Be Aware - A Holistic Practice For Well-Being

This will be a meditation going through the different stages and attitudes of the Be Aware acronym symbolising the six step process of the Breathworks mindfulness based pain management programme.

So to start with allowing ourselves to settle into our meditation posture.

If we're sitting,

Being on a firm chair,

Feet in firm contact with the floor,

Allowing the spine to rise up out of the pelvis following its natural curves with the head lightly poised on the top and have the hands resting lightly in the lap.

You can also do the meditation lying down if it's very uncomfortable to sit,

So choosing a position where you'll be as comfortable as possible and yet as alert as possible.

And taking some deeper breaths and on the out-breath settling into our position a little bit more.

Giving the weight of the body up to gravity,

Allowing the body to be held and supported by whatever the body is resting upon.

Having a general sense of the whole body and breathing in the whole body.

Can you let the breathing drop deep in the belly,

In the chest,

Feeling the movements in the chest and feeling movements in the back of the body and the sides of the body.

Seeing if we can allow the volume of the whole torso to expand on the in-breath,

Subside on the out-breath in all directions 360 degree breathing.

Allowing your breathing to find its own natural rhythm.

Returning our attention to our thoughts,

Our thinking process.

Having a general sense of the mind and seeing if we can allow the thoughts to come and go like clouds passing across a clear blue sky.

So we're not suppressing our thinking nor are we getting carried away by our thinking.

Using body awareness as an anchor for the mind again and again and again.

And whilst your emotional state,

Getting a broad sense of the emotional weather that's presenting itself in this moment.

Without any judgment,

Just waking up to how we're feeling,

Acknowledging that and seeing it as the background weather to the practice.

So the first stage being aware is waking up to our full experience physically,

Mentally and emotionally.

And breathing with whatever is arising.

Breathing in,

Breathing out again and again.

Now scanning through our awareness,

Paying particular attention to any resistance that might be present.

Any tightness,

Any tension,

Any pushing away.

And seeing if we can accept anything difficult as part of our experience.

If we've got physical discomfort or physical pain.

Allowing this into awareness with a soft,

Kindly quality of attention.

And breathing with this part of the body.

As soon as we push away pain,

We have contraction,

We have tightness,

We have resistance.

And this very often just makes the pain worse.

But by having the courage to turn towards whatever is painful or difficult,

Letting it be there as part of experience,

Breathing with it,

Then we soften the resistance,

We soften the contraction.

And we bring a little more ease into our experience.

Seeing if you can allow your breathing to have a soothing quality.

Making sure you let the out-breath go all the way out and then the in-breath will quite naturally flow all the way in again.

And now turning our awareness or our attention to notice anything pleasant in our experience right now.

Is there somewhere in the body where the sensations are pleasant?

Doesn't need to be grand or big.

It might just be a tingling somewhere,

A softness somewhere,

A warmth somewhere.

Turn towards these feelings,

These sensations and let them fully into awareness and enjoy them.

If there's a pleasant sound,

Maybe birds outside the room,

Seeing if you can let the sound come towards you,

Land in the body rather than your awareness flying out the window towards the sound.

So we're staying centered and grounded,

But opening our awareness to include anything pleasant.

And now let's broaden our awareness.

Imagine we're pulling back like a wide angle lens on a camera,

But this lens is a feeling lens.

So the field of our awareness gets broader,

More open and it includes everything.

The breath,

Anything unpleasant,

Anything pleasant,

Our thoughts and breathing with this breadth of experience in each moment.

And just as breathing is continually changing and flowing,

Noticing how all the other experiences are also continually changing and flowing.

What we think of as pain,

That maybe we think of as being hard and static.

When we go inside it,

We realize that this too is continually changing,

A flow of different sensations.

No two moments of pain exactly the same.

So if we've got discomfort present,

Let's spend a few moments feeling inside its flowing fluid nature arising and passing,

Arising and passing and let it be without automatically contracting against it for a few moments.

Like was anything pleasant?

Notice how this too is continually changing and let it be,

Enjoy it without automatically clinging onto it or grasping after it,

Allowing it to arise and pass,

Arise and pass within this broad field of awareness.

So it's as if we're resting back in the body in the moment and we're letting go of the tendency to push away the unwanted and to cling onto the wanted.

But we're resting back with receptive,

Open awareness,

Letting everything flow through the moments.

And now we can broaden and open our awareness still further,

Staying centered and grounded,

It's as if the circumference of our awareness is expanding.

And first of all,

Let's bring to mind a friend.

You can bring them to mind as an image,

A feeling,

A memory,

It doesn't matter,

But allowing them into awareness.

And spend a few moments reflecting on our friend's experience of being alive and you'll realize that their experience,

Broadly speaking,

Is very,

Very similar to one's own.

Their breathing,

They've got thoughts,

Emotions,

They tend to push away anything that's painful or difficult,

They tend to cling onto anything pleasant,

With all the consequences of those habits.

And all these tendencies are universal,

That's what we all do.

So let's drop beneath difference and rest in commonality for a few moments as we bring to mind our friend,

Resting with an awareness of all that we share.

Imaginatively breathing with our friend for a few moments.

And now let's broaden and expand our awareness on and on and on,

To include all life everywhere.

So we're staying centered and grounded,

But the circumference of awareness becomes very,

Very broad and open.

We can reflect that there's 7 billion human beings on the planet.

And deep down,

They're just like oneself.

Their breathing,

Thinking,

Feeling.

They tend to resist the unwanted,

They tend to cling onto the pleasant.

And this leads to all kinds of contraction,

All kinds of difficulty of one sort or another.

And this plays out uniquely in our own lives,

But the tendencies are universal.

So let's have a sense as we sit or lie here,

Of the whole world breathing.

Everything arising,

Everything passing away.

And feeling connected with all the other human beings,

All the other creatures breathing in and out,

Just like us.

Turning away from pain,

Running after pleasure,

Just like us.

So breathing in and out,

A breath of empathy and of connection.

And perhaps wishing everyone well as we sit here or lie here and breathe.

And as we draw the meditation to an end,

Let's think about what we're moving on to after the practice.

Our daily life,

Our activities,

Our meetings perhaps,

Mealtimes,

Talking,

Walking,

Commuting,

Whatever it might be.

And let's form an intention to bring awareness into our daily life.

So rather than just reacting to sensation,

To input,

Pushing away that which we don't like,

Running after that which we want,

Being trapped in these twin poles of aversion,

Pushing away,

Hanging,

Grasping.

Let's form an intention to introduce awareness and choice into our daily behaviour.

If we're aware,

If we know what we're thinking,

We know what we're feeling,

We know how the body is feeling,

Then on the basis of that we can choose how we respond.

So we can choose to respond rather than react in all the different moments.

Of course,

All of us forget,

All of us get lost in our activities,

Our habits,

Our thinking.

That's normal.

But perhaps forming an intention to wake up as much as we can,

Wake up to what's actually happening.

And in that moment of coming to,

Of catching ourselves running about,

Reacting perhaps,

Getting stressed,

In that moment we're aware and we can choose to stop,

To pause,

To breathe,

Come back to the body.

And then choose how we want to re-engage with our activities.

And we can remember the Be Aware acronym throughout the day and begin to cultivate a life of openness,

A life of choice,

A life of awareness,

A life where we breathe fully throughout the day rather than contracting around our breathing.

And we can see the effect that this has on ourselves and on the people that we come into a relationship with.

If we're more open and aware,

Gentle perhaps,

Then this will have an effect on all the people we come into contact with.

And then they'll change a little bit and then they'll be a little bit different when they go on to engage with other people.

And this is where awareness practice can be really powerful in terms of changing not only our own lives but the lives of people around us.

So with this intention,

Very gently we can bring the meditation to a close,

Moving the body however we want to.

And then gently re-engaging with the next activity,

Not rushing straight off,

Perhaps pausing,

Moving the body in a few stretches perhaps,

Perhaps having a cup of tea if we've got time,

But carrying this intention with us to be aware as we move into the rest of the day.