Hi,
This is Stephanie Boxerbaum.
Thank you so much for meditating with me today.
For today's practice,
I want to do a how to calm a reactive mind practice.
And just to share a little bit on this topic.
Oftentimes,
We can just be reactive,
Like no matter what it is,
Maybe you're in traffic,
Maybe you are waiting in line,
Maybe you get a work email that kind of sets you off in a different direction.
And the first place I like to start with all of these types of sort of reactive types of scenarios for the mind is to allow yourself some ease.
I think oftentimes in the mindfulness space,
We can sort of declare that we must have a mindful reaction to every single thing that happens,
Simply because now we're practicing mindfulness or meditating.
And I think that we have to allow ourselves to be human.
So we're practicing meditation and mindfulness not to become this perfect light of ease and calm all the time,
But to allow ourselves to be well resourced.
So when you are facing challenges,
Or just a lot on the mind overwhelm,
You know,
We have places and spaces to go to help give ourselves more ease,
Not necessarily to say that whatever you are reacting about,
Or the challenges that you're facing will immediately disappear,
But more just to ease the suffering in any given situation.
One teaching that I love from Pema Chodron is about the second arrow.
So if you've heard of this before,
The idea is let's say you drop your smoothie all over the floor,
Which obviously isn't pleasant and no one likes,
But throwing the second arrow is then making yourself feel terrible about it.
And so what we want to do is not throw the second arrow.
When we are facing times of challenge or making mistakes,
Or,
You know,
Kind of going through something that maybe feels frustrating.
The idea is how can we practice being gentle with ourselves?
And so for this practice,
We're really just going to allow some peace,
Some cultivation of an invitation to remind ourselves that,
You know,
We practice in these moments.
So that way in real life,
We can begin to come back to what it feels like when we're practicing the way we are now,
Just silently sitting in a calm and peaceful environment,
Hopefully,
Or even if not,
When we allow ourselves in our minds to calm to settle without a lot of external circumstances around us.
The goal is that when we are in our day in and day out life,
What we're doing and practicing in meditation can feel more embodied and a place to go to in times where we may need a little bit of extra resourcing to find more ease.
So on that note,
Coming to a comfortable seat or any position that really feels supportive to you.
Maybe you need a blanket.
Maybe you feel like doing mindful walking today.
Whatever it is,
It's really about finding something that feels good.
Taking a gentle deep breath in and a gentle deep breath out.
Gently closing your eyes or finding a soft gaze.
And beginning to let the body settle.
And we'll stay here for these next few minutes.
Just bringing in some light.
And allowing yourself to know that you are exactly where you need to be right now.
Nothing to fix.
Nothing to change.
Being as gentle with yourself as possible.
And calmly resting in this moment.
On this next gentle inhale in,
Bringing to mind a situation that doesn't cause a lot of distress,
But perhaps is something that's on your mind lately that feels a little salty,
Feels perhaps a bit reactive.
And with your mind's eye on this topic,
Not going into the deeper stories around it,
But just noticing where do you hold this tension in the body?
What comes up when you ask yourself,
Where's the tension I'm holding in my body?
And it's totally okay if you don't have an immediate answer.
We just simply want to make space for ourselves to ask the question.
There is no right or wrong answer here.
And once you've kind of figured out where maybe that hard kind of sticky spot is of what it feels like,
Beginning to ask yourself,
What do I need?
What do I need?
And the idea here is what do I need to soften this?
Maybe it's a conversation.
Maybe you need to journal a little bit on it.
And sometimes in some situations,
We just need a bit of acceptance.
How do we allow ourselves to be with what is?
So in this moment,
Just seeing what's there,
And we'll play a little bit of music,
Just allowing yourself to really be supportive here.
You are allowed to have needs,
You are allowed to ask for what you want.
So with this situation,
It may feel a little bit tense.
What is it that you need?
And on your next deep inhale in and a gentle exhale out,
Finding a compassion phrase.
And this is something that you can do at any point in the day.
Often when we do a formal self-compassion practice,
We pick three phrases.
But I'm a big fan of this idea that we can pick one phrase.
Maybe it's as simple as,
May I find more ease today.
May I find more ease today.
And just playing around with how that feels for a moment here.
And picking a phrase that really works for you.
I'm going to set a timer here and you'll hear the music in the background.
And just simply repeating this phrase in your mind silently.
Bringing yourself back to center,
Knowing that the mind is going to have a lot of thoughts,
But you can simply bring it back to your phrase.
At whatever pacing you want to go.
Just gently repeating the phrase silently to yourself.
Taking another gentle inhale in and a deep exhale out.
And thanking yourself for taking the time to practice,
For investigating having more ease in your life that can be beneficial to you and those around you.
And there's always this invitation,
I always like to say this reminder that you can practice a mindful moment at any point during your day.
And when we can use an anchor point,
Such as a compassion phrase,
It's kind of that little reminder of this moment that you're in right now,
Where you've taken the time to care for yourself and to really look a bit deeper.
And as always sharing this reminder that you are always enough as is.
Thank you so much for meditating with me today and I hope to be meditating again with you soon.
