Strengthening Awareness With Labels (+10 Mins Silence)

Today we practiced 'Strengthening Awareness With Labels', followed by 10 minutes of silence.

Start with a traditional mindfulness practice: choosing a meditation object and focusing on it.

When your mind wanders label where it went, eg: thought, memory, sensation, sound etc.

Then with love and compassion, return your focus back onto the anchor.

Use the labels of 'distraction' or 'cloud' as a catch all, or for when you are not sure what distracted you. Labels can help you to better notice the contents of your consciousness.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the session, I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable, You can close down the eyes if you wish and just begin slowing down the breath, Taking some slow deep breaths in through the nose, Just relaxing the body a little bit, Taking a moment to check into the body into the mind space, If there are any surface level or things that you can release, Do so, Allowing your breath to return to its normal pace, Turn your attention to the breath, Really feeling deeply the sensations of the breath entering and leaving the nose, If you notice your mind wandering that's okay, Gently lovingly turn your focus back to the breath at the nose, This is the basic practice of mindfulness meditation, We pick an object like the breath at the nose and we focus upon it, Our mind wanders we bring it back, There's an additional tool that we're going to work with today to help us recognize when our mind has been wandering, It's called labeling, Your mind wanders into thought, You label it as thought, You don't go any deeper than that, You don't have to go into the type of thought or the nature of it or the strength, You label in your mind thought and gently return your focus back to the breath, If a memory arises and you find yourself exploring that memory, When you realize it, You just say the mental label memory and return your focus back to the breath, If you notice a bodily sensation, Some muscular tension, Once again just label it a sensation, Don't need to go any deeper than that, Return your focus back to the breath, If a sound captures you, Your focus turns to the sound, When you notice it, Label it as sound, Once again return your focus back to the breath, In this way, When you notice yourself distracted, You place a simple label upon it, Thought, Memory, Mood, Sound, Sensation and so forth, And simply return your focus back to the breath, The act of labeling enhances our ability to refocus upon the breath, If you notice yourself distracted but can't quite determine what to label it, Maybe it's a combination, A variety of thoughts and memories and sensations and overwhelm, You could choose to label that as a cloud, As in a cloud of different sensations all buzzing around, You notice it, You're not quite sure what it is, You label it as cloud, Then gently, Lovingly return your focus back to the breath, Your mind wanders, Label it, Return your focus back to the breath, The goal is not to empty the mind, And while we're trying to stay focused upon the breath, That's not the goal, Our goal is to be aware of where the mind is in any one moment, So when you notice your mind wandering, When you capture it in distraction, That is the win, That's the goal, You label it and return your focus back to the breath, And if in the moment of labeling, There's a tinge of annoyance or guilt or judgment at yourself for being distracted again, Label that as well, Judgment, Once again return your focus back to the breath, That's the goal, So in this session we're looking at using labeling to enhance our mindfulness, We choose an anchor, Typically the breath, Our mind wanders and we bring it back, And we enhance this technique with the tool of labeling, Sound, Thought, Memory, Mood, If it's an overwhelming feeling, Perhaps cloud, You notice your mind wandering, You bring it back, That's the goal, And over time we develop the ability to see where our mind is, How it's become distracted, And then we have a choice, A mindful opportunity to return our focus back to the breath, Back to the moment, Back to whatever it is we are doing, This ability transcends the meditation mat and it can be utterly transformative, But like everything it is a skill, We practice daily, Our skills improve, So thank you for joining me, I'll see you in the next session, But if you like we can meditate together for 10 minutes, Practicing mindfulness, Labeling, Or any other technique that you feel called to do so, This is your time, 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 inviting you back to your day, Back to your body, Back to this moment, Just gently returning, In this session we looked at mindfulness with the added tool of labeling, Mindfulness is the awareness that arises from purposely paying non-judgmental attention to the present moment, We practice mindfulness by picking an anchor, Typically the breath at the nose, When our mind wanders we bring it back, The mind wanders we bring it back, That's the practice, It's not emptying the mind, And although we're trying to maintain focus upon the breath, Our real goal is to become aware of where the mind is in any one moment, And the act of labeling helps us to better see that, And this technique will help you transcend the meditation off the mat into your real life, We don't meditate to be good at meditating, In the same way we don't exercise to be good at exercise, We exercise so that our bodies are stronger, Fitter, More flexible in real life, In the same way we don't meditate to be good at meditating, We meditate so that if something was to arise, We find ourselves lost in thought, Overwhelmed, Distracted, Emotional, Our mindfulness skills click in, Like oh I'm feeling something right now, Okay, Take a breath, Back to focus, What was I doing, What should I be doing, It gives us a breath, And in that breath we can make choice, So we use the skill of labeling, Oh emotion, Thought, Memory, Sensation, Back to focus, That's the goal, So thank you for joining me, And I will see you next time.