Breath Body Sounds And Thoughts

This is a 25 minute, Breath and Body, Sounds and Thoughts Meditation recorded by Gemma at The Owl and The Coconut. Helping guide you to work through the breath, body, sounds and thoughts as anchor points in meditation. To expereince thoughts as just events in the mind. Letting them come and go as we do with the breath.

Transcript

Sitting with the breath,

Body,

Sounds and thoughts recorded by Gemma at the Owl and the Coconut,

This mindfulness meditation takes around 25 minutes.

Suggest settling into your chair or finding a position that's comfortable for you.

Feet on the floor,

Body in the chair.

If you are on a chair,

Seeing if you can push your bottom onto the back of the chair so that your spine is self-supporting.

Allowing your spine to follow its natural curves,

Being upright but not uptight and grounding in the chair.

Feeling the height of the body rising up and the weight of the body gently resting down.

Feeling the contact of the body on the chair and noticing the contact and sensations in the soles of the feet.

This point of contact with the skin on the soles of your feet in contact with the socks or the shoes or the floor beneath.

Being supported by the ground and the earth beneath.

And now gathering your attention and letting it settle on the movements of the breath,

The constantly changing patterns of sensations as you breathe in and breathe out.

Perhaps for a few moments focusing on where you feel the breath most vividly,

Most strongly in the body.

This might be your nose,

The back of your throat,

The chest,

The lungs.

The belly or somewhere else in your body.

Just sit in with the sensations of the breath where you feel them most strongly.

Coming up close to the sensations.

And now if you're not focusing there already,

Moving your attention to the belly,

The sensations of the breath in the belly.

The changing patterns of sensation as you breathe in and you breathe out.

Perhaps noticing the gentle sensations of the stretch of the skin on the belly as you breathe in and the gentle release as you breathe out.

You may find it helpful to place your hand on your belly to feel this movement.

Just seeing if it's possible to feel the sensations of breathing.

All the way through each in-breath and each out-breath.

And the mind will wonder many times during this practice.

Minds are designed to do that.

Just noticing when it goes off and where it goes to and kindly bringing your attention back to the breath in the lower abdomen.

No matter how much the mind wonders,

The breath is always there to gently and kindly return to and anchor to bring you back into the here and now.

Just sitting with the sensations of the breath in the lower abdomen for a few more moments.

When you're ready,

Allowing your field of awareness to expand around the breath to include sensations throughout the whole body.

All the way out to the surface of the skin.

Perhaps getting a sense of the air moving across the skin.

Having a sense of the body as a whole as you sit here.

Aware of the breath within the larger space of sensations within the whole body.

Perhaps sensations of touch,

Pressure or warmth.

The sensations of your sitting bones sitting on the chair.

Sensations of the hands resting.

Sensations of the feet on the floor.

Awareness filling the body,

Bathing the body.

Feeling the whole body alive and awake.

Perhaps noticing how sensations arise and then disappear or change into something else.

At a certain point you might like to change the focus of your attention,

Sometimes zoom in the lens of attention closer into particular sensations within the body.

Exploring and coming up close.

And at other times you might want to zoom out to hold the body in a broad sense of spacious awareness.

Just playing with this idea of zooming in and zooming out.

And if there are certain parts of the body with intense sensations,

Seeing if you can bring your awareness up close to these areas of intensity.

The best you can just exploring the patterns of sensations here,

Exploring where the sensations begin and where they end,

Where they're most intense if they change or move in time.

Not thinking about the sensations but allowing yourself to feel what's here to be felt.

If you become aware of any unpleasant sensations then just notice how your body is reacting to them,

Any sense of tensing or reacting or pushing away,

Any sense of aversion.

Where in the body are these sensations most intense?

Do they change over time?

Just with a gentle curious mind,

Noticing if it's possible to notice these habits,

Any aversion signature.

Perhaps breathing into the sensations and opening and softening on an out breath.

And now seeing if it's possible to widen the attention,

Becoming aware of the body as a whole and the constantly shifting patterns within it.

Sensing the ebb and flow of sensations as life flows through you.

And if difficult sensations arise just seeing if it's possible to gently hold these in the wider sense,

In this broad spacious awareness.

Just sense them in the bigger pattern of sensations as if you're cradling all the senses of the body in this all inclusive awareness.

Gently cradling and holding all of the whole of the body sensations in our awareness.

And now when you're ready letting go of sensations in the body and shifting your awareness to hearing,

Bringing your attention to your ears and allowing your awareness to open and expand.

Receiving sounds as they arise wherever they arise.

No need to go searching for sounds or listening out for particular sounds.

As best you can simply allowing your awareness to be open to receiving sounds from all directions.

Sounds that are near,

Sounds that are far,

Sounds that are obvious and sounds that are more subtle.

Being aware of the space between sounds.

Being aware of the moments of silence.

And as best you can just being aware of sounds as sounds,

Just auditory sensations.

Whenever you find yourself thinking about sounds,

Whether you like them or what they might mean,

Any labels,

Just gently seeing if you can come back to just experiencing the sounds in this present moment.

Being aware of the loudness,

The pitch,

The changes.

When the sound begins and when it ends,

Just sitting here receiving sounds.

And whenever you notice that your attention is no longer focused on sounds in the present,

Just gently noticing where your awareness has drifted to.

And kindly and gently if you choose to,

Bringing your awareness back to receiving sounds in the present moment.

Letting sounds be the anchor to being in the present moment.

Just like we've used the breath before.

Aware of sounds arising,

Lasting for a while and then passing away.

Aware of any moments of stillness,

Of silence between the ending of one sound and the beginning of the next.

And pausing this audio if you want to take a longer gaps for silence.

Sensing the stillness.

Resting in the stillness.

And then allowing the sounds to fade into the background.

And when you're ready,

Letting go of the awareness of sounds and moving your attention to focus on thoughts.

Thoughts are just events in the mind and like you did with sounds,

Focusing on them as they arose,

Developed and passed away.

So now as best you can,

Bringing awareness to the thoughts that arrive in your mind in just the same way.

Noticing thoughts as they arise.

Focusing the attention on them as they pass through the space of the mind.

And then seeing them eventually disappear.

There's no need to try and make thoughts come and go,

Just letting the thoughts come and go naturally.

Whatever's there,

Just as you did with the sounds.

Letting them arise and pass away moment by moment.

Some people find it helpful to bring awareness of thoughts as if the thoughts were projected onto the screen of a cinema.

Sitting,

Watching the screen,

Waiting for a thought or an image to arise and then when it does,

Pay attention to it as long as it lingers there on the screen.

And then letting it go as it passes by.

Or you might find it helpful to see thoughts as clouds moving across a vast spacious sky.

Thoughts as clouds drifting into your sky and watching them as they drift away,

Letting them go.

Or perhaps seeing thoughts as leaves moving on a stream being carried on a current,

Watching them arrive on the stream and being carried off by the stream.

Not pushing the thoughts away,

Just observing them as they come and they go.

And if any thoughts bring with them intense feelings or emotions,

As best you can,

Noticing their intention,

Their charge,

Their intensity and noticing them as much as you can.

No need to react to them in any way.

Just using the gentle,

Curious mind to be aware of them.

And if at any time you notice that your mind's become scattered or unfocused or it's been drawn into the drama,

You might find it useful to switch to see how the thoughts or emotions are affecting your body.

If you don't like what's happening,

You might feel senses of contraction in the face or the shoulders or the torso,

A sense of wanting to push away your thoughts or your feelings,

A sense of aversion.

And simply remembering whenever you find yourself repeatedly lost in thoughts,

You can always come back to the breath and the sense of your body as a whole,

Sitting here,

Breathing.

Using this as a focus to anchor and stabilize your awareness.

And now for the remaining time,

Just letting go of all objects of attention,

Your breathing,

Your body,

Hearing,

Observing,

Thinking.

And instead of focusing on anyone,

Just allowing yourself to just sit here and be fully aware in each moment,

Aware of whatever arises.

If thoughts come,

Observing thoughts.

If sounds come,

Then observing sounds.

If pain,

Then pain.

If it's the breath that's most predominant,

Then just be with the breathing from moment to moment,

Just sitting in stillness,

Looking for nothing and being sensitive and present with it all just as it is,

Just as it unfolds.

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And now as we begin to bring this practice gently to a close,

Just noticing your posture in the chair,

Sensations and souls of your feet on the floor,

A sense of being held by the chair or whatever is supporting you,

Connection to the earth below us.

And gently opening your eyes and taking back in the objects around you as we end this practice.

Reviews

Beautifully guided, flows lovely😌 this is a favourite. Thank you

Awesome- really dropped in - thank you

Very clear. Very helpful. Very effective. A beautiful pace. Thanks. Namaste.

Another great. Meditation

Another one of your beautiful, gently guided awareness and acceptance practice. With gratitude...❤️