Hey there everybody,
This is Kristen from Teaching Balance and I am here with this week's mindfulness meditation practice.
And as you know we are in the month of letting go.
It seems like a very appropriate theme for this time of year where we're starting to transition away from the 2018-2019 school year and into the summer of course next year.
One thing that is pretty much constantly on my mind right now is the fact that I am planning on transitioning myself actually out of public education so I can focus on doing things like this and mindfulness education to my colleagues locally and nationally.
And it's tricky this whole idea of transitioning and letting things go because of course certainly for me this has been you know my I've been a public educator for 25 years and and that's just a big part of what has defined me and and really you know a big part of who I am.
And so I would like to invite you just to kind of think about letting go much in the same way that I've been actively working on thinking about letting go.
And so probably the best thing for the moment that I can can offer which would really be our theme for this week is the idea of letting go not only as a way of unburdening yourself like we did last week but also letting things go so that you can make space for something new.
And it doesn't mean that you have any degree of dissatisfaction with how things are for you or anything like that but it's more just about you know the only constant of course is change and things are always going to happen.
And when we approach life as this sort of ongoing experience where things are going to change and opportunities are going to arise and you know there are possibilities that we haven't even begun to imagine that it could that could occur.
And the idea of letting go of the things that might hold us back or keep us tethered to limiting beliefs and things like that might not allow us to even recognize some of the possibilities that might present themselves to us.
So that's really the the mindset that I'm working on at least for myself right now as difficult as it is to let go of all that I have done and made and built and and hopefully was relatively successful.
You know I also need to be willing to know that all things come to an end and change occurs and change is healthy whether it's to the degree like what I'm pursuing in terms of my retirement quote-unquote or just smaller changes that you might be experiencing even from just one school year into vacation and then into the next.
So that's the spirit of it and I think what I'll try to do is as it feels appropriate bring that into our practice but generally speaking our practice is gonna be pretty pretty standard.
So let's go ahead and get started.
I'm gonna set my timer for 10 minutes and I'm gonna invite you just to find that mindful posture allowing yourself just to settle in find your seat sitting in a way that's upright but not rigid shoulders back so as to open up the chest that deeper breathing that we're gonna get into in a moment eyes closed or gaze lowered and if you haven't already started to take a few deep breaths please do that now.
And I know sometimes it's difficult so as best you can just taking a breath that's deeper than what you normally would.
I know you can come back to these deeper breaths at any point in our meditation or of course any point in your day.
So as we settle in allowing your breathing to resume its natural rhythm let's start just by resting our awareness on the breath of course you can rest your awareness on sounds or the body or just in open awareness but for right now let's just notice the sensations associated with breathing.
You might notice the coolness as the air goes in through your nostrils perhaps the warmth as it exits also noticing the rising and falling of the chest and abdomen.
Remembering there's no correct place to feel your breath so if you can't decide just choose something you're just gonna rest your awareness there.
It really is a rest.
You're giving yourself a break from the constant following of your thoughts wherever they lead you so just come back to rest in the present moment again and again whenever you notice that your mind has wandered which of course will occur repeatedly throughout this practice.
If you'd like to keep your attention on the breath you can but of course you can also rest your awareness on the body just noticing what it feels like to really be in your body right now feeling that support of the ground or your seat or your chair feeling how it takes care of you feeling what it feels like to be in your body and that boundary of when your body ceases to exist and the air and space around you begins just feeling what it feels like that perimeter and you can hold your body in its entirety in your awareness or you can also just rest your awareness on one part like the hands or the feet or the face whatever you want and since we're talking about letting go I'm also going to encourage you to let go of any expectations about how this practice is going or how you want it to be or how it is in comparison to some other time.
Let go of all of that and just allow yourself to be profoundly present with how it is if you feel twitchy,
Nervous and that's just how it is right now.
Just notice where is that twitchy-ness?
Where does that energy come from in the body?
And if you feel more of a mood or mental state that's about being sleepy remembering you don't have to change that either you're just noticing how that is and not telling yourself a story about why you feel tired or sleepy but for this short amount of time just objectively observing whatever sensations might be associated with that.
And then your third option is just to rest your awareness and sounds.
It might be constant like air conditioning or heat or even the ringing in your ears.
They might come and go.
Voices,
Cars,
Noises you can't even identify.
And letting go of any judgment about those sounds.
That one's pleasant or that one's unpleasant.
Instead just in the same way we were deeply aware of our present moment experience with the body doing the same thing with sounds just observing them allowing your awareness to penetrate as much as you can notice about these sounds as they make contact with your ear.
Noticing where the mind is and if it's wandered into thought remembering that's not a problem just bring your attention back to the present.
That's that opportunity to notice to strengthen your mindfulness and then to very gently come back.
For the final few minutes as we explore this theme of letting go and in this week's case looking at letting go as being an opportunity to make space for what may come so that we can welcome it in.
So are there things that you can let go of either mentally perhaps some similar same old narrative that plays on a loop in your mind all the time.
Can you let go of that to make room for a new narrative that might be more productive?
And if you think about making room,
Making space in your life even when it comes to the choices you make or the commitments that you choose to sign up for perhaps thinking about letting go of some of those as well.
This end of the school year is a perfect time to let go of habits,
Let go of responsibilities that you take on purely by choice and of course many you do so because they energize you and you love them but some we do for reasons that aren't necessarily as energizing or rewarding.
Can we let those go so that we can make space for some new opportunity?
So just allowing yourself to consider the possibility of what you can let go so that you can welcome in whatever is to come.
Okay that was ten minutes.
So a different twist on letting go instead of this idea of unburdening yourself which of course has a great deal of value.
In this case it's more about letting go of things so that you can have more openness,
More spaciousness both really psychologically as well as in terms of energy expenditure and what you spend your time doing.
So over the course of this week I would encourage you to think about that and as I said during the practice for so many of us because we're coming into that final few weeks of school this really is an opportunity to think about are there some things that just don't feed you in the same way that they once did that you might want to pass along to somebody else someone with a different kind of energy or enthusiasm so that maybe you can actually pursue something else in some way either at school or in your life or in some other capacity so it's another thing to think about.
As always thank you so much for taking this time to practice and thank you for allowing me to accompany you on this journey and I look forward to seeing you guys next week.
Take care.
Bye.
