Hello friends and welcome.
This is a meditation for uncovering negative thought patterns with compassion and non-judgment.
Our thoughts often occur in a loop that can result in ingrained patterns or beliefs that keep us stuck.
Meditation can increase our moment-to-moment awareness in order to help us identify those patterns with compassion and non-judgment.
Find a comfortable seat or lay down and close your eyes.
Connect in with your breathing.
Notice the breath.
If the mind wanders away from this moment,
That's okay.
Just gently redirect the mind back to the breath.
Try to rest for a moment in this primary state of being.
Like pictures on a movie screen,
Start to explore an area of your life where you experience unease,
Frustration or even unhappiness.
Maybe this place in your life is where you continue to have the same or similar experiences with the same or similar patterns and outcome.
Without judgment,
Start to visualize yourself in these experiences.
Allow yourself to rest for a moment in the discomfort that may come up with these experiences.
Being with it from moment-to-moment.
Start to put that experience up on the movie screen.
Take yourself from being inside those thoughts to being outside watching those thoughts moment-to-moment.
As you observe what's happening in this moment,
What can you visualize yourself doing?
What do you notice yourself feeling?
Can you allow yourself with a gentleness to think about the first time you remember feeling these feelings?
What is your earliest experience with this feeling or situation?
Can you notice for a moment the quality of energy associated with this experience?
Maybe there's a heaviness or an anxiousness or even physical sensations that are uncomfortable that accompany this experience or emotion.
Can you meet this moment with compassion for yourself,
Kindness toward yourself?
Now start to reflect upon this experience and reflect on the entire pattern of the experience.
What happens right before?
What are you feeling or thinking right before you experience these feelings or patterns?
What events potentially lead up to the habit?
When does it actually begin?
And now allow your mind to start to notice what happens right after.
What happens right after this thought or feeling or habit?
Can you notice what you're feeling in this moment?
Can you reflect on if this experience or feeling or habit was happening to someone else,
Someone that you cared about?
What would you do for them in this moment?
What would you say to them in this moment?
Could you for a moment imagine that this pattern is just a habit,
Something that can be changed?
Allow yourself to come back to your breathing,
Redirecting the mind from the thoughts to the breath.
The sensation of the inhale or exhale.
If the mind wants to move back to being busy,
That's okay.
With kindness and gentleness,
Bring the attention back to the breath,
Back to this single point of concentration.
Start to actively deepen your breathing now.
Maybe you bring some gentle movement into the hands and feet.
Maybe you rock the head from side to side or even take a deep stretch.
Maybe you start to gently open your eyes and take in slowly your surroundings.
Thank you so much for joining me for this meditation.
Be well.
