Hey there everybody,
This is Kristen from Teaching Balance and I am here with you with this week's mindfulness meditation practice.
We are continuing in this month focusing on gratitude and as we move our way through the month interesting things happening.
It's of course about mid-November.
We've already set the clocks back which always has an interesting impact in terms of our perception of time and all that sort of thing.
So it's just a comment to make about how there are these natural phases that we go through.
Now as I was thinking about that and I was also thinking a little bit about just sort of you know what it's a little it's you know take it for what it's worth but what do we aspire to and I don't mean like the lofty goals of you know goodness and all of that sort of thing but I was getting ready earlier today and I was thinking about that I was just sort of feeling this quality of relaxed peaceful contentment and I remember as I observed that about my experience I remember thinking like yeah this is what it's about and by that I mean excuse me that is kind of what I'm most of the time aspiring to to be as a state that I'm aspiring to to find myself in and so I don't know I just wanted to honor that because I do think even though it's not quite as literal interpretation of the whole concept of gratitude connecting to this peaceful contentment but I do think that it's a factor because when we allow ourselves to be slightly more predisposed to focusing on the positive i.
E.
Things we have to be grateful for the blessings in our lives it does slightly loosen our tendency or perhaps habit to constantly be scanning for problems and worrying about this or that those things happen too but the point that I want to make is that the result is I think this quality of a peaceful contentment and so I guess it's just something I wanted to point out for us for today and I think I'm going to very loosely weave it into our practice as well and just remembering that we can have this quality of peaceful contentment during our practice even when our practice isn't necessarily going in any particularly ideal way so we'll see kind of when we get started but let's go ahead and get our timer going for 10 minutes.
Last week we did more silence.
This week I'm going to come back to a little bit more of a guided of course.
So just beginning as we do either with your eyes closed or your gaze lowered.
I always like to roll my shoulders back too because I find they're naturally somewhat hunched but you do whatever feels right to you and if you have not already allowing yourself to take some of those slow deep breaths as best you can in this moment right now and remembering you can always come back to them.
They're not exclusively for the beginning.
What those deep breaths do activate your body's relaxation response which is also useful for getting a little bit more in touch with this quality of peaceful contentment which we're going to be circling around during our practice today.
So let's just take a few minutes just to settle in silence and then I'll come back in.
Clicking now.
.
.
Notice Just the general quality of your mind at the moment.
Are you feeling settled?
Grounded?
Or are you feeling perhaps a little bit more agitated?
Or perhaps your mind is racing?
Or somewhere in between?
And whatever your experience is up to this moment,
I'm going to invite you just to accept it as it is.
This idea of acceptance is also incredibly useful when it comes to touching into this idea of peaceful contentment,
I think.
Because if you're not striving to change anything or fix it or to get to some sort of idealized experience,
And you just allow things to be as they are,
There is an inherent relaxation that occurs.
It's fine if your mind is racing,
And it's fine if you're so tired that you're nodding off.
And allowing and accepting things to be as they are,
Even if you're not having some sort of blissed out,
Transcendent experience,
Which is exceedingly rare.
There can be a quality of contentment that arises through that acceptance and allowing of things being just as they are.
So I invite you to play with that for the rest of our sit today.
Just noticing how things are,
And remembering that it's fine.
You're just present and aware of how it is.
And allowing that acceptance to perhaps settle you even a bit more.
Let's play with that for a little bit.
Again,
Not too much pressure,
Not trying too hard,
Keeping it light.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
And for the last few minutes,
Just allowing ourselves to rest.
Just to rest in this accepting presence to how things are.
Letting go of any inclination to fix it or try to strive.
Instead,
Just rest and be here until you hear that final bell.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
That is 10 minutes.
Well,
I hope you found that there was a quality of peaceful contentment at some point in your practice today.
And I also extend warm wishes for some peaceful moments of peaceful contentment throughout your week ahead.
Just a gentle invitation to keep playing with that whole idea of three good things.
Calling to mind three new each day,
New each day.
Three things that you feel gratitude for or happy about or excited about or whatever it might be.
And as always,
Thank you so much for taking this time for yourself.
Thank you for allowing me to accompany you on this journey.
And I'll see you next week.
Take care.
Bye bye.
