Hello and welcome to the session,
I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable,
Close down the eyes if you wish and just begin slowing down the breath,
In through the nose,
Low into the belly and slow,
Just taking a moment to check into the body and check into the mind and releasing any surface level tensions that you discover,
Taking one more slow deep breath and then allowing your breathing to return to its normal pace and turning your attention upon it,
Today we'll be practicing mindfulness with our anchor being the breath,
If you ever notice your mind wandering just gently,
Lovingly return your focus back to the sensations of the breath entering and leaving the nose,
Paying real close attention to the sensations of the breath,
Attempting to capture the entirety of the breath as it enters and leaves the nose,
Today we're going to be exploring a concept with known as focused and broad awareness,
Focused attention versus broad awareness,
We've already begun the focused attention component,
We're focusing our attention on the sensations of the breath at the nose,
But we can allow a small percentage of our mind to be scanning the rest of awareness,
Other aspects of the mind space,
Sensations in the body,
Thoughts,
Not paying direct attention to them but almost just tracking them from our peripheral vision,
We maintain our focus upon the breath when our mind wanders we bring it back,
But with broad awareness,
Peripheral awareness,
We just track other things that might pull our attention away from the breath,
There's a thought,
There's a sensation,
Here's a feeling,
There's a sound,
You sort of label it before you lose your attention on the breath and you bring your attention back to the breath,
That's the practice,
We're maintaining our focused attention upon the breath,
If at any time we become lost and we realize it,
Gently,
Lovingly return our focus back to the breath,
But today we're also using a concept known as broad awareness,
Keeping the percentage or two of our mind just tracking what's arising,
Labeling it,
Just sort of noting where it is,
In that way we are ensuring that it doesn't take over,
That it doesn't shift the focus of our attention,
We notice the thought in the peripheral,
It's like oh thought,
But we maintain our focus upon the breath,
The majority of our focus is upon the breath but we're just tracking the other things that are arising,
Let's try this now,
If upon hearing my voice you realize you've become lost,
That's okay,
Gently,
Lovingly return your focus back to the breath,
So the process of mindfulness involves us just tracking the contents of consciousness,
Non-judgmental awareness of the present moment,
It involves us becoming aware of what's in our mind and we practice this by focusing upon a meditation object like the breath,
Your mind wanders,
You bring it back,
Your mind wanders,
You bring it back,
But focused attention can act almost like a microscope,
Very good at seeing things very specifically but if the point of focus shifts,
It stays focused upon the new object,
It can bounce around,
So you're focused on the breath intently and then it shifts to a thought,
A mood,
A memory,
A sensation and you may not realize it for some time because we're really focused upon that new thing,
So a way to intervene,
A way to help it stay focused upon the breath,
Focused upon the thing we're trying to focus upon is to add a layer of broad awareness around it,
Peripheral vision,
It's like we've got one eye down the microscope and one eye keeping an eye out for the environment to make sure things don't shift our point of focus,
The broad awareness helps us see what's coming,
It's still an aspect of the mind so we're getting more awareness of the mind,
It's like a deeper mindfulness practice,
We're tracking things as they come and by doing so we're not going to be blindsided by them,
It's another little trick to maintain our focus upon the breath,
If this technique helped you or you think will help you to maintain focus,
Keep using it,
If it seems out of reach or seems like it won't work for you,
That's okay,
Everybody is different and you develop a toolbox of mindfulness techniques like focused attention and broad awareness or perhaps labeling or counting or any of the other things we've covered,
You find what works for you,
Thank you for meditating with me in this session and I'll see you next time but if you like,
You can sit for 10 more minutes practicing the focused attention and broad awareness or just basic mindfulness or anything else that you'd like to work on today,
Let's begin okay,
So if you'd like to maintain the meditation you're more than welcome to do so,
But for everyone else just gently returning,
Returning back to your body,
Back to the session,
Back to your day,
Today we practice mindfulness meditation,
Focusing our attention upon the breath but also activating some broad awareness,
Broad awareness to help us track potential distractions,
Oftentimes and with practice if we capture things in broad awareness,
They don't take our focused attention away from the breath,
I want to remind you that everything we're doing here is a skill and what that means is that with practice,
With focus,
With questions to help go deeper into the practice,
You will get better,
The more you practice mindfulness,
The easier it gets or rather the deeper you can go,
So I encourage you to continue practicing,
Continue exploring,
To continue returning your focus back to the object,
Thank you for joining me today and I'll see you next time
