Freedom From Suffering

Life Mentor, Nicole Barton guides a meditation to help you find freedom from suffering by seeing that we are so much more than we think we are. A beautiful meditation to drop you back into your truthful wisdom, finishing with a poem about who we really are.

Transcript

Welcome to the Finding Freedom from Suffering Meditation.

I'm Nicole Barton.

I'm a life mentor who helps people to find a lighter experience of life based on an insight that I had about how our mind works.

Begin this meditation by just dropping into a comfy space.

So find a nice seated position that feels right for you.

This is your practice,

Nobody else's.

And so it is important that you find a space in which you feel supported.

Whether that be cross legged,

Sitting on a chair,

Or however feels comfortable.

Personally,

I like to grab a bolster and prop myself up on that cross legged.

Maybe surrounding myself with some blankets,

Supporting under my knees with more cushions.

Then just grounding down and feeling the presence with the earth,

The connection with the earth.

Just lengthening through the spine,

Lifting up through the crown of the head.

Just really noticing the strength and resilience.

And yet your simultaneous ability to just drop down into the relaxing and surrendering.

At this point,

We'll just begin to take the gaze internally,

Inviting ourselves to let go and find some stillness.

Begin to use this meditation today as a process of self inquiry and allowing of what is to be here now.

As we begin to just soften in all areas of the body,

Just take your attention to the space around your eyes and relax them.

That's the space around the eyes.

Relax the jaw,

Letting it go.

Letting the shoulders drop and relaxing the belly.

Just tapping back into that connection to the earth as we let everything surrender.

We'll just take our attention to our breathing.

To begin with,

Just notice our natural breathing,

Notice how supported our body is by natural breath.

Seeing that there's absolutely nothing to do.

Just in the same way that we don't need to tell our bodies how to breathe.

Just begin to notice this is exactly the same for our minds.

We have an inbuilt psychological system that knows exactly what to do through any suffering that we experience.

There's absolutely nothing to do in order to fix ourselves.

And yet that doesn't mean that we don't have the ability to be able to create change in our lives and change our breath and create space in our breath or for our minds.

So as we begin to just lengthen the breath,

Taking accounts of eight.

Ripping in for 12345678.

Pausing at the top and exhaling for 812345678.

Just allow yourself to repeat this pattern.

Just lengthening your breath,

Lengthening the space between your breath in a way that's comfortable for you.

So if that isn't eight,

If that's six,

Or if that's 10,

Whatever feels good for you.

This is your practice.

Just begin as you're doing that to just take our attention to the noises outside of us and notice the sounds that are really far away.

Just notice that life is still going on despite our stillness.

But that we're tapping into our inner peace,

That's always exciting.

So just take a moment to just begin to take your attention inwards and just notice the noises that are nearer to you now.

Just beginning to notice what's going on in this moment.

Sure doing that you might also begin to notice any sense of the you're doing that you might also begin to notice any sensations,

Any areas of tension.

You do a little bit of body scan and notice where you are efforting.

Where do you need to breathe into in order to find acceptance of this moment exactly as it is now.

At this point you might begin to notice some thoughts creeping in.

Perhaps you're noticing the sensations in your body and having thinking about those.

That's okay,

Just let them be there.

It's about accepting those thoughts as they are.

Noticing the capacity for the power of thought that we have rather than the individual thoughts.

Noticing their transient nature,

How they just move through.

Perhaps you're in thinking that you're not okay.

That's okay,

Just allow those thoughts to be there.

Just begin to stay curious and notice that if you are the one thinking that you are not your thoughts.

Just noticing that separation between you and your thoughts.

Seeing that distance.

And if you're not your thoughts,

Then maybe your question who are you?

But more than that,

You'll perhaps begin to notice how all of your feelings and all of your sensations are coming from your thoughts.

You'll begin to see that is the only space in which your feelings arise.

Always from a thought.

Begin to see this we begin to see that we can accept them just as they are.

Begin to hold them.

Because if they're just from thoughts,

Then they're not really who we are.

And in this way,

We can only really experience our pain through our thinking.

And all of the thinking isn't the truth.

Still may be part of us,

Because there's no separation,

We're connected.

But who we are underneath all of the thinking that part of something greater,

That innate wisdom that's inbuilt,

Innate intelligence,

That is who we really are.

And that rests just underneath the layer of thinking.

At this point,

Or there's some points throughout the meditation,

You may get a glimpse of who you are.

May not,

You may get a glimpse and it may disappear.

And that's okay,

That's completely normal.

But in the glimpse,

Can you rest here as who we are as part of something greater?

Again,

Just taking your attention back to the body,

Just noticing those sensations back to the breath.

Noticing its natural support.

Sensing into any subtle nuances in the breath,

Any changes.

Sensing into the energy body.

Just noticing any thoughts moving through.

Just glimpsing who we are underneath those.

As we begin to rest there,

We'll begin to see that our suffering comes from our thinking and can never impact that spaciousness of who we really are.

Even though it feels like it.

You'll see that we're human and it's okay to feel the suffering.

We can rest there with it and hold it because it's not scary when we know where it's coming from.

And we can breathe into it.

We can accept it and allow it to move on through.

Because it's coming from those transient thoughts and we're always evolving and it can always move through.

Just take your attention back to your breath.

Take a nice deep inhale and exhale with a sigh.

Just keeping your eyes closed.

I read you a poem and it's called Getting Quiet and Holding Space.

It's one that I wrote specifically for this meditation.

This is a time to get quiet,

My love.

A time to nurture.

A time to go inward and allow ourselves the beauty of spaciousness to see deeper.

It's a time to see that the suffering we experience is not permanent.

And more than that,

It is not who we really are.

It is a time to let go of our conditioning about how to live and to dive into our way,

The way of knowing,

The way of awareness,

The way of presence.

You see,

My love,

Suffering exists,

But that does not mean we have to live in the experience of hell.

Instead,

We can get quiet and hear our soul's truth.

We can settle into the spaciousness of who we really are.

Resting a while in that space of deeper connection,

Allowing our thoughts to be seen and allowing our feelings to be held.

And as we do,

When we find ourselves in an entirely new world,

One in which things become less numbing and more held.

As we become more present with exactly what is,

As it is right now,

We will see that we were always okay.

Who we really are is untouchable.

But that this doesn't mean we can't rest here in the humanness,

The sadness,

The pain and suffering and hold it close to our hearts.

Allowing ourselves the time to grieve and the time to feel our thought created realities.

That's okay too.

What shows up is arising to be seen and held in the gentle space of nurture until it moves on of its own accord.

And once more,

We remember who we always were.

Wise,

Courageous miracles.

And we invite you to just rest here in the spaciousness for just a few minutes longer,

If that is what you feel called to do.

When you're ready,

You can blink open your eyes and just begin to notice how you feel differently.

I hope you enjoyed the meditation and I'll speak to you.

For more inspiration and resources,

Head over to www.

Nicollebarn.

Co.

Uk.

Reviews

This was so relaxing. Thank you!!!!

It was really nice but it doesn’t last 6 min as it says there! I couldn’t finish it therefore.

Such a lovely practice in tenderness. Thank you

Longer than stated time but uplifting