Mindful Boundaries

This month's Teaching Balance theme is Self-Advocacy, and a big part of this is establishing (and re-establishing) healthy boundaries. This practice begins with a short talk about mindful boundaries, followed by a 10-minute, mostly silent meditation.

Transcript

Hey there everybody,

This is Kristen from Teaching Balance and I am here with you with this week's mindfulness meditation practice.

And I am pleased to welcome you to the month of March.

Here we are in March,

Which of course really does I think symbolize that we've turned the corner on the school year and not quite in the home stretch,

But certainly it doesn't seem quite as far off,

Which is pretty nice actually.

And for this month,

You may or may not know,

Our theme is focused on mindful boundaries.

And that mindful boundaries is really an extension of self-advocacy,

Which of course is one of the four pillars of the Teaching Balance philosophy of mindfulness-based self-care.

And this idea of mindful boundaries,

We're going to explore a few different subtopics within that this month in each of our different weekly practices.

But the one that I wanted to have us start off with is just the idea of not overextending ourselves when it comes to commitments.

So for example,

This time of year that thankfully the sun is starting to set a little bit later,

We might feel like we have a little bit more energy,

At least where I live,

We have far more warm days where you can get outside and it's not too cold and all of that kind of stuff.

And with all of that springtime excitement,

I think there can be this quality of feeling like you can take on more,

Do more,

And all of that sort of thing.

And of course there is some truth to that.

But as you know,

One of the big things that I'm always trying to remind people of is to be aware of that idea and that enthusiasm and just to not set yourself up where you're overcommitted.

So really,

While this isn't specifically connected to our practice,

Our practice today is just going to be our usual 10 minute kind of standard mindfulness meditation practice.

My invitation to you for this week is to take a look at your calendar for the rest of the month.

Take a look at even your calendar if you want to for the rest of the school year and just consider what are the things that you have committed to,

What are some of the things that you have set up and do those things that you've signed up for really fill your bucket.

Do they have something that has a restorative quality like for many people getting together with friends just feeds their soul.

So if that's something that does that for you,

Are those the types of things that are on your calendar or if you're the type of person that really if you have too many social engagements and commitments it becomes overwhelming and you never get that chance to settle and calm again that might be true as well.

So just really honestly taking a look at your calendar looking to see what you've committed to and are there some things that you can actually take off your calendar or you know if you are the person who manages a family and of course with families there's lots of additional commitments are that there are things that you can either cancel or reschedule for the members of your family so that you're not necessarily committed to handling that in any way or there's some ways that you can set things up so maybe you're not the person who's managing it or you don't have to be the person who drives or all those sorts of things.

So that's really how I'd like for you to consider if you care to how to come into the month of March and really just being aware,

Paring back and resisting the temptation to maybe over commit and sign up for too many things or make too many plans in a way that would overextend you.

So let's go ahead and get started.

I'm going to set my timer for 10 minutes.

So if you haven't already,

Allowing yourself to find your mindful posture,

Closing the eyes or lowering the gaze and taking those deep breaths.

And let me show you if you can.

So as this partner does this really03,

You're going to Khim Cashu's Cass titled another intermediate trip idea or two that's going to benerveformed into meditation.

And when you're ready just allow your breathing to resume its natural rhythm.

In the interest of paring back and paring down and minimizing,

I'm going to try to make my directions a little bit less frequent for this one.

And if you love that idea,

Fantastic,

If you find that that's less appealing,

Just know that we'll always circle back to having a little bit more direction at different times.

So just go with it and let go of any expectations of how you want this to be or how this is going in comparison to some other time.

And then as you settle in,

Allowing your awareness to just rest on either the breath or sounds of the body.

Yeah.

Noticing where the mind is and if it's wandered off into plans,

Ideas,

Worries,

Any of those types of trains of thought.

Just notice you're not pushing the thoughts away.

It's an important distinction.

You're just realizing that you've been lost in thought with no judgment.

No,

It's not a problem.

And then just bring your attention back to the present.

You're just realizing that you've been lost in thought with no judgment.

You're just realizing that you've been lost in thought with no judgment.

You're just realizing that you've been lost in thought with no judgment.

You're just realizing that you've been lost in thought with no judgment.

You're just realizing that you've been lost in thought with no judgment.

You're just realizing that you've been lost in thought with no judgment.

Knowing that there's about four minutes left,

Just checking in,

Noticing what might be present for you.

Have you observed certain thoughts on a loop coming back again and again?

Or do you find yourself lost in thought in new and different ways each time?

And remember that you're not trying to change that.

All of this is about cultivating self-awareness.

It may be helpful just to realize that you're having those same thoughts or just to realize where your mind seems to want to take you.

And as we said before,

Not pushing that away,

Just acknowledging it.

And as you've heard me say before,

If you choose to,

Once you notice,

You can label your thoughts either as just in your mind saying thinking and then come back.

Or even more specifically,

Remembering or planning or whatever it might be.

Always with this lightness,

Not with a heavy-handed quality,

Gently bringing your attention back to the present.

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Okay,

That's ten minutes.

So hopefully you found that practice to be helpful,

A little bit more spacious,

A little more spare when it comes to the leading you.

And as I mentioned at the beginning,

I would encourage you to once again,

As you're looking into your spring season,

March and April and even May,

Just looking into what your calendar looks like,

Things that you have signed up for or committed to or plans that you've made,

And perhaps considering are there ways that you can keep from allowing yourself to be over-committed and to prevent the,

Just that being overwhelmed with all the things.

Even if it's a lot of great things,

Sometimes too much great stuff can also be as overwhelming as too much of anything.

So just another thing for you to think about.

So as always,

Thank you so much for being here and taking this time to practice.

And thank you for allowing me to accompany you on this journey,

And I will see you next week.

Take care.

Bye.