Applied Mindfulness Meditation

This meditation is an intro to the process of Dr. William Jackson's Skillful Means Program. It is intended to help people integrate insight into their daily life. It follows 4 steps 1. Coming to the senses, 2. Allowing the body to breathe naturally, 3. Feeling the natural breath, 4. Gaining insight into an important area of life.

Transcript

So in this meditation,

We will go through a couple of different parts.

The first part will be checking in with your senses.

The second will be resting your attention on the sensation of the natural in-breath and out-breath.

And the last part will be asking yourself four questions about your area of well-being,

The one area that you feel like is the most important to start with.

So just making sure you have that in mind right now.

It could be physical health,

Mental health,

Relationships,

Relationship dynamic,

Whatever it happens to be that you want to focus on.

And what we'll do is just put that to the side,

Put that to the side for now,

This area that you want to work on in your life.

And then you can find a comfortable position to sit in.

And as start of the mindfulness meditation,

I'd like you to begin by coming to your sense of sight.

Just realizing that you can see and that you are seeing sort of meta cognition,

Meta awareness.

Taking in your surroundings,

It's part of your meditation and noticing to start different colors that you can see.

And rather than labeling the colors being,

You know,

Engaging your thinking mind,

I'd rather like you to just experience the colors.

Almost like what does blue feel like and brown and green,

White.

And realize that actually every color is very different,

It's very unique.

So just,

There's not a name for all of them,

So just taking in all those colors.

Experiencing them.

And then also shapes.

Noticing colors and shapes.

Seeing.

Noticing light and shadow.

Notice when your mind starts up again,

Starts thinking and coming back,

Just to seeing.

And then you can let your attention start to rest,

Maybe a little bit downcast.

And noticing your peripheral vision.

In a way,

Letting your eyes kind of glaze over.

Just notice your peripheral sight.

And also the limitations to your sight,

What you can't see.

Can't see behind you.

Can't see who's watching.

And then next,

Beginning to let go of sight,

You can allow your eyes to close.

And even as your eyes are closed,

You might have images that pop through your head.

And when that happens,

You can just think to yourself,

Sight.

And let go of that and come back to the next object of attention.

So next we will focus on sound.

And starting to be aware of the soundscape of wherever you are.

And maybe beginning with the sound of my voice,

You can notice as the sound of my voice changes,

Higher and lower,

Starts and stops.

My voice might crack.

Just noticing all the different sounds that you can hear.

And noticing sounds far away.

Might be emanating from far away from you.

Whether you're outside,

It might be birds that are far away,

Or sounds of leaves,

Or whatever it happens to be,

City sounds.

And then also sounds that are coming from nearby.

So you might be in a room,

You might hear air conditioning,

Or heat,

Or even sounds coming from your own body.

You might notice sounds of movement,

Sounds of your breath,

Even a ringing in your ears,

Or digestion.

And if you're still enough,

Maybe even your heartbeat.

Noticing when your mind floats away,

And coming back to the soundscape.

And beginning to let go of sound,

And coming to the next object of meditation,

Which is the physical body.

So in our physical body we have feelings.

So even noticing if there are any emotional feelings present.

And allowing those to be whatever they are.

Not trying to change them,

Or make it better.

Just allowing.

Being aware,

Allowing,

Letting go of resistance.

Allowing feelings in to be part of the meditation as well.

And then continuing more so as with the physical body.

Starting with sensations in your toes,

Your feet,

You might feel tingling,

You might feel pressure,

Your feet might be in shoes or socks,

Or on the floor.

Just noticing temperature,

Pressure,

Tingling.

Feelings in the tops of your feet and ankles.

Feeling sensations in your shins and calf muscles.

Feeling sensations in your knees,

Thighs and hamstrings.

Feeling the weight of your body on a meditation cushion,

Or seat,

Or bed,

Whatever it happens to be.

And noticing sensations in the pelvic area,

Lower belly.

And again,

Noticing when your mind floats off somewhere else and coming back to actually feeling.

Just noticing the sensations,

Pelvic area,

Lower belly,

Stomach.

And in that area,

You'll also might notice some tension.

And you can allow the tension to relax and to release.

You don't need to force it away.

And if it doesn't go,

Just allowing it to be there as well and being curious.

And noticing the movement of your body.

Noticing the movement of the breath in your body,

In your lower belly,

Your stomach.

You need to feel movement in the chest.

Feeling the spine supporting you as your body moves with the breath.

And feeling sensations around your good heart.

Again,

You might feel emotions in this area.

Solar plexus around your heart.

And they may not be emotions that you can label.

And they might not be strong enough,

But they can be emotional type feelings that are available to you.

And feeling sensation on the shoulders,

Arms,

Forearms,

Hands and fingers.

Feeling temperature,

Tingling,

Pressure.

And coming up to feeling sensations around your shoulders again,

Your throat,

Neck and jaw.

Feeling sensations around your teeth,

Gums and tongue.

Feeling sensations around your cheeks and eyes,

On your nose,

All your facial muscles.

So really feeling,

Feeling all the sensations in your face.

And allowing your facial muscles to relax and release.

In your forehead,

Scalp and ears.

And allowing the whole body to relax and to release into a stillness.

And in that stillness,

You can actually let go of all the things that you're doing.

All the tension in your body,

Allowing your body to breathe.

And the stillness is a felt experience,

But the body actually continues to move with the natural breathing.

So letting that natural breath be like an involuntary breath.

So you're not doing,

You're not controlling,

You're letting go of all of that.

Noting that stillness,

But allowing the body to continue to breathe naturally.

And just for a moment,

Just for a few breaths,

I'd like you to savor the sensation of breathing.

So wherever you feel it in your body,

Noticing where you actually feel the breath.

And you might feel the breath.

Breath in the lower belly,

Stomach,

Chest,

You might feel it in your throat,

Around your nose.

And just for a few moments,

Continuing to allow the body to breathe naturally.

Just for about 10 breaths,

I'd like you to feel the breath just in one area.

This is going to really help calm your mind.

If you can continue to return to one area,

Feeling the breath from one area.

I'd like you to feel it just around the nose,

Feeling it around the nostrils or upper lip,

Noticing when the mind is away and then coming back to feeling that breath in that area.

And if you can't quite feel it,

That's okay.

Just bring your mind to that area and kind of hang out in that area waiting for a sensation of breathing.

Osaurs Yeah.

I'm feeling three more breaths.

And now that we're in a little bit of a different state of mind,

A bit more mindful,

More wakeful,

Or more clear,

I'd like you to invite in a few questions.

So I'd like you to bring to mind this area of well-being,

This area of your life that you want to work on,

This dynamic,

This relationship,

Whatever it was that you wanted to start with,

Choosing one.

And just as you would notice,

Your mind drift off from the feeling of the breath and then return.

In the same way,

I'd like you to notice when your mind drifts away from the area of well-being that we're looking to gain insight into.

And as we go through the questions,

I don't want you to immediately think of the answer.

I want you to let it percolate a bit.

I'd like you to let the question hang in your awareness and let the answer arise.

Okay,

So letting go of problem solving and really allowing for this essential balance of intuition and the thinking mind.

So I want you to trust yourself and let some natural solutions float to the surface and take your time.

And maybe something will come up for one of these questions or all of them or none of them,

But being patient and kind of going through these.

So the first one is,

Why is this area important to me now?

And you can notice what feelings come up,

Maybe memories,

Moments.

Why is this important to me now?

And there might be a sentence that pops into your head.

And the second question is,

What would my well-being look like in this domain?

So if I was to thrive in this domain,

What would it look like?

How would I be acting?

How would my behavior change?

How might others?

And third,

What would it feel like?

What would be the felt experience of thriving in this domain of my life?

And then lastly,

What actions can I take in my real life?

What are some small steps that I can make towards this vision of well-being in this area of my life?

And again,

Letting that sort of come up,

Letting that arise,

Not forcing yourself,

Not pressuring yourself,

But letting that slowly arise.

What actions,

What effective actions could I take?

They're really small.

Could I take in this area of my life?

So coming back to the breathing and close out this meditation.

So just feeling the breath a little bit more,

Just for three breaths.

Allowing this to not be fully finished,

But something that you can return to.

This is one domain.

If you're to do the full skillful means program,

You can do this with all the domains of your life that are really important,

Really align your whole life.

It takes time.

It takes support.

So what I'd like you to do now is go to step four,

The integrating insight.

And I'd like you to clearly lay out the next step,

Right?

The next steps for yourself.

How are you going to apply this insight that you just gained into why this is important to me now?

What my wellbeing would look like in this domain?

What it would feel like to thrive in this domain?

And what's the real action that I can take?

I'd like you to start jotting down some notes in the next section.

And then when you're finished with that,

Reach out to me,

Make a free appointment to chat with me about how you can apply this to other areas in your life.

I'll talk to you soon.

Reviews

Great Meditation! Thank you

Thank you! It was awesome. You have a pleasant voice and it's the first time I wasn't distracted during the meditation