This is a meditation on distraction and it's to help you work with your thoughts and turn distractions into focus.
So first taking whatever position you'll be in for this practice,
Making sure you're comfortable whether you're sitting in a chair,
Lying down or standing up,
That's okay.
If you are sitting you might try shuffling to the front third of the seat so that your back is self-supported.
Planting your feet on the floor in front of you and finding somewhere comfortable for your hands to rest.
You can gently close your eyes or at the very least lower your gaze,
Soften your gaze and do look away from the screen.
And to begin with we're going to gently move our attention down through the body until it comes to rest at the points of contact.
Between the body and the floor or the body in the chair,
At contact under the soles of the feet,
The back of the legs,
The bum,
Perhaps the back against the backrest and just tuning into the very basic sensations at points of contact.
Sense of temperature,
Coolness or warmth,
Sense of hardness or softness,
Feeling of weight and pressure moving down.
And from there we're going to invite the rest of the body into the field of awareness.
So the legs,
The lower legs,
The knees,
The thighs,
Awareness filling the torso,
Front,
Back and sides,
Awareness moving down the shoulders,
The arms,
All the way into the finger and thumbs and inviting the neck,
The face and the head and then taking a few moments to rest in this whole body awareness.
Being with the universe of sensations in the body,
Just noticing what's here without needing to change anything or fix anything.
And then gathering up and focusing attention on the sensation of breath entering and leaving the body.
And if the breath is not a place of comfort for you,
You can continue to rest attention on the soles of the feet against the floor,
The hands,
Sense of the body as a whole or even sounds in the space around you.
But if the breath is a place of comfort,
Just finding somewhere in the body where those breath sensations are accessible,
Down in the belly,
Perhaps in the chest or the nostrils and throat and just following the breath in and out for a few inhales and exhales.
Now at some point if it hasn't happened already,
You'll notice that your attention is no longer where you intended it to be and that it's been carried off by thoughts.
Carried off into the past,
To memories or replaying past events,
Analyzing the past or it might be in the present,
In our to-do lists,
Our projects,
Daydreams or fantasies.
And very often the mind can jump into the future,
Planning,
Practicing,
Rehearsing the future,
Worrying about future events that are yet to pass.
The good news is this is perfectly normal,
It's a part of being human,
Just the mind doing what it does best,
Trying to help us plan,
Problem solve,
Trying to keep us safe.
The invitation is to simply notice those thoughts as they arise,
To notice when we've been carried away into the past or the future and then to note where the mind has gone.
It's really important information,
Helps us understand how our minds work and then gently,
Kindly,
But also firmly bringing attention back to the present moment,
Resting it on the breath,
Resting it on the points of contact or a sense of the body as a whole,
Steadying and stabilizing our attention here and setting an intention to do this again and again,
Assured that mind-wandering is not an obstacle to cultivating mindfulness,
It's an opportunity to cultivate mindfulness and that each time we bring our attention back to the present moment,
We are building mental muscle mass that allows us to be more present in our everyday life,
To notice when we're distracted and to make choices about whether we engage with that thinking or simply notice it and let it go.
It might help to see the mind as a frame of clear blue sky and thoughts as clouds moving across the frame.
Some thoughts are like very thin white and wispy clouds that come and go in an instant.
Other thoughts can dominate the frame,
Filling it with thick gray clouds.
But it's important to remember that just as clouds are not the sky,
Thoughts are not our mind.
A simply mental activity,
We're the patterns of the mind.
We can choose how to relate to them,
Whether to feed them or engage with them or just let them be.
So for the next couple of minutes,
In silence,
Coming back from distraction,
Whenever the mind wanders,
Doing so with kindness,
With self-compassion,
Noticing any criticism,
Any thoughts about getting it right and then letting those go too.
And now letting thoughts be in the background of the field of awareness.
Returning attention to the points of contact.
Feet on the floor,
Bum on the chair.
Letting these points of contact be center stage in the field of awareness.
And then letting our awareness grow larger,
Inviting the rest of the body in once again.
In the same way that air fills a balloon or water fills a glass,
Just permeating the entire body with awareness from the toes to the finger and thumb tip,
To the crown of the head and everything in between.
And resting here with a sense of the body as a whole until you hear the sound of the bells.
