Hey there,
This is Ryan.
Today's meditation is all about focus and presence,
Practicing dropping into awareness.
The techniques we're going to be exploring today are counting and mental noting.
You could really consider this meditation and these techniques as mental fitness,
The gym for your mindfulness and meditation practice perhaps.
So first of all,
Let's just settle into the body and settle into our seats,
Making sure you're comfortable in a relaxed and alert posture with a straight spine.
You might find it helpful to gently close your eyes,
But if you'd rather do this meditation with your eyes open,
That's perfectly fine.
And we'll take a few deep cleansing breaths.
So in through the nose and let it out with an audible sigh.
We'll do two more of those in through the nose and sigh it out.
Deep breath in through the nose and letting it go with a sigh.
Okay,
And settling into stillness now,
Feeling the sensations of sitting,
Gravity pulling you down into the ground,
The sensations of being in your body.
And just acknowledging what's there.
We don't need to go down a rabbit hole or make any stories,
Just being with whatever is.
First of all,
I'd like you to pick an anchor for your breathing.
For most people,
This is either the nostrils where you can feel the air coming in and out of your body or the abdomen where you can feel the rising and falling of your chest and tummy with each breath.
Just choose the one that feels most comfortable for you.
There's no need to control the breath or try and make it be any certain way.
Just noticing how it is,
Whatever the pace,
The pattern or the depth is absolutely perfect.
I invite you to cover each breath with awareness,
Focusing on the sensations at your chosen anchor.
Can you fully cover each of these sensations through every moment of the inhale,
The pause at the top,
And again through each moment of your exhale,
Noticing all the sensations involved with breathing.
Now we're going to introduce our first technique,
Counting.
I'm inviting you to count each breath very gently with your mind's voice.
I will be using the phrasing or counting,
Inhale one,
Exhale one,
Inhale two,
Exhale two,
And so on.
Other people prefer to gently cover each inhale with the word in and cover each exhale with the word out.
I invite you to count or phrase in your chosen way up to five and once you reach five,
Start from one and repeat the cycle.
This can be the most subtle of voices counting in your mind.
Inhale one,
Exhale one,
Inhale two,
Exhale two,
Inhale three,
Exhale three,
Inhale four,
Exhale four.
Inhale five,
Exhale five.
I will leave you to continue with this for a moment.
Inevitably,
You will at some point become swept up in thoughts or distracted by the contents of the mind and that is perfectly normal.
If and when you notice you've been distracted,
Compassionately bring yourself back to the sensations of breathing at your chosen anchor and go again.
Inhale one,
Exhale one.
I'll leave you to do this for a moment now.
Okay,
And now let's introduce our second technique,
Mental noting.
Your next task is to gently note mentally when you realize that the mind has wandered and you're lost in thought.
Now this could be past or future.
If you notice your mind has taken you to the past or the future,
Perhaps it's frustration or planning.
The note itself is really less important,
It's the awareness and effort involved in the noting that really counts.
So that could just be as simple as thinking.
And when you've made your mental note,
I invite you to gently,
Without judgment,
Bring yourself back to the sensations of breathing at your chosen anchor and begin again.
Inhale one,
Exhale one.
I encourage you to learn to see these moments of noting as a good thing.
Mindfulness and meditation are not about shutting off the mind,
Rather I encourage you to endeavor to make peace with the contents of your mind as they are,
Through compassionate,
Non-judgmental,
Mindful awareness.
You could consider each moment of acknowledgement,
Each note,
To be similar to one rep in the gym.
And as you consistently work through those repetitions,
In time you will see a deepening of your practice.
You will experience deeper,
Clearer focus and presence.
So your task now is to combine counting of each breath,
Mental noting each time you find yourself distracted,
And gently,
Compassionately bringing yourself back to the sensations of breathing at your chosen anchor and beginning again.
I'm going to leave you with this task for 10 minutes now,
And I'll chime in occasionally to help along the way.
And if you notice that the mind has wandered,
Now is the moment to mentally note where you went,
And to non-judgmentally bring yourself back to the sensations of breathing at your chosen anchor and begin again.
And should you find that you have become distracted,
Non-judgmentally note where you went,
And gently bring yourself back to the sensations of breathing.
Subtly covering each inhale and each exhale with awareness.
Should you find that your mind has wandered,
Non-judgmentally bring yourself back to the sensations of breathing at your chosen anchor and begin again.
And if we find we've become distracted,
Noting where we went and without judgment,
Bringing ourselves back to the sensations of breathing.
And we're leaning on the sensations of breathing at our chosen anchor point to help us cover each inhale and each exhale with undistracted awareness.
If you find you have become swept up in thought or distracted,
Note mentally what the contents of the thoughts were and then gently bring yourself back to the sensations of breathing.
Okay,
Well done.
I really hope you enjoyed that and that you are able to see the benefits in practicing focus,
In practicing presence and awareness.
I invite you now to take a deep breath in through the nose and then gently sigh it out through the mouth.
And we'll do that one more time.
Deep breath in through the nose and letting it go with a sigh.
And whenever you're ready,
You might like to bring some movement back into the body,
Maybe your wrists,
Your ankles,
Your neck,
Rolling it out.
Open your eyes.
And thank you so much for allowing me to guide you today.
I'll see you next time.
