Mindfulness Meditation Intro For Parents - 10. Body Talk

So today I'm going to talk about the mindfulness of the body and why we want to bring attention to the body.

I'm going to share an example of what being into the body might be like and what we automatically do and why in challenging situations.

And finally we're going to talk about how to practice mindfulness of the body.

So in the previous classes I have talked to you about the misconception that people often have about mindfulness meditation.

One of them is that mindfulness meditation is about transcending the body.

The media have distorted the practice to sell us the product of power over the body,

Not aging and even not having to feel the body at all.

And some of these are true and have been demonstrated scientifically,

Especially the not aging parts,

But something really in our society pushes us to consume in a way that makes you stop feeling your body.

However it's not what mindfulness is all about.

On the contrary it's to connect more fully with the body because when we live dissociated from our body we're not getting the message of our body intelligence and our heart wisdom.

I can tell you an example that is fairly recent for me.

During the last Christmas holiday we decided with my husband to take the kids out on their bikes.

We have a big forest nearby and it had been a while we hadn't gone outdoors and it was a sunny day so we took the boys and our little one kind of retrained himself on how to stand on the bike and by the end of the outing he was feeling quite confident and so both boys were racing down a little hill.

And my youngest,

Who always wants to compete with his big brother and he wants to win some things,

On the last race,

And I had already said that I wanted them to stop and us to go home,

But this last race he didn't stop at the bottom of the hill and he fell on his shoulder and I was at the top of the hill still and that ran down to them and I could see he was crying a lot and as I was walking down the hill I felt very aware of my fear for him,

The knot in my tummy and the stress that was building all over my body and especially in my jaw and I started my process already,

Started breathing through and feeling my tummy breathe while walking and it didn't take very long,

It probably took only 10 seconds,

But doing that when I arrived and I saw my husband was shouting at him and telling him to stop crying and he wasn't that bad,

To get back on his bike and to push back his bike up the hill,

I had already knew something,

Something in me knew.

I arrived,

I kneeled down and and breathed deeply,

Looked in my son's eye and I could see his pain and his fear and I ignored my husband's protest,

Who wanted to be listened to and wanted him to get up.

I carried my son back up the hill and sat on the bench and before I even look at him I knew something was wrong and I knew something in me,

Not even my thought,

Just knew that I needed to take him to the hospital,

That he had broken something and while I checked and I saw a red mark on his collarbone,

My husband just moved from screaming to utter panic,

Saw the red mark on his neck and just went in this kind of fight,

Half fight,

Half freeze mode.

He was so angry and I just said to him,

Whether you're with me or not,

I'm taking him to the hospital and something switched and he went to get the car and while I remember the episode when we discussed it on the following day,

As a stressful time but one where I was connected to my body and emotion and one where I was confident about making the right decision.

My husband remember himself being very scared and panicked and all was coming out of him was anger and something that is important is that I knew the right decision.

So what we are naturally doing in moments of suffering is we disconnect from our body and when this happens we are not getting access to the right thing to do,

To this instinct or intuition that we hear about and we don't trust life.

We take refuge in our mental control tower and for many of us it actually is something that is exacerbated if when we were very young we felt out of control and unsafe.

So when this happens and when this happens repeatedly we will feel things like tiredness,

Exhaustion,

Fatigue.

We'll feel anxious,

Especially about what we're not paying attention to,

This part of our body we're not paying attention to and we will try to numb and escape.

So the Dalai Lama when he was being interviewed about his book on happiness he was asked what was his happiest moment by the interviewer and he answered with a little grin on his face I think now and it's because the Dalai Lama is always present.

If you try to remember a happy moment do you notice that you can almost feel it physically?

So try now and remember like a lovely dinner party or a meal with your family.

Can you smell or remember the taste of the food?

Or a lovely holiday.

Can you remember the sound or the breeze on your skin?

It's because in those happy moments some of them you're physically embodied and you remember all of those physical sensations.

So how do we practice mindfulness of the body?

A Buddhist teacher instruction was don't do anything that takes you out of your body.

So if you've done the mindfulness of the body meditation,

That was just the track before this one,

Did you find that the instruction make it more difficult to stay in your body or did it make it easier?

For most of us it makes it easier because if we don't have the intention our minds leave our body but if we do have the intention and we remind ourselves of that intention then we can be in the body.

Our conditioning is to hold when things are pleasurable and to push away things that are unpleasant.

So because of that we will overindulge on nice things like food and drinks or scrolling the internet.

Kid and adult too will only want to play.

It's a bit like this comic of a mum who is saying to her husband I made the kid go outside and get some fresh air and you can see the two little kids on the grass who are on their computer in the garden.

And when things become difficult we tend to dissociate and exit emotionally and physically.

So similar to the breath practice,

Mindfulness of the breath,

When we try and reconnect to the body we focus on the sensory input.

We focus on the touch point in the body.

Your hands sometimes even holding something like a big stone,

A pebble,

Will help.

The feeling of your breath and your body moving with it or something like sound.

We can,

Like Tyra Brack advice,

Feel the body sensation from the inside out.

So if now you take your two hands and you rub them against each other until you feel like some warmth in them and then hold them still apart but in front of you and shift your attention inside your hands.

Can you feel that gentle vibration?

It is not the contact of your hands with the outside,

It is just the natural vibration that you can feel in your hands and if you practice mindfulness of the body you'll be able to feel that vibration inside your entire body.

And like for the other meditation practices what's very important is to bring a lot of kindness to this experience.

We're not used to being within our body so it is likely we'll be leaving it over and over.

So you just notice when that's happening and you invite your attention back into the body.

You don't judge,

You just remind yourself of your intention to be more present with it.

And finally in this practice you want to bring two main questions.

What's happening inside?

You bring that with curiosity and interest.

And can I be with it?

This enables us to reenter the body.

When we look at our children,

Especially when they're very little,

Most of them are naturally present in their body.

As they grow they are pulled away.

They're taught to use their mind by us and by school and by society to think.

Often we tell them also to ignore their feelings and sensations.

So we want to reenter but we need to do it carefully.

Sometimes our body has carried us through trauma,

Little trauma or big trauma and some way of bringing attention will be too much.

And if that's the case you don't want to go where it is overwhelming straight away.

You want to find a neutral point that will help you resource yourself tenderly.

Sometimes the same focus point that you've had in some of the meditation that we did might be the breath,

It might be a focus point in your body like your hands,

Your sit bones,

Your feet.

And what you're going to do is you're going to want to pendulate.

I don't know if that's really a word but just imagine a pendulum swinging from one side to the other.

You feel the body sensation that is uncomfortable and when it's overwhelming,

The sound,

The pain,

The anxiety building,

You return to this resourcing sensation,

That focus point.

And you do that over and over again.

And you will see you will build your stamina to endure this overwhelming sensation and you won't feel like enduring it after a while.

So this body has been given to you at birth and you really want to reenter it,

Forgetting all the gift that he has to give you.

You need to accept that.

So I've introduced in the previous track two new practices,

A walking meditation which is split really into a hand walking meditation and a sound meditation.

The walking meditation which you do with your hands is one that I was introduced by Jonathan Faust in the training that I was doing to become a teacher.

And I've got a lot of great feedback on that because it allows people that don't feel comfortable walking to do something different.

You can walk a few steps in your garden,

This is my favorite,

If you feel comfortable with the proper walking meditation.

Or you can also use a path that you walk often by yourself.

It can be from your shop to your house or to the postbox.

The idea is to focus on the sensation of your breath and the movement of your feet.

You can extend it to the movement of your entire body.

For sound meditation you can use bells,

Chimes,

Or you can also listen to a piece of music that you like.

I would say no lyric is best,

Not to engage your mind too much,

Otherwise you're going to hear yourself sing along in your head out loud.

You're observing the sounds appearing and disappearing.

You can also go back to the body scan that we've practiced a few classes ago.

But you can also take a few moments during your day to connect back to your body.

When you're having a cup of tea or coffee you can feel your hands on the cup,

The texture of the cup.

When you're walking to the bathroom you can take the slowest step that you can and feel the entire movement of your feet and your body.

Or between meetings you can take three slow breaths and feel your chest or your tummy inflate and deflate fully.

I have set up my watch to vibrate every 15 minutes.

The app that I'm using is the bell,

Meditation bell.

It's the app from Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village.

And when I notice it I know that I'm more connected to my body than when I don't.

Some days I will spend an entire day just not noticing it.

Right now actually it's just vibrated like one minute ago.

And when I'm able to notice it I know that I'm more connected and I'm often calmer too.

Whether it's bias or it's reality you should try it and draw your own conclusions.

So I've shared with you some ways to connect to your body.

Why you might want to be more connected.

But you should also have an understanding that it is natural for all human beings to try and disconnect from our body when we experience situations that are unpleasant.

As well as our way of being raised and raising our children encourage us to disconnect.

I hope my example of wise decision and even intuition will convince you to try and reconnect to your body more often.

I like the way that Pema Chandran expresses it.

She says it's also helpful to realize that this very body that we have that's sitting here right now with its aches and its pleasure is exactly what we need to be fully human,

Fully awake,

Fully alive.

Thank you for listening.