Hello and welcome back to Expansive Health Services Mindfulness Meditation series.
My name is Mike and I hope that your practice of mindful awareness is going well and is fruitful for you.
Today we have a basic practice,
One that I learned,
It's probably the first practice that I learned as I was discovering the concept of mindfulness.
And it's one that I come back to often in my informal practice of mindfulness.
We'll get into this a little bit more in my next educational recording.
But essentially there's two different ways to practice mindful awareness.
One is in a formal kind of way,
Like what we're doing with these meditation recordings,
Where you're being guided or where you're setting aside a specific time and place for your mindfulness practice.
That's the formal practice of mindfulness.
And the informal practice of mindfulness is really just cultivating a sense of mindful awareness throughout the activities of the rest of your day.
And,
You know,
Mindfulness while you're driving,
Mindfulness while you're working,
Mindfulness while you're walking.
We'll get into more of that in the next segment of recordings.
But for now,
Let's just get started by taking a deep breath,
Deep cleansing breath.
Just checking in with your body,
With yourself,
With your mind.
And inviting you for this practice in particular to close your eyes.
Today's practice will be touching all five senses.
And the best way to learn this is to have your eyes closed.
We tend to be visually dominant creatures as human beings.
And so it helps us to touch our other senses if we are able to close our eyes.
So as I invite you to do that,
I'll be asking you a series of questions which you can answer out loud if you prefer or silently if you'd rather.
But as I ask these questions,
The most important thing you can do is just stay with your observations.
Don't worry about labels or judgments.
Just stick with your observations.
So the first question will be,
What do you hear?
What do you hear in the room around you?
Outside of the room that you're in.
No need to go searching for sounds,
But allow the sounds to travel to you.
Relax the ear canals.
Observe as the sounds change from moment to moment.
Just be aware of what you witness from each moment.
Perhaps you hear the sound of a clock ticking,
The sound of a mechanical device buzzing or worrying.
Perhaps the sound of the ventilation system.
Or outside the passing by of vehicles.
Or the elements,
The wind or the rain.
Just tune into those sounds as they come to you moment by moment.
Next we'll move into the question of smell.
What do you smell in this moment?
Smell is a rather tricky one.
Don't be discouraged if you don't smell much of anything.
Even the absence of noticing is noticing.
But perhaps you smell detergent or perfumes on your clothing.
Or any perfumes or colognes that you may have put on today.
Perhaps you notice the smells associated with furniture or plants in the room,
In the area you're in.
As you breathe in you may notice the quality of the air.
If the air is dry or moist.
Just taking a moment to notice whatever you smell.
Next we'll move to a closely associated sense,
Which is the sense of taste.
What do you taste?
With taste we often associate that with what we've eaten recently or even anticipating what we're going to eat.
I would invite you to see if you can stay with the moment that you're in and think more basic.
Such as the moisture level in your mouth.
Is your mouth dry?
Is it moist?
Taste the mint flavor from your toothpaste.
If you're practicing in the morning or the evening.
Taste any residual meal that you've eaten.
Or the sense that everything you recently ate kind of melding into one.
Next we'll move to our sense of touch.
We most often associate touch with our hands and with our fingers,
Which is definitely appropriate.
We have many nerve endings in our fingers and hands.
And I would invite you to expand that awareness beyond what you are touching with your hands to include your entire body,
All of your skin.
Including the feeling of your feet on the floor or the ground if you're outside.
The feeling of the clothing on your skin.
Perhaps the tightness of your shoes on your feet.
Or your belt around your waist.
For those of us with long hair.
The feeling of your hair on your shoulders or your neck or your ears.
Or if you're wearing any accessories,
Your glasses,
Your jewelry,
Your watch.
Inviting you to pay attention to things that you wouldn't normally pay attention to.
Perhaps being curious about those things.
I also invite you to consider with your sense of touch the feeling of the seat that you're in.
Or the feeling of breathing.
Or the feeling of gravity.
Or the temperature in the room that you're in.
The quality of the air,
Whether it's moving or still.
Again,
Finding the mind's urge to categorize things,
To judge things to be good or bad.
The way you should be feeling or shouldn't be feeling.
Lastly,
With your eyes closed,
Taking a moment to be aware of your experience with the light in the room.
Where's the light coming from?
Directionally?
How soft or bright is the light?
What color is the light?
Both with your eyes closed and with them open,
Light is something that's always changing.
Although it remains constant as well.
Taking these last few moments to take in your experience with the light.
And to appreciate taking this time for yourself to train your mind,
To focus your attention,
To relax your busy mind.
Thank you for taking the time to participate in this sensory practice.
I wish you health,
Ease,
And happiness this week.
Have a great week.
