Hey there everybody this is Kristen from Teaching Balance and I am here with this week's mindfulness meditation practice.
We are in the month of self embodiment focusing on being in tune with our bodies,
Listening to their signals and really just honoring them in in one way or another.
And it's funny as I was reflecting on what our theme for this week could be,
One of the things that I think comes up a lot and I address this in some of the other videos related to this theme is that there's just a lot of like I keep using the word baggage I can't think of a better word a lot of baggage around anything relating to the body.
Now you may not feel this way but I definitely do and a lot of it is around you know just aesthetics and I don't know idealizing certain sort of like forms and desirability and all this crap and you know it's still present but I do really believe that the more we become aware of it the less impact it can have on us in a sort of like sneaky subconscious way.
And the other piece around health I think is interesting because there's also this scary thing around health you know you know people worried you know I know some some people don't don't go to the doctor for fear of getting bad news which of course is not really useful or productive regarding maintaining your health and you know making sure that you're a partner with you know a medical professional in making sure that you know things are in good working order.
And so with a lot of this whether it's about health,
Wellness,
You know physical whatever there can be I believe a good amount of negative self-talk and the phrasing that I'd like to use in particular this week is a lot of self-flagellation and of course that just means whipping yourself you know with some sort of like a whip like thing like the flagellum right remember that from science.
Anyway self-flagellation is when we beat ourselves up you're whipping yourself for some reason some quality of shame and thinking that that is actually going to you know teach you a lesson or something.
And I've talked about this before what we know is that negative self-talk,
Self-criticism,
Beating yourself up,
Self-flagellating whatever phrase is most resonant for you is counterproductive and all it does is it just continue it additionally stresses your system and you don't learn a lesson and it actually does not have a positive impact or at least it doesn't help further you toward this outcome that you're sort of hoping to reach.
So instead of having this you know predilection to do so which so many of us do and it's kind of societally reinforced I think as well,
My invitation to you is to resist any temptation to beat yourself up this week.
Now I'm talking about it in the context of health,
Your body,
Self embodiment of course being our theme so again that's like you know drinking enough water,
Food,
Movement,
You know all of sleep all of those things.
And even though I think there's so much value in bringing the these topics to the forefront and to the forefront of your attention as something worth giving your energy to,
I also don't want to lay more you know BS on you regarding feeling bad about something you know that you feel like you're not doing successfully that's not the point of this.
And so I circled around this my invitation to you is just to when you feel this come up whether it's in this context of wellness and health or some other context just be really aware of what it's like like you know pay attention to what are the phrases that might come up in your inner voice that are belittling you and demeaning you and making you know beating you up.
Explore them with a quality of curiosity and interest in the same way that we do in our experience of meditation.
So you know you notice a physical sensation and you don't get pulled into the story of why and you don't put a value judgment on it as pleasant or unpleasant.
We're trying to cultivate this rather objective witness perspective for our actual meditation experience and then the strengthening of that capacity to have mindful awareness in that way expands beyond just the meditation experience into our everyday experience and a great example of that is when you notice negative self-talk or you know beating yourself and self-flagellation.
So that's my invitation to you is just to notice it and honestly if that's all you do and just hold it in your awareness I think that's fantastic.
If you wanted to even take it a little farther you could also really just start asking yourself questions like is that really true?
You know am I label X because I action one you know or whatever it might be and just really looking at it without allowing yourself to be pulled into it almost as though we're happening to someone else and just to look at it with a little bit more objectivity,
A little more dispassion,
A little less identification and see if that has a useful impact on how you relate to that experience.
So that's really it my invitation to you is just to if in whatever context wellness or health or otherwise self-criticism and self-flagellation arises just to allow yourself to pause and notice and again if you stop there great and if you take a closer look at it and see it perhaps with more objectivity and you may find that it allows you to master it and not be as affected by it which I think is somewhat of a superpower.
So let's go ahead and cultivate this particular superpower of objective,
Impersonal,
Disidentified awareness.
I'm going to invite you to find your meditation posture.
Let's go ahead and take those three long slow deep breaths allowing that deeper breathing to help stimulate your relaxation response helping your dust to settle and also allowing you to more fully drop into your body.
We often reside more typically in our minds or our heads even in the thought bubble above our heads and not in our physical bodies from the neck down so those deep breaths allow for a little bit more of that embodiment connectivity and feeling what it feels like to be in your skin.
You might feel gravity holding you in place the places where clothing makes contact with your body and places where the air makes contact with your skin and if you're finding yourself drawn to resting your awareness on the breath or sounds you're welcome to allow yourself to choose an anchor that feels somehow supportive to you today and of course the body is also an option.
So I'm going to give us a little bit of space a little bit of silence just to continue to settle in and I'll check back in a few.
So let's sit together for a while checking in and just noticing where your attention is in this moment.
If it's wandered into thought,
Imagining,
Remembering,
Planning or whatever it might be.
Before you come back I want to invite you just to allow yourself to with that objective awareness take a look at that thought that you were just in a moment ago experiencing and if you care to you can label it with some specificity like worrying about my relative,
Imagining a fun thing to do,
Whatever it might be,
Kind of deepening the experience momentarily.
Then we're not pushing that thought away,
We're leaving it and we're just pivoting our attention back to our anchor whatever it may be in this moment.
Zero judgment,
Zero pressure,
That objective impersonal quality that we bring to our meditation experience is also brought to those moments of getting pulled into thought and of course that moment of noticing you were lost in thought is what strengthens your capacity to be objectively mindfully aware.
So let's just sit together for the final few minutes until you hear that final bell.
So as I mentioned in the intro just noticing if at any point in this week or at any point henceforth you notice an inner critic,
A voice in your mind where you beat yourself up and are unkind and self-critical and just notice in that objective way that we were just talking about.
Notice what it's saying,
Don't get pulled into it.
It's as though you were eavesdropping on a conversation between two other people and then if it's interesting to you explore it a little further with that quality of objectivity and just see does it dissolve,
You know,
Does it lose its meaning,
Does it become more two-dimensional and allowing yourself just to play with the impact that that has.
So as always thank you so much for taking this time for yourself and thank you for allowing me to accompany you on this journey.
I will see you next week.
Take care.
Bye.
