Hello and welcome.
Thank you for taking your time to meditate with me.
Today I'd like to invite you to move from your mind into the calm.
Mind can be our most powerful ally or our worst enemy.
As Robin Sharma puts it,
Mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.
From the moment we wake up,
The wheels start turning.
An unconscious mind chooses the negative over the positive and builds a story around it.
Have you ever woken up and immediately start worrying?
Scientists call this phenomenon the negativity bias.
This is a relic from our past when survival was our first priority.
Although this is no longer the case today,
We still fall a victim of this primitive conditioning.
An unconscious mind has an amazing ability of turning even a smallest thing into a big drama.
Living this drama is a source of stress and therefore so many of us developed strategies to distract ourselves with pleasant experiences.
Watching TV,
Eating,
Drinking,
Smoking,
Sex,
Drugs,
The list goes on and on.
However,
The second that the TV show is over or the effect of the drag wears off,
We are back to the square one.
Our mind starts to wander,
Seeking again and what it finds is another worry.
Scientists from the Harvard University put it bluntly,
Wandering mind is an unhappy mind.
What is an antidote to an unconscious mind?
Obviously the conscious mind.
How do we know that we are conscious?
We are conscious when we are in the present moment.
From the present moment we can direct our mind,
Be the master.
Every form of meditation,
Including this one,
Strengthens your ability to consciously direct your mind.
Now that you have a choice,
Let us go into the calm.
Are you ready?
Begin by making yourself feel comfortable.
If you experience any obvious discomfort,
This is a good time to deal with it.
Your mind naturally focuses on any pain in your body as a mechanism of survival and since objective of this meditation is to achieve a relaxed state,
It is good to start in a position that is nice and comfortable.
Make sure that you sit with your back straight,
But not rigid,
Allowing unrestricted flow of your breath.
Put your feet on the floor.
Feel supported and grounded.
Your hands in open position in your lap.
Allow your eyes to close.
Now that you are sitting comfortably in upright position,
Let us take a couple of deeper cleansing breaths.
Breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth as if you are trying to blow a balloon.
Let's do it together.
In.
.
.
And out.
In.
.
.
And out.
In.
.
.
And out.
Breathe normally and relax.
Breath is a wonderful tool of relaxation.
It is also a wonderful gateway to achieve a state of calm.
Now,
Focus your attention on your breath.
Feel its natural flow.
For this meditation,
I will ask you to breathe in and out through your nose,
So you can feel your breath better.
Slowly start tuning in,
Feeling all the sensations.
It may be tingling of your nostrils,
Expansion and contraction of your chest,
Or rise and fall of your belly.
It may happen that you perceive your breath through your entire body and that's absolutely fine.
At this point,
Simply tune in and get accustomed to the natural flow of your breath.
You may already noticed that your mind started wandering.
That's absolutely fine.
This is all normal and natural and it's part of the process.
Do not get discouraged when your mind wanders.
You always can bring it back calmly and gently back to your breathing.
Imagine steering a canoe.
You don't need to paddle very hard to bring it back to its course.
A gentle paddle to the left,
A small paddle to the right,
And you back on your course to the calm.
It's all slowing down,
Starting to break down.
It's to cool your jaw and Serenade Counter Work out how well they run.
You may exist a new side view,
More attention to your head.
And now to fine tune this process,
Let us choose just one point of reference for your breath.
And for this meditation,
Let it be that small space under your nose where you can feel the coolness of the air coming in and warmth of the air coming out as you breathe out.
At first,
The sensations may feel very subtle,
But with time they will intensify and amplify.
Remember that meditation is a practice of a thousand returns.
And every time you can steer your canoe back into the flow of your breath,
That's what this is all about.
It may happen that your mind is very unsettled and it's very difficult to steer away from coming thoughts back into the stream of your breath.
That's okay.
Accept it the way it is.
There's no need to fight the current of the river.
It is what it is.
Sometimes it's calm and gentle and sometimes the current is very strong.
You simply do what you can calmly,
Gently,
Patiently,
Bringing yourself back to the calm one breath at a time.
If at any point of this meditation you feel disheartened,
Think about all the meditators right here,
Right now,
That sit with you and deal with exactly the same distractions.
They also try the best.
They also try to steer back from the worried mind into the calm of their breath.
Upbeat music playing As you go on and get accustomed to the quality of your breath,
You may start noticing the smaller details,
Like the fact that your in-breath is shorter than your out-breath,
Or that during the in-breath your body tenses up just a bit,
And during the out-breath your muscles relax.
Now,
Also notice the gap between in-breath and out-breath.
I'll let you practice now for a minute or two.
I will be here to hold the space for you and other meditators.
We'll resume after my video for just a minute or two.
You You Now it's time to return To conclude this session Shift your awareness from your breath back again to the sensations in your body Feel the temperature through your skin Feel your feet on the floor Feel your hands on your lap The pressure on your sit bones And now add some physical movement Start by wiggling your toes Of your fingers Tilt your head gently and slowly to the left Feel the muscles stretching Tilted to the right And to finish let us take together one deep cleansing breath In through your nose In through nose And out through mouth And when you're ready open your eyes and welcome back Thank you very much for meditating with me I hope you enjoyed this session I wish you a wonderful day
