This is a meditation to help us diffuse from our thoughts.
Thoughts can often be the cause of many of our anxieties and our stresses.
The difficulty isn't with the thoughts themselves,
It's how attached we are to those thoughts.
When we see life through the lens of our thoughts,
Then we can get wrapped up in their story,
Get wrapped up in what they're saying to us and believe their content.
The aim of thought diffusion is to try and take a step back,
To be the observer of our thoughts,
To imagine that we are sitting on the side and viewing the thoughts come in and going,
Not putting a negative spin on them,
Positive,
We just see them for what they are,
They're just thoughts passing through our brain.
So we're going to start by getting comfortable,
You can sit up nice and straight,
Make sure that your spine is straight and your head and your neck are aligned with your spine,
Roll your shoulders back and give yourself a little stretch to get comfortable.
Ground your feet on the floor and just take a few minutes to notice your body and notice what might need some movement.
What does your body need today to get comfortable for this meditation?
And when you're ready start to slow down and deepen the breath.
We're going to take a couple of rounds of breath together,
Five counts in,
Five counts out.
Breathe in through the nose,
Down into the tummy and breathe out slowly through post lips.
Breathing in,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Out,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
In,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Out,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
In,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Out,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
Try to make the inhale and exhale smooth as possible,
One fluid movement in to out.
In two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Out,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
In,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Out,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
Empty the lungs.
Pause,
Notice how you feel.
Now that we're comfortable and we've started to deepen our breath,
We're going to take a moment to imagine a river flowing.
Imagine you're standing on a grass bank,
It's a sunny day and the river is flowing just past you,
Just in front of the bottom of your feet.
It's running smoothly,
It's not chaotic or crashing,
It's gentle,
Slow,
Trickling almost.
You can see the sun reflecting off the water.
Imagine now,
As vividly as you possibly can,
The scene around you.
Imagine the sky,
The sun,
How that feels in your skin,
The water,
The sound of the water,
What it looks like,
Where the river flows in relation to you.
Just take a few moments to yourself to just breathe and notice and visualise the scene of the river flowing past you.
Now for this practice,
What I'd like you to do is to become very aware of your thoughts.
And whenever a thought comes into your mind,
I want you to imagine that thought is a leaf on the river.
So you place the thought on the leaf and then you just watch the leaf slowly make its way down the river,
Flowing from one end to the other.
It can be as quickly or as slowly as you'd like.
And then it just floats off the other end and you observe that.
Then when you notice another thought,
Again,
Place the thought on another leaf and just watch these leaves gently flow down the river.
Remember to continue to breathe,
Close your eyes,
Visualise the scene and really become aware of your thoughts.
The key here is to just pay attention to any thought that pops up.
It doesn't matter if the thought is negative,
If it's a positive thought,
If it's a neutral thought,
If it's a thought about the exercise,
Maybe you're questioning whether this works for you,
Maybe you're getting thoughts of boredom.
Whatever the thought is,
Just notice that it's there.
This is all about awareness.
And then watch it float away down the river.
Try this for a few moments on your own.
If there's a particularly emotionally charged thought or a thought that keeps getting stuck,
Maybe the leaf won't go away or won't float along the river,
Maybe it stays as it is.
That's absolutely fine.
You can just imagine that it's sitting there on a rock at the side of the river.
It's not doing any harm.
It's just there.
And now that you know it's there,
You can accept that it's going to stay there and continue with the exercise.
Notice any other thoughts that arise for you.
The aim here isn't to push the thoughts away or try and get rid of them.
It's to notice that they're there.
It's to increase our awareness and to see them for what they are,
Their thoughts,
Their leaves.
And we see them and when we become aware of them,
Then it's easier for us to let them go.
And sometimes if we can't let them go,
Then that's absolutely fine too.
They can just be there in our conscious awareness without having to have a big hold or control over us,
Without them needing to blind our view of the world.
We can still see all around us.
We can still see the sun and the sky and the grass and the water.
But some of these leaves are just there floating in and out of our awareness.
We can't control what they are or what their content is,
But we can control how we see them.
Continue to breathe deep and slow.
Notice if you get distracted.
Notice where your mind goes.
Put the thought on the leaf again.
Just come back to that visualisation.
Come back to what you can see,
Smell,
Taste in your surroundings.
Visualise the scene.
Visualise the leaves floating on by.
Know that sometimes our thoughts will try and get us to get tangled up in their story.
They'll try and get us to follow on,
To think about it even more,
To try and solve the problem in our mind.
But know that this meditation was your time to take a period out from thinking,
From doing.
Just to give your mind some peace,
Some calm.
And the more you can commit to doing the exercise,
To letting go of the thoughts,
The clearer your mind will be so that when you do return to your doing mode on your busy day,
You can do so with more clarity,
With more focus,
With more commitment to that because you've taken this time out.
So as tempting as it might be to follow on from what thoughts are coming up for you,
Try to just notice them.
Just let them go as much as you can.
Knowing that this is the time carved out for you to create some calm in the mind.
We're going to do this for a few more rounds of breath.
Really focus in now.
Notice your thoughts.
Notice the leaves.
Take some nice big slow deep breaths.
Just deep breath.
Notice how you feel.
Pause a minute.
Notice how the mind feels.
Maybe notice how the river feels,
How it looks.
How many leaves are still floating around now?
Is it calmer or busier than before when we started?
Whatever it is,
No need to judge.
Just notice it.
It's good to pay attention.
The more you repeat this exercise,
The calmer you'll notice the mind can become.
When you're ready,
Start to wiggle your toes,
Wiggle your fingers.
Bring yourself back into the room that you're in.
Ground yourself.
Open your eyes.
Now you can go move towards your day with more focus and clarity in your mind.
