Mindfulness Of The body

This practice has a dual focus. We go into the body when the mind is full of discomfort because it is an anchor in the present moment, even if that is currently in fear. We can allow our fear to pass without holding onto it. Noticing what the voice of the ego says can help us overcome it. We may notice a repetitive judgement or concern. Once we know that is a repetitive thought pattern, we are better able to decide if we want to go there so often.
Photo by Kev Costello on Unsplash

Transcript

So let's pay attention to where we're going to put our body. So starting with our feet let's plant them on the floor so that our knees are in a neutral comfortable position. Our legs are comfortable somewhere they can be still for a little while. Let's take a deeper breath and as we inhale we can lengthen our spine a little bit and as we exhale let's relax into the chair a little bit softening our shoulders, Softening the muscles of our face, Allowing our arms to rest somewhere comfortable and if we can imagine our head balanced at the top of our spine so we don't need to use very much energy to hold it up. We've parked our body essentially we've left it somewhere comfortable. Let's take a few deeper breaths and as we do so we'll see if we can close our eyes and bring our attention inwards so away from the stimulation of the world around us and bring it inside our body and because we may not be used to it being so quiet in here we're going to bring our attention to our feet so not thinking about our feet feeling our feet whatever we feel in our feet that's what we're going to give our attention to so we might feel clothing or shoes against our skin maybe hot or cold you may be able to feel the little tingle of nerve endings pressure of the floor against your feet or you may feel very little and this is where we introduce the second aspect of the practice I want you to focus on your mind so as you experience whatever you experience in your feet I invite you to notice what your mind has to say about your feet and if it wants things to be different from the way they are so as we move towards our ankles our shins and our knees we feel the physical sensations there are to be felt we also see if we can catch any opinions judgments criticisms that the mind has to say about it they may be subtle we may not be used to paying attention to them but we do this because it's that wish for things to be different that sets up a gulf between where we are and where we would like to be sets up dissatisfaction so focusing on our thighs and our hips and seeing if we can maintain this dual focus on the physical sensations and on any commentary in this type of mindfulness meditation we do not choose to quiet the mind we see that there's probable frustration and irritation we choose to observe the mind observe its habitual patterns its tendency to criticize and grumble and want things to be different and drive us to action that tries to make things different and once we've noticed that maybe we're trying to make things different are we able to actually let things be as they are surrender allowing things to be exactly as they are so that means if you have a pain in your knee allowing it to be there and that sounds completely the opposite of what we would normally want to do but when we are not striving to change things there is peace if our mind is chattering constantly distracting us with thoughts about the past and the future can we accept that and just return to the focus as soon as we've noticed so bringing our attention now to our back our belly and our chest there's a lot going on there so let's give it our attention for a few moments the physical sensations in this area so noticing the physical sensations and what's going on in the mind as a response to our focus taking the attention now to the arms and the hands once again with this dual focus of the physical body and our mental response to our physical experience may be able to feel the cool air against our skin or clothing maybe you can get a sense of the internal structure of your arms the bones and the muscles and the tendons maybe a slight fizzy or buzziness in your hands from all the nerve endings waiting to sense touch and we can also observe what the mind makes of it all or maybe it wants to go and do something entirely different maybe he thinks this is boring can we just notice and become the observer of our experience so lastly taking our attention to the head and the neck and the mind might well have a lot of judgment about this bit of us it's very public bit of our body can we bring our observation skills to the fore the physical sensation and our mental response for the last moment let's see if we can get a sense of our whole body sitting breathing any judgments there we might like it we might not like it boring or peaceful can we notice it all so and then perhaps taking a deeper breath and beginning to reanimate the body and even now we don't turn off our analytical faculties we're noticing how that feels as we start to move our hands and feet our wrists and our ankles our arms and our legs paying close attention and taking a stretch if that's for us and then as we open our eyes return to our regular waking state just noticing how we feel now