Today's meditation is about taming those negative thoughts.
First of all,
We have to recognize that we are thinking and what kind of thoughts we are having.
So finding a comfortable seat and as usual,
We'll start to bring the attention to our breath.
Our breath becomes a point of focus.
As you'll see in a moment,
Our mind will become a point of focus as well.
Continue to just deepen the breath,
Maybe sign with an exhalation,
Audible exhalation,
Just to release any physical tension from your body.
And just take in a few more moments just to settle into that breath.
And as you start to arrive in your practice today,
You might start to pick up on an inner judge or something that occurred today that you labeled as bad or something that brought you a fear or worry.
We could even label it as a negative thought.
So take a moment to maybe reflect upon your day or the week or anything that's occurred to you lately.
Maybe there's a person that comes to mind.
You might even bring to mind something that you have done in the last day or so where your inner critic has knocked at the door.
And take a moment to just focus on the word or the sensation of this negative idea,
This negative thought or this negative word.
All of these negative experiences that we label as negative or judgments,
These are also forms of energy in our body,
Just like joy,
Just like happiness,
Just like the opposite positive emotion or positive thought.
We can label it sort of as a bubble or a wave that rise out of the sea of our awareness,
Of our consciousness.
And sometimes our thoughts are really sometimes just so creative that those thoughts can take us places that only the human mind really can.
They can take us to places of fear,
Hostility,
Or even frightening thoughts.
These thoughts can transform ourselves in a moment from maybe a state of ease to a state of contraction to a state of negativity.
And yet at the same time,
We have the choice,
We have the opportunity to transform this thought into its opposite,
Which too is a form of energy.
So the moment that we can recognize that our fears,
Our negative emotions or thoughts,
Our criticisms,
Judgments,
Whether they be of ourselves or whether they be of another,
This is energy.
This is energy that either stays in our body,
It can create contraction in our body.
So I'd like for you to take a moment to feel this quote unquote negative emotion and feel it in your body as energy.
So again,
Either a thought,
An experience,
A word.
Noticing where it arrives in your body.
And then how does it feel in your body?
Do you feel heat,
Warmth,
Cool,
Tension,
Tightening?
If you could label the sensation just as sensation.
And then to recognize that this sensation in our body is transitory,
Just as the thought itself.
The moment that we either release the judgment,
Criticism,
Or we have acknowledged it as so,
It may have dissolved.
Just note if you are holding on to it,
Does it stay present somewhere in your body?
Or has this place in your body now resolved back to a natural or a normal state?
Return to your breath.
Allow yourself to slip into a state of spaciousness with your breath.
If you're experiencing shortness of breath as this thought or this idea has created any kind of anxiety or fear or worry,
Acknowledge it.
Where does it land again?
And recognize that the mind has continued to hold on and has continued to place worry in this area,
Wherever it is in the body.
And it might have taken on a larger form or has it returned to a more quiet,
Calm,
And placid state?
If we continue to focus on that energy that the mind has created,
It is possible that our body comes to a state of dis-ease with worry,
Criticism,
Judgment,
Fears.
And if we can turn it around and see our thoughts as energy,
Then we can change the way that our thoughts form these waves of awareness,
Of feeling,
Of sensation in our bodies.
And it's not to avoid,
But it's really to acknowledge.
And it's important that we,
Even just in the thinking of being critical or judgmental,
Whatever we're experiencing,
Biases,
That these are again just waves of our awareness.
And these are waves of consciousness that once they have come to the surface,
We can then choose either to acknowledge that they have risen to the surface and hold on to them and kind of ride the wave,
So to speak,
Or as we acknowledge them as energy,
We can let them dissipate back to the smooth,
Calm waters of our mind,
An expansive awareness,
Expansive breath.
And we find clarity and a more relaxed state of being.
Thank you.
