Welcome back!
Here we are on day six of the Meditation for Beginners series.
Today's practice is all about how we can manage stress in our day-to-day lives with mindfulness and awareness.
Let's jump right in.
All right,
By now you already know how we start each practice by finding a comfortable position to be in,
Whether that's lying down,
Sitting in a chair,
Or standing up in Mountain Pose.
Bringing the structure of the body into relative alignment with the knees aligned over the ankles and the neck and spine centered over the hips.
Dropping into the body and any sensations that are here.
Closing the eyes.
Become aware of the breath as it flows in and out of the body.
And to help us get settled in,
Listen carefully.
Inhale through your nose and as you near the top of the lungs,
Inhale again,
Filling the lungs even more.
Pause at the top and then exhale,
Letting everything fall out through the mouth.
Letting the breath resume normally.
One of the greatest benefits of meditation is that it can help us manage stressful situations,
Both big and small,
When they arise in our lives.
Typically when we get stressed,
We have a reaction out of habit or instinct and this is a pretty typical pattern.
We have a stressor followed by a reaction.
But with meditation,
We can learn to become more aware of our bodies,
Thoughts,
And emotions throughout that process at the beginning,
Middle,
And the end.
And anywhere we manage to insert awareness is a good thing,
Even if we get stressed and we react in a way that we wish that we hadn't,
Which happens to everyone.
And then we reflect on what happened and become aware of our behavior after the fact.
That can still be a great learning experience that can help us have awareness of the situation even sooner,
The next time that we get stressed.
Bring your attention now to the emotional plane of the body.
When we observe the physical body,
Sometimes we feel physical sensations in our muscles,
In our bones.
Maybe we're sore from working out or we feel pain from an injury.
But we can also feel our emotions in our body,
Like when your face gets hot when you're embarrassed or when there's a fluttering in the stomach when you think about someone that you like.
What emotions are present in your body right now?
It might be helpful to systematically scan through the body as we did in the body scan exercise,
Observing each part of the body from the feet all the way through to the top of the head.
Shifting your attention away from the body to your mind now,
Observing as thoughts show up and letting them pass as easily as they come.
As you first start to become aware of the stress and response pattern,
You might not see a behavior change right away.
And that's more than okay,
Because just by simply bringing awareness to a situation will change the situation itself.
And with time,
As we continue to practice inserting awareness before,
During,
And after the stress response pattern,
Eventually we'll be able to avoid unnecessary stress and also choose how we react when it inevitably happens.
So come back to the body and the room where you are.
Open the eyes whenever you feel ready.
Thank you so much for your presence and for practicing with me today.
I'll see you again tomorrow for the last day of the series.
