Welcome to this meditation.
This is based on a traditional mindfulness practice.
This purpose is to make your usual unconscious stream of thoughts,
Emotions and sensations conscious.
The way we feel and act is often hijacked by thoughts and feelings that happen so quickly we are not even aware of them.
All of the sudden we are upset or anxious or angry in a situation that needs our attention and care.
Make yourself comfortable either sitting or lying down and close your eyes.
Let your attention gently scan your body for physical sensations like cold or heat or tightness or relaxation.
Then start to notice any thoughts or emotions that may be passing through.
Whenever you notice a thought or an emotion,
You have already started the practice.
And once you notice,
Name what you notice with the one word,
Like thinking or feeling or sensations.
It's really important to notice any judgment or criticism of your efforts.
Just add one more of the labels,
Congratulate yourself for noticing and watch whatever comes next.
This simple step of naming and noticing creates just a bit of space between you and your experience.
You notice that thoughts and emotions begin,
And if you let them be,
They end,
And you create a place where you can choose to follow them or not.
The next part step is to do your best to notice and name all thoughts as just thoughts and all emotions as just emotions.
So what good does this practice do?
It will help you notice the acts of thinking and feeling themselves instead of the content of individual thoughts and feelings.
Thoughts and feelings of all sizes and shapes,
From mild to overwhelming,
Come and go.
Try it.
You may find it a relief to see that the hundreds of thoughts you have each day are just one thing,
Thinking,
And your thinking isn't you.
The last step is hidden in the first two.
When you notice and name and do your best to treat all your thoughts and emotions the same,
You begin to sense a part of you that is not in the thought.
It is aware of experiences,
Able to witness them,
But not caught in them.
There is a place of clear,
Compassionate witnesses of everything that's happening.
If you're someone who is sometimes overcome by troubling thoughts and emotions,
This is really a relief.
With a bit of practice,
This witness's awareness becomes more familiar and has a kind of draw to it.
There's a calm and peace to this place that is aware of your thoughts and feelings,
But isn't part of them.
So the two wings of this practice can help you in challenging times.
The first wing will show you how to have a lighter touch on your thoughts and feelings,
To let them move rather than holding on too tight.
And the second wing brings you into connection with a quiet,
Always-present space of calm inside you that can be your oasis in hard times.
And the more you practice,
The more accessible that space will become.
Now take a moment to reflect.
Did you notice a particular thought or feeling that was hard to label and move on from?
Were you able to sense the witnessing space in you that noticed and named what was happening?
Thank you for being here with me today.
