This meditation will be focused on learning the skill of noticing thoughts,
Noticing how easily and simply we can release them and return to all of the other parts of our present moment experience.
So settle into a comfortable position for you,
Whether that's sitting or lying down or standing even.
And as you kind of settle into stillness,
We're recognizing that there's a lot going on in this full experience of a single given moment.
We have physical sensations,
Sounds,
Sights,
Smells,
Tastes,
Thoughts,
And emotions,
All for the most part occurring kind of in this wonderful mix all the time.
So thoughts are just one piece of this broad and very dynamic and ever-changing experience of each moment.
Because it's so easy to get lost in thought and carry away in thought,
It can be very beneficial for our mental well-being to practice the skill of being able to choose somewhere else to focus our attention and to be able to bring our attention to that place.
So for this meditation,
Choose an anchor that you would like to use as your kind of home base that will be the place to rest your attention anytime that you want to return somewhere from when you get lost in thought.
One of the most calming and common anchors in meditation is breath.
It's always there for us.
It's kind of dynamic enough for us to follow.
And there's a lot of places where we can experience it in the body.
So see if the breath feels like a good home base for you.
And it can take some time to develop an awareness of the breath.
And if you have any trauma related to breath,
Definitely do not feel the need to force this as an anchor.
There's no wrong answer.
You can also use physical sensation,
Find a place on the body that is neutral,
And really ground down and hone into what are the physical sensations in that location of the body,
The hand or toes.
You can also use sounds as an anchor,
Even when there are no sounds,
Placing your awareness on the sense of hearing.
So for this meditation,
Think about that beat,
That as your place to return to at any moment.
When you notice that you are lost in thought,
You can just notice and just kind of release and return back to this anchor that you've chosen.
That's the primary work.
That's the primary practice that we will explore in our time together today.
So let's kind of try that out on our own for a little while,
For a few minutes.
It's important to be very,
Very kind with ourselves as we explore this.
It's very common for our thoughts to quickly go critical when we notice we are thinking.
And in fact,
That moment of noticing that we're thinking,
That is a moment of mindfulness.
Even if every time you hear a voice,
That is a moment when you have this clear awareness of being lost in a trance.
That's great.
That's fine.
That's wonderful.
It's a moment of clarity,
A moment of noticing.
And every time you do that,
You're building new pathways,
Building that muscle memory to be able to do it quicker and faster in the future.
Often when we notice the thought,
We just kind of have that point of contact with,
Oh,
Thinking.
Just seeing that can often mean the thought dissolves,
That it just kind of melts away,
Like a cloud kind of dissipating.
So paying attention to that moment of contact.
When you notice,
You recognize,
Oh,
Thinking.
It can just be that,
Oh,
Thinking.
And seeing the thought.
And remember,
No,
We're not putting any judgment around the fact that we are thinking.
We're not putting any judgment on the content of the thought.
It's extremely,
That is mostly what we do is we,
The content of the thoughts is what we get really wrapped up in.
So just recognizing and then releasing the thought,
Kind of letting it go free,
Letting it kind of melt out of our hands,
Out of our mind's eye like sand and returning back to the anchor,
The home base.
The amazing thing about not getting lost and caught up in the content,
When we notice we're thinking is that whatever we went through in that thought process,
However far we got carried on the train,
The crazy train of our thoughts,
Every time we notice it's the same.
It's just as simple.
The same practice is the same.
Coming back.
Just notice,
Release,
Returning.
Returning back to some other touch point to the present moment.
Quickly sounds or emotions that arise,
Physical sensations instigate a whole new proliferation journey of thought.
It's amazing how quickly our brains can make some association and then be off and running.
And noticing this,
We are gaining some agency to feel a self that is separate from the content of our thoughts.
Hopefully you felt a small measure of this even during this short meditation together.
As we're closing here,
Feel free to reorient to either physical sensations or reorient to the sounds around you and open your eyes when you feel ready.
As you go about your day,
Remembering that at any moment you can do this.
You can notice where your mind is at the moment,
Acknowledge,
Not judge yourself for it and find some other way to ground into the moment and refocus your attention in a way that feels supportive.
Thank you for joining me and have a great day.
