Hi,
My name is Mark Curran-Westmiquette.
Now this is a practice for those days where the mind is racing,
Racing.
We've got thoughts like a blizzard and we've got fidgety and frustration and I just don't know what to do.
I can't meditate.
Yes,
You can.
Absolutely.
It's not about how many thoughts we have.
It's really about our relationship to those thoughts and feelings and all the things going on.
Let's just settle the body.
Finding a comfortable meditation posture.
You might be sitting on a chair or sitting on the floor.
And I know those days where everything is moving at a million miles an hour it can often feel a bit frustration or fidgety or restless in the body too.
So don't worry about getting the perfect posture,
Just sitting comfortably wherever you've got is I'm sure fine and then just lowering your eyes or maybe even closing your eyes.
And turning your attention to the feelings landscape inside.
So when things are racing and fast moving,
It really helps.
To make a very strong anchor for your awareness.
And I think the best anchor that I know about is the breath,
The feeling of breathing.
So we don't have to change the breath or make it do anything in particular,
Long or short,
Just breathing normally.
But really focus your attention like a really a narrow beam of light.
On the feeling of breathing.
A gentle in.
.
.
And out.
And it can help even more so to count the breath.
Breathing in one.
Breathing out too.
Breathing in three.
Breathing out four and like that we can count up to ten and then just start again at one And the more we can focus,
The more we can really laser beam onto the feeling of the breath and the counting,
The more all these thoughts and feelings and all the rest of it can just be in the background.
The Blizzard of Thoughts the ideas,
The to-do lists,
All the rest of it.
The memories,
The judgments and the feelings in the body.
It's a bit like there's a storm going on on the ocean.
The waves are crashing,
It's raining,
There's lightning coming from everywhere.
But you know,
Like in a storm on the ocean,
If you just sink beneath the wave,
It doesn't have to be very far.
And suddenly things become a bit stiller and quieter.
And that's really what we're doing here.
We're not denying the storm.
We're not judging it to be bad or wrong or something we need to get rid of anyway.
The storm can crash around,
Do whatever it needs to.
We can just sink underneath the storm.
And be in this place.
Where it's a little bit calmer and stiller,
Maybe more spacious.
A good friend of mine said that meditation is about learning to be at peace.
With not being at peace.
And it's like it for all of us,
Me included for sure.
Not being at peace.
Is just part of being a human.
We have blizzards of thoughts and racing ideas.
It's just normal.
We don't have to judge it to be bad or think we're a bad meditator.
It's just about creating that strong anchor.
To allow us to sink beneath the storm and just hang out in that place where we're not really paying the storm much attention.
And then of course,
Inevitably,
We get caught up and swept up and we're being.
.
.
Bashed around on the surface of the ocean again,
We're in a thought,
We're thinking about things,
We're worrying about things,
And then.
.
.
As soon as we notice.
Just let it go and just come back to that anchor.
Come back to the breath.
Come back to accounting.
Sink beneath the waves.
And like that.
We can meditate on days where it's calm.
And Days Red Stormy,
And it's no problem.
It's all good.
