Nurturing With Sensory Awareness

Facilitate desirable behavior change and cultivate positivity by working with clear parameters in visual, auditory, and somatic modalities: an introduction to the Unified Mindfulness techniques See Good, Hear Good, Feel Good and Be Good.

Transcript

Take a moment here at the beginning to check in with your posture.

You'll be in a position where your arms and legs can be completely relaxed,

So feel free to move if they're holding you up in any way.

So we're going to start with See Good.

See Good is a visualization practice.

It can be a very supportive technique for positive behavior change.

There are many ways you can do this,

So let's keep it simple today.

And select either to visualize yourself doing something that you want to be doing.

It may just be picturing yourself meditating at ease and comfortable.

It may be picturing yourself exercising,

Could be speaking in front of a crowd,

Calm and clear.

And the visualization can also be visualizing yourself letting go of something that you're wanting to drop in your life if you want to stop smoking,

Stop gossiping,

Stop using plastic water bottles.

So you don't need to worry too much about whether it's something really deep or something really light.

Because the point is,

As always,

We're strengthening our attentional skills.

We're building concentration by staying in mental image space,

Attempting again and again to focus on a positive mental image.

We're getting clarity by noticing where the image takes place,

How indistinct or challenging it may be,

How it's impacted by other sense experience.

So no matter what happens,

You get clarity.

And it's a very powerful equanimity builder.

Holding a mental image like this is challenging for most people.

So can we be okay with that?

Can we be even a little bit okay with that?

Let something be unclear.

Let some emotional reactivity happen in the background.

And just bring your attention back again and again to a positive mental image.

This is not a noting technique,

So we're just putting all of our attention into cultivating and or restarting that image.

See good.

It is recommended that you keep your image pretty simple,

Not like a movie,

Because that tends to lead to getting caught up in thought.

So just an image.

Okay.

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You may be able to see how supportive these techniques can be in terms of desired transformation improvement.

When you consider the function of how much time and energy you spend with your mind on what is going well versus what is not going so well,

And is this positive image of yourself right now any less real than a previous worry about something in the future that has never happened?

So see you good.

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So now let's let go of that and bring our attention to here in space.

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And we'll intentionally each call up a positive mantra.

So this could be something classic like,

May I be happy.

You could do a whole series of mental phrases.

It could be a single sound,

An om.

It could be a few inspirational words that you've heard from a teacher or a book if you've ever read or heard something that resonated so deeply for you that it felt transformative toward good.

That's a good mantra.

Maybe it is a few notes of music for me the first.

Hear good that I landed on was when my littlest child was just speaking and he would say I love you mommy said hear it in his sweet little voice.

So you may get mental images or body sensation emotional sensation,

Which is fine but if it pulls you turn your attention back to here.

The power of the hear good technique is pouring your attention into the contour of the very sound.

Not getting caught up in meaning.

But hearing the intonation hearing the coming and going of sound.

Pouring your concentration clarity and the equity into the positive mantra.

In a different way.

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You may want to activate with a mental image of something that seems to induce positive emotion.

And it's okay if that's a mixed bag.

Mental images can often carry complex emotions with them.

But we'll just put your attention on those that are positive.

Let the nonpositive be in the background.

If you have a proclivity for rest or flow states,

If those are dominating,

Then you may just turn toward where you feel positive emotion,

Usually in the body,

And notice.

Are those supporting emotion?

Because it's common that they are.

They commonly have pleasant reward flavors.

It can be really mild,

Really subtle.

You can enjoy how light a positive emotion can be.

And finally,

You can always smile.

And as soon as you even intend to smile,

Your face changes just the tiniest bit,

You may notice the activation of this positivity in the body.

So whichever method works best for you,

That's just the method,

Is just the moment that that mallet strikes the bell.

And then you turn to that resonance of the bell,

Which is this positivity in the body.

That's our focus range,

Is the positive emotion itself.

And you may have a strong sense of what it is,

A gratitude,

A happiness,

A love,

Or you may not.

It may just be a knowing that there's something pleasant and rewarding,

Nourishing and lovely to be with.

Anything on that spectrum is fine.

As long as it lasts,

You just pour your attention into that positive emotion.

And if and when it fades to the point that it's a struggle to keep contact,

Then you ring the bell again,

With your mental image or your smile or whatever looks best for you.

Ring the bell again and turn your attention back to positivity in the body.

You may notice that even if this is very subtle,

Whether it's subtle or strong,

This positivity can glow.

It might be able to expand if that's your intention.

It's like you can blow on this ember of positivity and let it glow and glow,

Perhaps to fill your body,

Perhaps to expand in the room and support your fellow practitioners here.

And if you're able to hold that expansive flavor of concentration with positive emotion,

Maybe you can expand it even further.

And maybe you can also be open to the positivity that's being offered to you at this time,

Within the room and around the world.

Many,

Many more people than we can count are in practice at this moment,

Doing their best to share loving kindness with you.

Now for just a few minutes at the end,

I'll put it all together.

See here,

Feel good is called be good.

And in a way it can be challenging because it's expansive over all the sense categories.

But in a way it can also be easier because you don't need to leave any sense category in the background.

So traditionally we use an archetype,

Any kind of saint or deity or image that you might be able to hold in your mental image space,

An associated mantra in your talk space,

And the positivity in the body that corresponds to those.

But you can also use something like a metapractice to hold all of these at once,

Preferably starting with yourself,

Or maybe a loved one,

A mentor,

A child,

A pet,

So that you can hold a mental image,

Either an ideal of yourself or someone you love.

You can wish this person well and place some attention on the positivity that that generates,

While also cultivating it intentionally.

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It may help to not try too hard here,

To not over-focus,

But relax your awareness so that you can cover,

See,

Hear,

And feel simultaneously,

With positivity running in mental image space,

Mental talk space,

And emotional body space.

But you won't notice them all at the same time at equal levels.

It doesn't have to be that precise.

Just have that intention.

Do the best you can gently.

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So we'll complete this Be Good practice in just a minute.

And when the bell rings,

See if you can transition somewhat slowly,

Noticing that you don't have to be cut off from positivity when you open your eyes,

When the thinking mind re-engages a little bit.

And when we start to have some discussion,

See if you now and then can notice a remnant of positivity in the body,

As Feel Good is our other most recommended background practice,

Along with Feel Rest.

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Thank goodness for insulting our people.

Reviews

Very gentle instructions, and I appreciate being walked though see, hear, and feel good. It’s a nice way to slow the mind, build concentration, and also work in some psychologically pleasing content. After this meditation I am feeling some residual goodness, still a little available in those spaces

Guided heart practices have all started sounding the same, to me. Not this one. I love the direct connection to the sense gates.