindfulness As Self-care, Part 1: Focus

This is the first episode in a 3-part guided mini retreat series. So, get comfortable, put everything away, and settle in to take some time for yourself. In this episode, you'll gain an understanding of what focus is, why it’s important to strengthen, and why we’re often not so great at it. You'll become aware of the unique distractions that get in your way of focusing on what’s most important, as well as how to overcome them. In this mini-retreat, you'll get the chance to explore three mindfulness practices - tools you can call upon in your day-to-day life when you're struggling with focus.

Transcript

We become what we think.

What we are now is the result of what we were thinking in the past.

For those who do not practice watchfulness of mind,

Suffering will follow them like the cart follows the ox.

We become what we think.

What will be in the future will result from what we are thinking now.

For those who do practice watchfulness of the mind,

Happiness will follow them like their own shadow.

Welcome to Mindfulness as Self-Care,

A three-part podcast series focused on introducing you to the essentials of mindfulness and how mindfulness can be incorporated into your life to feel more focused,

Intentional,

And connected.

For those of you who don't know me,

My name is Anne Lowell and I'm your host.

I'm a meditation teacher featured on a variety of health and wellness apps and also a behavioral health coach where I help people make changes to thoughts and behaviors that are getting in their way.

I decided to create this three-part series because I talked to a lot of people each day who are struggling with not feeling motivated to do things they used to find enjoyable,

Feeling lost in life,

Feeling all over the place,

Or feeling dissatisfied despite their life being objectively good.

I don't know for sure,

But I feel like these issues are getting worse and my hypothesis is that this is because it's easier than ever to distract ourselves from what's truly important and meaningful in life.

You don't have to look very far to see turbulence all around.

Turbulence shows up as anxiety,

Depression,

Social media addiction,

Other types of addiction,

Not being able to focus on something for more than like two minutes,

Lack of boundaries,

Overworking,

And more.

I see it all the time and there's so much happening around us and within us that it's so easy to get caught up in the swirl of life and the swirl of thoughts and so easy to forget.

To forget who we are,

To forget what we care about,

To forget what we want in life,

And to forget the good parts of life that exist when thinking,

Worrying,

Planning,

And working are set aside.

Forgetting is a normal part of the human experience,

But just because it's normal doesn't mean that it's not helpful to remember,

At least every once in a while.

To remember who we are at our very core.

A human being who experiences a lot of feelings and has a lot of thoughts and just wants to be happy just like everyone else.

So the overarching goal of this series is to offer you evidence-based meditation techniques and tried-and-true mindfulness practices that are really good at helping you remember,

Helping you step out of this turbulence of life that most of us know so well.

The skills and practices I'm going to introduce in this series revolve around four main topics that I feel are becoming more and more crucial for us to gain mastery in if we want to live meaningful happy lives.

And those four topics are mindfulness,

Focus,

Values,

And connection.

Each episode focuses on a different one of those topics and will build upon the next.

The first episode's topics,

Mindfulness and focus,

Are going to be the foundation for the other episodes for the other skills that we'll talk about.

Throughout the series,

It's important to keep in mind that although mindfulness has gotten a lot of positive press and has been shown to be really helpful in improving mental health and overall well-being,

It's not a cure-all and certainly not a proper substitute for a skilled psychotherapist.

Through listening to the series,

You'll gain a basic understanding of how mindfulness and meditation can enhance your life.

You'll add more techniques to your wellness toolbox,

Ones you can call upon when there's a lot of turbulence or even when things are good and you just want to enjoy all that goodness instead of habitually just brushing past it.

And most importantly,

I hope that these three episodes will elicit insights about your own mind and your own life and spark your curiosity to learn more and continue practicing mindfulness and meditation.

I also want to emphasize that I think it's a great idea to consider this as a self-care retreat.

This is time for you.

So you'll get the most out of it if you turn off your phone,

Put away any other distractions and set yourself up in your space so you're as comfortable as you possibly can be.

If you're at home,

Maybe get the lighting right,

Grab a comfy blanket,

Whatever you need to feel at ease and settled in.

For each episode,

It'll be really helpful to have a journal or a pad of paper since many of the practices I'll share will be written ones.

So this episode delves into focus,

The foundation for all the other skills that I'm going to talk about in the later two episodes.

And I'd like to begin our exploration with a mindfulness exercise.

So start off by grabbing the journal or pad of paper that you brought and take a few moments to glance down at the paper and whatever utensil you have.

And just notice what your senses are taking in.

Maybe you feel the texture of the paper under your hand,

The feel of the pen or pencil that you're holding,

The sensation of your hips on the chair.

Maybe you hear sounds around you like the air conditioning or random other building noises.

And maybe there are even lingering smells and tastes from the last meal that you had.

So for the next exercise,

I'm going to take a moment to think about the things that you might have done that you might have missed.

For the next 20 seconds or so,

Just become aware of what's happening with as little commentary from your mind as possible.

This is mindfulness.

Now begin by writing,

I am aware of on the piece of paper,

And then write down whatever it is that you become aware of in any given moment.

Keep going and try not to lift the pen off of the paper for too long.

Start every new sentence with I am aware of.

Don't edit.

Don't worry about how your handwriting looks.

Just write.

We're about halfway there.

So see if it's possible to open your mind even more,

Becoming aware of more subtle sensations,

Thoughts,

Emotions.

Write all of them down.

We've got just several more seconds left.

So finish the next thought that you have.

Awesome job.

Now put down your pen and close your eyes.

For the next two minutes,

You have only one instruction.

Here it is.

Try not to be aware.

Whatever you do,

Do not be aware.

Keep your eyes closed and just notice what the effects were of the writing practice and the don't be aware practice.

Now open your eyes and write down a few words or one sentence that sort of sums up the reason why being mindful in life is or could be beneficial in your life.

Why listen to me right now?

Why practice mindfulness?

What do you believe it will do for you?

Another way of putting it is what benefit of mindfulness and or meditation would you like to have and why?

Choose a word that boils down your why for meditation and mindfulness and just one word like connection,

Productivity,

Success,

Happiness,

Etc.

Place your journal to the side when you're done and feel free to pause the recording anytime you want more time to reflect or to discuss if you're in a group.

Being lost in thought is similar to dreaming in some ways.

Just like dreams,

Most thoughts are involuntary,

Meaning we don't choose for them to happen and just let them happen.

Just like dreams,

Most thoughts are involuntary,

Meaning we don't choose for them to happen and just like dreams,

Most thoughts aren't true.

If we thought all of our nighttime dreams were true and that they all really happened,

It would probably be really disorienting and the same goes for our thoughts.

It would be really unhelpful if we listened to every single one of our thoughts,

If we believed each of them to be true.

But unlike dreaming,

Which most of us only do at night,

We tend to be lost in thought for the vast majority of the day.

And also unlike dreams,

Which are good for our health and oftentimes amusing,

At least my dreams are,

Being lost in thought for most of the day is anything but healthy and it's certainly not funny.

Most of us tend to put a lot of immediate trust into our thoughts when in reality they deserve a little bit more scrutiny.

And when I talk about scrutinizing thoughts,

What I'm really talking about here is mindfulness,

The overarching skill this series is focusing on.

With awareness of what our mind is doing,

Paired with not judging what our mind is doing,

Comes a greater ability to discern which thoughts are helpful and which are not,

Which ones we want to keep practicing and which ones we want to put an end to.

Mindfulness is stepping out of the dreamlike stance of thoughts,

And it's noticing the thought or emotion that triggers anxiety,

Depression,

And an unhelpful habit,

For example,

And being able to get curious about that thought,

Emotion,

Or trigger,

Rather than getting thrown into the turbulence right away and doing whatever the thought or emotion wants you to do.

Like yell or eat a carton of ice cream,

Doom scroll,

Whatever.

When we strengthen mindfulness,

Life begins to feel a lot less like a dream,

Less like we're running on autopilot,

And more like something we're in control of.

Mindfulness makes our mind a much healthier and happier place.

So now you might be wondering,

Like,

That sounds great,

Anne,

How do I get this magical thing called mindfulness?

Well,

Mindfulness isn't something you get good at overnight.

It's relatively easy to practice just sitting here,

As you probably noticed during the don't be aware exercise.

But making it the automatic response when you already have lots of conditioned responses that aren't mindfulness is a whole other story.

So to achieve the ability to become more mindful in life,

To be more in control of what you think and how you react to life,

You need to practice consistently.

When things are going well,

When they're going just okay,

And when things aren't going well at all.

Just like learning to ride a bike or learning to play an instrument,

Becoming better at mindfulness requires consistency and focus.

Which brings us to our other topic today.

Focus.

I'll be talking about what focus is,

Why it's important to strengthen,

And why we're often not so great at it.

I'll be guiding you through two more mindfulness practices specific to focus,

And be sharing a reflection and a few resources for you to consider looking into so you can continue your practice.

If you already have a good grasp on these topics,

Try to approach each episode with a beginner's mind so that you can get the most out of it.

So before we delve into focus,

I want to start by defining a few more words.

And we already touched on mindfulness.

The definition I gave was remembering,

But I also want to share the more traditional definition that you probably have heard more.

So this definition is the skill and practice of becoming aware of what's happening in any given moment without adding judgment or attempting to edit your experience.

The more we can become mindful in day to day life,

The less likely we are to cause ourselves and others unnecessary suffering,

Which means we enjoy life way more.

Next,

I want to define self-care.

I've already used this word a few times,

But there's a lot of misconceptions about self-care.

So hopefully this definition will kind of help to tease out what self-care is and what it's not.

So I define self-care as any activity that supports you in meeting your needs,

Supporting your inner harmony and helping you work toward your desired personal growth.

So self-care is going to look different for everybody.

And it's certainly not about pampering yourself or numbing yourself from life's problems.

That's actually the opposite of self-care.

So self-care could be taking class,

Setting a boundary with a loved one,

Quitting your job or taking an hour away from your phone each night.

And actually,

Sometimes self-care is the last thing we feel like doing,

But we do it because we know that it's a way that we can care for ourselves.

It's what's wise in any given moment.

You know it's self-care when you feel like it's in your best interest or if it feels like a wise choice,

Like I was saying before.

And self-care is important because when we adequately take care of ourselves,

We are way more likely to feel good about ourselves and about our life,

Which in turn makes us more likely to be of use to not only ourselves,

But also to the people that are around us and to the world,

Which in turn makes us feel even better.

So it's a really great cycle to be in.

It's a cycle that not only enhances our own well-being,

But the well-being of others that are around us too.

Which brings me to the last most important point about self-care,

Which is self-care is not selfish.

When I'm not taking care of myself,

My work suffers,

Which means I provide less value to others.

And I'm also just kind of meaner to everybody I care about,

Which obviously doesn't make anyone feel good.

So yeah,

Don't let anyone tell you taking time to take care of yourself is selfish or indulgent.

So now let's talk about meditation,

Which is a totally distinct concept from mindfulness,

Although they are related,

Obviously.

So meditation is the practice of turning attention toward one's inner world to learn about the nature of the mind and to strengthen mindfulness and a variety of other skills in day-to-day life.

We practice meditation so that we can be more mindful during our day-to-day lives and cause ourselves and others less suffering.

I like to think of meditation as sort of training for life.

Athletes train so that while they're playing their game,

Their skills are automatic and they don't have to be thinking about the specific things they're doing when they're on the field or facing their real opponent.

The same is true for meditation.

We practice meditation so that the skills of mindfulness,

Focus,

Compassion,

Etc.

Are more natural and automatic during life.

We're less burdened by thoughts,

Less reactive when something stresses us out,

More aware of when we need a break or when we need to challenge ourselves,

And we're better listeners,

Just to name a few examples of the benefits that mindfulness and meditation can provide us with.

And now I'll define focus.

So I like to think of focus as if the skill of awareness and the skill of discipline had a baby.

So focus is about concentrating,

Narrowing one's attention to something,

Awareness,

And thwarting the distractions,

Impulses,

And obstacles that get in the way,

Discipline.

There's an adage,

A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.

And I think it's true,

Personally.

I mean,

Can you think of any domain in life where being focused wouldn't be a great thing?

The focus is a prerequisite for success and enjoyment in pretty much any domain I can think of.

And both success and enjoyment give us meaning and purpose in life.

They make us feel valuable.

Not to mention that focus is the best antidote to the turbulence that we so often feel.

It gives us kind of a greater sense of stability amongst the chaos that is life a lot of the time.

So I want to take this time now that I've sort of defined a lot of our key terms for this episode to move into our second mindfulness exercise,

Which is actually a meditation.

It's going to be a 10 minute-ish meditation called Mindfulness of Breathing.

So we'll be using our breath as an anchor for our attention.

In other words,

The place that we'll come back to,

Bring our attention back to again and again.

This meditation will give you a taste of what it's like to train mindfulness and focus.

This is a very foundational meditation technique for cultivating the ability to concentrate on your work,

Your relationships,

Hobbies,

And anything else that's important to you in life.

Let's talk posture for meditation first.

So for the purposes of this meditation,

We'll be seated,

Preferably somewhere where the soles of your feet can be planted on the ground if possible.

And see if you can kind of shimmy yourself closer toward the edge of your chair if you're on a chair so that you have to use the little stabilizing muscles in your back to keep you up and you're not slouching.

Make sure that your head is above your neck,

Right above your neck.

Obviously your head's going to be above your neck,

But just stack your head kind of on top of your neck.

And that your shoulders,

Belly,

And face muscles are relaxed.

And then close your eyes.

Or if you feel more comfortable,

You can gaze at the ground several feet in front of you at something that's not moving.

Again,

Keeping your head stacked above your neck.

Sometimes it wants to kind of tilt down or back.

And why we focus on the posture,

Why we pay attention to the posture,

Is because we want our posture to mirror the mental state,

The mental qualities we aim for in any meditation.

And those qualities are the qualities of calm and alert.

If our body posture is too calm,

We're not using any of our muscles to sit up,

We're kind of slouching in a comfortable couch or bed or something like that,

It's much more likely that our mind will follow suit,

Making us feel lethargic and more likely to go into fantasy dreamland and less likely to practice the discipline needed to focus.

And if our posture is too alert,

Our body is rigid and tense,

Our mind is more likely to be agitated and antsy,

Which also makes focus obviously difficult.

I like to imagine a seesaw.

Alert on one side of the seesaw and calm on the other.

You want to try to make it so that your body and mind are balanced.

Both sides of the seesaw are elevated off the ground so that the plank of wood and the ground are perfectly parallel to one another.

Being balanced between alert and calm gives us the highest likelihood that we'll be able to focus.

So now that our posture is set up and you have the understanding of calm and alert,

That that's what you're aiming for,

Bring your attention to the space underneath your nostrils,

Right above your upper lip.

Send all of your attention away from thoughts,

Planning,

Sounds in the room,

Etc.

To this spot in your body,

Keeping your breath at its normal pace and rhythm,

Not changing the rhythm or pace at all.

You've probably already noticed how difficult this simple instruction can be.

We have to train our minds and it's quite frustrating at first,

Just like cultivating any skill.

But it can be done even with the most monkeyist of minds,

If you will.

Keep practicing bringing your attention back again and again and again to the breath underneath the nostrils.

The goal that you're working toward is to see how long you can stay concentrated on the breath without getting engulfed in any turbulence,

The turbulence of the mind.

If you're struggling with this,

No worries.

There are many strategies that can be employed to help you maintain focus,

Especially as you're beginning to learn this skill.

The first strategy I'll introduce is a technique called noting.

Keeping your breath at its normal rhythm,

Make note of each time you inhale by internally saying to yourself,

Breathing in,

And on each exhale,

Breathing out.

After breathing out,

Make an internal note,

One,

And continue on until you get to 10.

If you lose count,

Start back at zero.

It can be challenging to even get one or two breaths without distraction or without turbulence.

So if you were able to do that,

That's amazing.

Keep going.

And if you weren't,

Again,

This is normal,

Totally natural.

Our minds are not necessarily meant to do this,

So you're kind of swimming against the tide here.

Notice where you are on the seesaw of alert,

Calm,

And see if there's anything you can do to make that seesaw a bit more balanced,

A bit more parallel to the ground.

If you're finding yourself tired or feeling lazy about putting forth the effort on the breath,

Try lengthening your spine.

Remember why it is that mindfulness and meditation could be really helpful to you in your life.

Reinvigorate your intention.

And if on the other hand you're feeling agitated,

Antsy,

Restless,

See what you can relax in your body.

What doesn't need to be working right now?

Try lengthening your exhales to access a more relaxed nervous system state.

Let's do another round of the mental noting practice to the count of 10 again.

There will be no shortage of both internal and external distractions keeping you from focusing.

Thoughts of self-judgment,

Like why do I suck at this so much?

Maybe boredom,

Weird sounds,

Etc.

When you notice a distraction come up,

This is actually good news.

It's an opportunity to get better at focusing.

It's an opportunity to kind of test yourself.

Try your best to recognize the distraction.

You can even label it distraction just as you were labeling your in-breaths and your out-breaths.

And then exercise your discipline to come back to the breath,

To come back to your anchor.

Now,

Let go of the counting and mental noting of in and out breaths,

But stay focused on the sensation of breath at the nostrils as if it were the most interesting thing you could attend to in this moment.

I mean,

What if this truly was the most important thing to focus on?

Notice where your attention is.

With kindness and understanding that this is a difficult thing to master,

Bring yourself back.

You're training yourself to be present.

Begin to widen your attention now,

Moving away from being so zeroed in at the nostrils to getting a sense of your whole body in space.

Notice the sensations and sounds that are a part of this moment,

This fleeting moment.

Now,

Notice the effects of this period of concentration practice.

How is the state of your body,

Your mind,

And your mood?

When you're ready,

Take some deeper breaths,

Invigorating inhales and long,

Extended exhales.

A few more like that.

Now,

Begin to open your eyes,

Slowly transitioning out of the meditation.

Take a look around and reorient yourself to the space that you're sitting in.

Great job.

Feel free to take a moment and jot down any insights or questions that came up for you during that meditation practice.

You might consider what was most difficult as well as what was most impactful.

And feel free to pause the recording if you need more time.

The opposite of focus is being all over the place,

Multitasking and therefore being inefficient at pretty much anything.

Fun fact,

Humans don't actually multitask.

We do what's called context switching,

Where we think we're doing multiple things,

But we're actually just going kind of back and forth a million times,

Which is really draining for our brains since they're not wired to do that at all.

Okay,

Back to it.

When there's a lack of focus,

You may feel busy and rushed all the time.

But as you saw in the mindfulness of breath meditation,

Focus is really,

Really hard.

It requires putting a stop to the external and internal things that distract us for a period of time,

Which when we're not used to doing that is challenging because it's become a conditioned response.

In other words,

A habit.

Also,

When we put aside distractions and doing,

We have to feel what we're feeling.

Ugh.

And we're faced with thoughts we normally aren't aware of because we're busy doing a million things.

Feeling can be uncomfortable,

Especially if you're not used to it,

Or you're used to having a million other things that you do right when you notice yourself feeling something uncomfortable.

Even something as simple as boredom is uncomfortable for a lot of us.

Focus is also hard because in our society,

Multitasking and context switching is rewarded and often expected.

Unfortunately,

Though,

Good work that we feel positive about usually requires focused attention.

Meditation can help with focus in a variety of ways that you might have already gotten a glimpse or taste of during that meditation practice we just did.

But I'll list benefits because everybody likes to hear about the benefits of the things they're working on.

So first,

Meditation provides a mirror for how you relate to the rest of your life.

And in the meditation we just did,

You may have noticed patterns in the sorts of internal or external things that distracted you.

And it's likely that these are the same things that make it hard for you to focus on that homework,

Work,

Or even listening to a conversation or listening to a friend.

Through practicing concentration meditation,

You get really good at noticing when you're getting distracted in life because you get to know what it feels like when you're distracted.

You get up close and personal with it.

And then you can kind of avoid getting engulfed in those things that distract you and you can start to do more of the things that feel meaningful to you.

Meditation also helps to build the discipline needed to be able to make changes to unhelpful thought patterning and behaviors that aren't in line with your values.

Consistent practice over time will help you to be able to break the habit of letting yourself get engulfed in distractions,

Whether on a micro scale like during a meditation or on the macro scale as in life.

So we've got one more mindfulness exercise meditation that I wanted to move through today on focus.

And this one is all about how to work with common inner distractions and obstacles to focusing.

So find your upright but relaxed seated posture and close your eyes.

First,

Just settle in.

Notice if there are any parts of your body that feel tense.

And if you can release those areas back to their original length using just your mindful awareness.

Do that with as many areas of your body as you can for the next several moments.

The more relaxed we are,

The more we can feel.

And the more we can feel,

The easier it is to drop into the present moment where contentment is found.

So if at any point during the meditation,

You notice tension in your body,

Take a deeper breath and see if you can soften that area of your body using only your attention and your breath.

Let's start this meditation practice with a concentration technique similar to what we did earlier.

But this time we'll experiment with different anchors because you might notice you have a preference.

One thing works better for you than another.

Option one anchor is the same place underneath the nostrils and above the upper lip.

Option two is focusing on the movement of breath in the belly.

And option three is sensation in the hands.

Pick and stick with one of those three options.

If you're focusing on the breath,

You can feel free to use one of the tools like counting the breath or noting the inhales and the exhales.

In meditation and in life,

You've likely encountered all of these five obstacles at some point.

Boredom or lethargy,

In other words,

A lack of willpower and a desire to not put forth effort toward anything.

The second one is aversion,

A desire to be doing something else rather than what you're doing,

Or at its extreme,

Ill will towards someone or something.

The third is restlessness,

A sense of agitation and antsiness,

Which can show up as excessive worry,

Planning,

And future thinking.

I know this one well.

The fourth one is fantasy or craving,

Which is hopping on a never-ending hamster wheel.

It's getting caught up in the grass is greener on the other side mentality,

Thinking that once you get there,

Wherever there is,

Everything will magically fall into place.

In meditation,

It can show up as thinking about something that's better than sitting here and meditating,

Something that's more interesting like eating pizza or thinking about someone you find attractive.

And the last obstacle that comes up in meditation and in life is doubt,

Doubting your abilities and yourself,

Other people,

And the world in general.

In meditation,

This can show up as feeling like you're worse than everyone else at meditating,

And maybe even you wonder what meditation can even do for you anyways.

So these are the five hindrances or obstacles,

And they will come up again and again and again if you choose to practice meditation,

And they'll come up in life even if you don't practice meditation,

But practicing meditation just kind of helps you get better at the obstacles when they show up in life.

So return to the awareness of sensation at your anchor,

Underneath the nostrils,

At the belly,

Or the sensations in the palms of your hand.

If you're using a mental tool like noting or counting,

Let go of it.

Rest your attention on your anchor of choice as steadily and as clearly as possible.

First,

Become aware of what takes you away from the anchor.

Is there a lack of wanting to put in the effort,

Boredom,

Lethargy,

Dullness?

Is there an anxiety or a worry that seems more useful to focus on than the breath?

Is there a questioning of your abilities or a questioning of whether all this is stupid and pointless?

Or is your mind hating this completely,

Wanting to stop so you can go do something else?

Then maybe your mind is getting lost and wanting something that's not already here,

Craving.

Without any judgment,

Just notice what,

If any,

Obstacles are knocking on the door of your consciousness.

The hindrances and distractions that keep us from the important stuff in meditation and in life are challenging.

But we tend to make everything more challenging and tend to make the hindrances and distractions stick around for longer by doing this thing called judging them,

Which you've heard me talk about before so far.

Judgment in meditation is anything but acceptance.

It's wishing we didn't feel this way.

It's wanting our experience to be something different than what it is.

It's attempting to push away what we're feeling or over-exaggerating it.

Distractions are hard enough,

But when we add this judgment,

We're adding another layer of suffering to our current moment experience.

Continue trying to focus as much as possible on your anchor.

And when a hindrance shows itself,

When you get distracted from the anchor,

First notice and label what the hindrance is,

Like this is restlessness or this is doubt.

And see if you can keep the experience of that hindrance pure.

Try not to add a layer of,

Ugh,

I don't like this or why is this happening to me?

That just feeds distraction.

Instead,

After you recognize it,

Come back to the anchor.

Don't give it a spotlight.

The hindrances can be sneaky and can get creative in the ways they show up.

So really tune in to the subtle ways that they distract you away from the breath,

Away from what's important.

Again,

Recognize what they are when they show up,

And as quickly as possible,

And with as little resistance and judgment as possible,

Return to the anchor.

Where is your attention?

How much can you be completely absorbed in the sensations of your anchor?

For a few moments,

Expand your lens of focus to include the entire body.

Consider what the state of your body is in this moment.

Relaxed,

Tense,

Neutral?

Now do the same with the quality of your mind.

Expand your lens of focus out even wider to include all of your senses.

Notice where your hips are touching the chair or cushion.

Become aware of sounds coming in and out of your awareness.

Notice thoughts as if from a third-person perspective,

Watching them come in and out like clouds.

Phenomena like distracting thoughts,

Turbulent emotions,

And other sorts of distractions are all like clouds passing in front of a beautiful,

Clear blue sky.

There's nothing wrong with the clouds.

They're part of the experience.

But it's sometimes nice to peek behind them and remember,

To get a glance at that perfect sky.

This is what we're doing in a meditation practice focused on focus or concentration.

We're honing the ability to have more moments of clear,

Focused attention so we can see the sky in our day-to-day lives.

When you're ready,

Take a deeper breath and transition slowly and mindfully out of your meditation practice as you open your eyes and reorient.

Feel free to pause the recording to write down reflections or share with the group that you're in.

Great job today.

Thanks for your presence and your focus.