Your Meditation Journey Day 2: Thought Observation 1

"Thought Observation and Breath Focus Meditation" marks Day 2 of the course, seamlessly intertwining focused breathing with mindful observation of thoughts. Participants gently navigate through their mental landscape, learning to observe thoughts without judgment, while the act of concentrating on the breath provides a calming anchor amidst mental activity. This session enhances emotional balance and mental tranquility, building upon Day 1’s foundational practice and preparing the mind for the introspective adventures ahead.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to day two and your first guided meditation recording. I hope you're feeling well today. So just go ahead and get comfortable. We're going to continue today's meditation as we did on our first day together, Really building that foundational meditation experience so that we can build on that together. And so what that foundational experience includes is focusing on our breath, Each inhale and exhale, And then noticing, Recognizing when our mind gets lost in a thought or a distraction. That's all we're going to be doing today. We're going to ground through a body scan, Connect our mind to our body, And continue with this breath focus and thought observation. Before we get started today, Just starting to get comfortable wherever you're seated, Feeling your feet on the ground, Your spine straight, But comfortable, Relaxing your hands on your legs or on your belly. And just start to take a look around the room, Around your space, Keeping your eyes open, Just observing, Allowing your body to catch up. A metaphor that has really helped me understand my relationship with my mind and my thoughts. So what I'm going to share with you today, I want you to just imagine a bright blue sky. This is really the metaphor for our mind, A blank canvas where different thoughts and feelings, Emotions pop up, Just like in a bright blue sky, How the clouds, The different weather comes in. No matter what weather, No matter what storm, How many clouds, How much rain, Even a hurricane that comes in, Behind all of that is that blue sky, The true essence. And just like sometimes we can get so lost in our thoughts, We can identify so deeply in our distractions and our storylines, We forget about our true essence. We forget about that blank canvas, That blue sky, Ourselves. That's always there. So if this metaphor resonates with you, Allowing it to guide you through this practice and allowing it to give you a little bit more compassion, That this is a really hard practice. Some of us have thoughts coming in and out all the time. Let's try and recognize today and notice that these are like clouds in a sky popping up and then disappearing. So with that, Beginning to take deep inhales and exhales, Breathing in through your nose and then more forcefully releasing through your mouth, And feeling your shoulders drop down, Maybe your weight getting a little bit heavier beneath you, Inhaling through your nose and exhaling out through your mouth, And releasing. Continuing one more time, Breathing in through your nose, And this time on your exhale, If you haven't done so already, Just fluttering your eyes closed and immediately noticing where your mind went. Maybe you're feeling the weight of your body, Different sensations coursing throughout your body, Whether it's feeling of restlessness, Maybe jitteriness, Maybe tiredness or grogginess, Not identifying with it, Just allowing that. Just beginning to tap into the weight of your body, Feeling and honoring that restlessness or heaviness, However you feel, Knowing that that is your truth in this present moment, And knowing at any time all you're being asked to do is follow the complete inhale, Breathing in through your nose, And the complete exhale, Breathing out through your nose, Recognizing when your mind wanders off, Maybe a thought comes in, Maybe a sensation that distracted you, A storyline or a narrative, Just allowing it, Recognizing, Noticing. I invite you to smile at yourself, Bringing your attention back to your body, To the sensation, And grounding a little bit deeper, Paying a little bit more attention to our body as we start at the crown of our head and gently scan down, Checking in on each piece of ourself, Going at an equal pace, Noticing if your mind gets stuck on a certain body part or a certain feeling, Allowing your main point of focus to just be the inhales and your exhale, Bringing your attention to the crown of your head, Just slowly scanning down as you notice any tension that you're holding onto in your forehead, Maybe you're furrowing your brows, Just releasing that, Bringing your awareness to your eyes, Noticing if you're forcefully shutting your eyes closed or you're just allowing them to flutter shut, Bringing your awareness here, Noticing your cheeks now, Recognizing if we're clenching our jaw, Just taking a moment to release, Drop the tongue from the roof of your mouth, And on your next inhale, Sending your entire breath to your face here, Feeling all of the muscles relaxing as the air flows throughout your face, Through your hair and your head, Scanning down through your throat, Maybe you lift your chin just a centimeter to open your throat, Not constrict the breath as we inhale through our nose, Watching the breath travel through our face and down our throat and then into each shoulder, Maybe taking a moment to roll our shoulders back if that feels good, Feeling the weight of each arm pressing down on our legs, Your next inhale, Breathing in through your nose, Watching that breath as it travels through your face, Down your throat, Into your shoulders, Down each arm, And into each fingertip. You may notice that a thought came in, A distraction, Allowing it, Just recognizing that's all you're being asked to do, See the activity in our mind, The distracting thoughts and feelings that come in, Recognizing it, Smiling at ourselves and bringing our attention back to our inhale, Sending that breath from our face down through our throat, In through our shoulders, Down through each arm and each hand, And bringing your attention now down to your chest, Your solar plexus, Your power and energy center, And then notice here as we scan down to our belly where our breath is coming from, Are we taking deep belly breaths or short sips of air with our chest and just intentionally right here together, Taking the deepest inhale through our belly and exhaling, Feeling that release, That weight pressing down, And continuing to scan through our hips now, Sending our exhale down to our hips, Noticing any sensation here, Maybe even noticing if a distraction came in, Are you lost track of the sound of my voice and you've noticed you've been are you lost track of the sound of my voice and you've noticed you've been thinking this entire time, You're exactly where you need to be, Inhaling here and exhaling, Allowing your inhale now to travel through your face, Through your throat, Down through each shoulder and arm, Into your chest and your belly and your hips, Now each thigh, Moving down through each knee, Each calf, Each ankle, Each foot, Just going at an equal steady pace, Just paying more attention to each piece of yourself, Recognizing how so often we're stuck in our minds, Stuck in our daily to-do's, How rare we stop to just check in to connect our mind with our body, To be grateful for everything that our body does for us, Gently keeping your attention on that inhale and that exhale and slowly zooming out, Just envisioning yourself from the crown of your head all the way to the tips of your toes, Just breathing in your space exactly how you are, Keeping our focus on our breath, Feeling that inhale travel throughout our body, Feeling the exhale of the warm air coming out as we release, Bringing to mind that blue sky, Remembering every thought that comes in is just like the cloud, Anchoring in to that blank canvas of our blue sky, Staying in this place of observing, Getting space from our thoughts, Space to be. On your next inhale, Gently traveling back into your body now, Feeling that weight pressing down, Your hands on your legs, Maybe wiggling your toes and your fingers, Shrugging your shoulders, Bringing yourself back to a state of open awareness, Fluttering your eyes open, Fluttering your eyes open when that feels right, Or staying here if this feels good to you too, And offering yourself gratitude for completing your first guided meditation recording in this 14-day journey. And day two, I'll talk to you tomorrow. Thank you.

Reviews

So soothing. I love how Melena acknowledged that this is a difficult practice and encouraged forgiveness and lack of judgment when thoughts come in. I’m typically so distracted by trying to repress thoughts that I lose my sense of awareness, but her nonjudgmental acceptance that thoughts will come in allowed me to recognize them and let them pass. I enjoyed the body scan and that she specifically named the areas of our body throughout the scan so you can follow along, and connected them to our breathing as we went along. So grounding, I’ll do this again in the future!