You Welcome to this guided meditation experience of natural mindful awareness.
If you recall one thing about this introduction,
Remember that you can't do it wrong,
But you can make it more useful.
Meditation is a practice of awareness.
It's not about trying to stop your thoughts or escape your mind.
The goal of meditation is to recognize the space or gap between stimulus and response through the practice of awakened awareness.
Relaxation and calmness is the outcome,
Not the technique.
We learn to understand our state of discomfort,
Finding compassion rather than judgment of ourselves and others.
We learn to recognize our reoccurring patterns of habitual distraction.
This practice ultimately allows you to become more at ease with your states of comfort as well as discomfort rather than following your unconscious habits.
In preparation for meditation,
Find a quiet spot to practice,
Even someplace special or dedicated just to meditation.
Maybe in nature,
Gazing out a window,
Or even in your car,
Just not driving.
The tools we use are body,
Breath,
And mind.
Posture is important to your meditation,
So sit upright so that your breath can fully reach into your lower lungs.
We breathe into the lower belly and aim it about two fingers below the navel to allow the full deep breath,
Feeling the belly move out as we breathe in and feeling it relax as we breathe out.
We allow the mind to settle.
I like to picture myself inside a snow globe as I stop shaking it,
Letting all the chaos settle around me just like the slowly drifting particles of snow.
In this five-part meditation style,
We first commit to sit.
We find a dedicated and sacred time to practice,
And we say daily ish,
Allowing ourselves the opportunity to restart if we've missed a day.
During this period,
We can give ourselves permission to set aside our task lists and simply sit,
Just be here in this moment.
What's important will still be here when we're complete.
We then arrive and settle by taking a few deep breaths and even holding briefly between in and out breath,
Bringing our breath fully into our lungs to oxygenate our bodies.
We then focus and concentrate.
We're learning to be awake and aware.
We watch the breath and take in the experience of all the senses.
Then we rest and release or we just stop doing.
I like to call this unmeditation.
And then finally we return renewed,
Awake and aware of the experience of living.
As we practice together,
Allow your mind to fully awaken to the sensations of your body and all that it's experiencing.
Sight,
Sound,
Taste,
Scent,
Touch,
And even the sensation of thinking.
We're not trying to stop this or ignore any of this,
But instead embrace it,
See it.
Remember as we sit in this present moment together that there's nowhere else to go.
Nothing to do or undo.
Nothing special to be or become.
Nothing to fix,
Nothing to fabricate,
And nothing at all to manipulate.
We simply sit in wakeful awareness together.
If you feel distracted,
Overwhelmed,
Or anxious,
You simply rest while watching your breath coming and going as it is,
As it is.
You you you you you
