Last week we learnt about the DNA skills that are inside all of us.
They were the discoverer skill,
The noticer skill and the advisor skill.
Today we are going to learn how we can practice mindfulness so that we can learn how to strengthen these skills,
Especially when our advisor skill is doing its normal everyday acrobatics.
The noticer skill helps us to take a pause from our advisor for just a little while so that we can choose what we'd like to focus on,
What we would like to do next using our discoverer skill.
And when we make noticing a habit we inject far-reaching and long-lasting benefits into our lives.
Let's explore this four-step meditation together which will help us work on our noticing skill.
Let's start with noticing our posture and our bodies.
Noticing where your body is right now.
How are you sitting?
Are you sitting on a chair?
Perhaps you're sitting cross-legged on the floor,
Kneeling,
Maybe you're standing.
All are fine.
The idea is to take this moment and practice noticing where you are and what your body is feeling like.
Next,
Feeling your breath,
Following the sensation of your breath as it goes in and as it goes out.
Where are you noticing your breath?
Are you noticing it mostly in your nose,
Perhaps in your throat or your chest or maybe you're noticing it somewhere else?
Just noticing your breath as it goes in and as it goes out.
You might want to discover what it feels like when you take a little bit of a deeper breath than normal.
Noticing how that feels in your body.
Now,
Noticing when your advisor has wondered.
Inevitably your advisor will leave the breath and wonder to other places.
When you get around to noticing that your advisor has wandered off,
In a few seconds,
Perhaps longer,
Simply returning your noticing skill to the breath.
Finally,
Being kind to your wondering advisor,
Seeing if it's possible to not judge your advisor or obsess over the content of your advisor's thoughts.
Just coming back to your noticer again and again and again.
