Welcome to Natural Tendencies.
It's Rick Braden again.
I'm here in our studio in Albuquerque,
New Mexico with my dear friend Santiago Aceves.
And I thought it would be really great to lead him in a simple seated mindfulness meditation.
So I've just asked Santi to sit in the chair.
And so you may want to find a chair or something where you can sit comfortably.
And I'm going to sort of guide you through this practice.
It's going to be very quick.
Probably going to limit it to about six,
Seven minutes.
It'll give you pretty good ideas.
So Santi is sitting in the chair.
So Santi,
I want your feet straight in front of you.
If you pull your feet in,
You'll notice that your legs want to kind of splay out.
And if you pull them too wide,
They'll kind of lean in.
You want them pretty much exactly aligned over your hip joints.
And you want to not use the back of the chair for support.
So you want to have an upright posture,
But without a lot of extra tension.
Probably what's most important here is the relaxation element of meditation.
There is a gentle effort,
But at the same time,
We want to,
To the best of our ability,
Be able to relax.
So again,
Yes,
Your hands just there on your knees resting comfortably.
The eyes are open in this meditation.
You'll put your gaze at a slightly downward angle.
And I want to establish mindfulness first and just noticing that you're supported by the weight of the chair.
Just feel your bottom on the base of the chair.
Notice that your feet are touching and rooted grounded to the ground beneath you.
And now just pull your attention to your feet until you can really feel your feet resting on the ground.
Now that we have the posture established,
I'd like the listener in Yushanti to,
As you're doing the seated posture,
I do think it's important to stay as still as you can.
And it's really interesting because within a couple of minutes,
You're going to notice probably an itch or just this desire to move.
And part of that often comes from just this core restlessness we all have.
We're just not accustomed at all to being still.
So for maybe,
I'm going to stop talking for maybe 30 seconds or so.
You don't have to keep track of time on doing that,
But just see if you can keep your body still and just notice the rising of your abdomen as you breathe in and the lowering as you breathe out.
So here you're noticing the breath.
You're not concentrating hard on it.
You're not just like grinding this out.
You're just trying to notice it.
So ideally,
We want to be able to pay attention to the entire in-breath and the pause at the top and the bottom as you breathe out.
So breathing in,
Paying attention to the entirety of the in-breath,
And breathing out to the entirety of the out-breath.
Breathing in,
Noticing the entire in-breath,
And breathing out the entire out-breath.
Breathing in,
And breathing out.
Practice like that for a while.
If any thoughts come in,
Which they surely will,
You can notice them and as soon as you do,
You may just make a middle note saying something like thinking.
It doesn't matter what you're thinking about or what you're feeling.
It's kind of irrelevant for our purposes here.
You just notice it and then to the best of your ability,
Again with a gentle determination,
You just simply return to the entire focus on the in-breath and the out-breath.
Breathing in,
And breathing out at your own natural rhythm.
Breathing out.
Now I'd like to pull your awareness to something I think is kind of fun.
I believe most of the elements of our happiness are internal and we're always looking for external things,
Whether it be a relationship,
A new job,
Getting a degree,
A new romantic relationship,
Something outside of ourselves to make us happy.
And we often forget the fact that so much and so many of the elements of our happiness are around us all the time,
At all times.
So breathing in,
I want you to be aware that you have eyes,
Santi.
And then as you exhale,
Smile to your eyes.
Because your eyes are a source of your happiness.
Breathing in,
I'm aware that I have eyes.
And breathing out,
I just smile to my eyes because my eyes make me happy.
Great.
I want you to be aware of your heart.
Breathing in,
Just aware that your heart is always beating.
And breathing out,
You smile to your heart.
Breathing in,
You're just aware that you have a heart and that you have life.
Breathing out,
You smile to your heart.
Breathing in,
Just aware that you have lungs.
And they're expanding on the in-breath and relaxing,
Letting go on the out-breath.
Breathing in,
Aware that you have lungs.
And breathing out,
Smiling because you can breathe there.
Now for about the next minute,
We're just going to focus again on the in-breath and the out-breath.
Breathing in,
You know you're breathing in.
Breathing out,
You know you're breathing out.
Excellent.
Practice like that for about a minute.
Pulling your attention back to the in-breath.
Know you're breathing in and know you're breathing out.
Now I want you to take like three,
Four natural breaths.
And at the end of that,
We will finish our meditation mindfulness of breath practice.
All right,
My friends,
Great job.
We are done for today.
