Welcome to this calming meditation designed to organize your thoughts.
Now,
As always,
I'd like you to find somewhere where you won't be disturbed,
If possible.
A quiet room maybe.
I sometimes meditate in my car.
So whatever works for you.
From here,
I want you just to find a comfortable seat,
So arrange yourself as you need to.
Heads crossed,
Legs straight up,
Sitting on a chair,
But wherever you choose to sit,
Sit up nice and tall.
Roll the shoulders back,
Open up that chest.
Imagine the crown of your head being pulled up towards the sky.
Imagine the weight of your body sinking into the seat at the same time,
So you have this lovely length through the spine.
From this tall spine position,
I want you to just gently close your eyes,
Begin to breathe in and out through the nostrils,
Just enjoying the capacity to breathe,
Enjoying the privilege that it is to breathe,
To be alive.
And while you're just lengthening each breath until you find a nice smooth pattern,
I'm just going to explain today's session.
So I recently moved house.
During that move,
I realized there are two distinct ways to pack boxes to move house.
Way one is that you systematically organize all the things into one box and you categorize the boxes by room.
You then make a lovely list to put on the box so that you know what's in the box.
That box will then go to the corresponding room where you can unpack it and know exactly what you have there and what you don't have there.
Way two is that you grab everything that you can see and cram it into any box that you can see.
I'm here to tell you that I am the type two person.
Now this causes many problems.
The real issue is now you don't know which box belongs where,
So they all get dumped into one room and it's hard to navigate your way through this room full of boxes.
Something you need might be at the back but you don't know because you don't know what's in each box.
So it can be quite anxiety-inducing,
Very frustrating.
What you need is to be aware of what's in the box and you need the box to be in the right room.
And it's got me thinking,
This is quite often the problem we have with thoughts.
They just get generated and they get generated at the wrong time.
A great example is when you try to go to bed and suddenly now is the time.
You can remember every task that you were supposed to do all day.
What you were supposed to pick up at the grocery store,
The invoice you were supposed to send.
But when you needed to do those things,
The thoughts were nowhere to be found.
The irony.
And sometimes we don't know what the thought really is.
So we have these random thoughts popping up just clogging up our mind,
Making it hard to navigate.
Just like I had in my front room when I first moved in.
It made life much harder.
And so can having too many thoughts that are unattended to and unexamined.
So today or tonight,
We're going to sort that out.
We're going to sort out your thoughts.
So while you're focusing on your breathing,
I want you to imagine that you're in a room of your choice,
In a house of your choice.
And it's as if you just moved,
But instead of all the boxes being in the room and you're looking for those boxes,
Those boxes are going to come to you.
They're going to float into the room.
You're going to examine those boxes and you're going to send them to the corresponding room to where you think they should go.
Those boxes in this instance,
Of course,
Are your thoughts.
So while you're thinking about your breathing,
For instance,
That's a present moment thought.
So that's going to go in the present room.
You of course could divide this up even further and say,
I'm thinking about how I'm breathing and that could go in the breathing room.
Remember,
This is an imaginary house,
So you can make it a mansion.
It can be a 30 room house,
Whatever you would like.
But when a thought comes in that is not about your present moment,
Maybe about what you need to do tomorrow,
Well you look at that box of thoughts and you go,
Ah,
This belongs in the planning room.
And you send that box on its way.
Maybe a box comes in and is about a fantasy,
Well then you send it to the fantasy room.
Whatever category you choose,
It's okay.
And when no thoughts come up in particular,
Well you can just rest and enjoy.
So stand in the middle of your beautiful room and let those thoughts come to you.
Now I'm going to give you some time to do that.
So I'll be quiet for a moment,
But you carry on sorting out those boxes.
Now the real trick here is that you don't let the boxes take you with them.
So in my instance,
If I'm thinking about tomorrow and all the things I have to do,
Well I may try to send that box to the planning room,
But guess what?
The box takes me with him,
Or it,
I don't know what the gender is.
And when I get to that room,
Suddenly I'm looking at all the planning I have to do for tomorrow.
That's not what we want.
That's not what we want right now.
So get yourself out of that room,
Go back into the room that you started in,
The one that is free of boxes,
And let those boxes come in and out.
Just don't let them take you with them.
Now again,
You may be full of thoughts,
You may have very few,
There's no right or wrong.
All we're doing is making sure the right thoughts go in the right place.
And if no boxes come floating into that room,
Well so be it,
You can enjoy the open space.
Maybe you have a lot of thoughts going on,
That's okay too,
We're just putting these thoughts into the right places.
But just pay attention and notice if there's certain thoughts that come up over and over again.
Is one room getting very full?
Again,
I'm not asking you to go to that room,
Just notice which rooms those are.
Notice too if there's a different reaction in your body when certain thoughts come in.
When you think about a loved one or someone you're having a hard time with.
Again the role isn't to get carried away with that,
But just to notice.
And then put that person or that thought of that person in the corresponding correct room.
Now before we come out,
I may suggest that if there's certain thoughts that came up during this that are urgent and need action,
For instance first thing tomorrow,
Then get a pen and paper and just write them down so you can get a good night's sleep.
Or if it's in the middle of the day,
You can start to action them right now.
I also would say,
Jot down which thoughts came up the most.
Which rooms were the fullest in your house?
And this may be a good inkling into what areas of your life need a bit of attention at the moment to reduce the amount of clutter in that room.
Alright,
Blink those eyes open.
Thank you so much for joining me,
I'm The Darwin Doug.
It's been a pleasure to take you through this.
I look forward to seeing you soon.
Namaste.
