Hi,
And welcome to Mindful Minutes with Matthew.
Today I want to invite you to join me in a different mindfulness practice,
Which is about being here now.
And you can do this wherever you are.
I happen to be sitting outside today because you can see behind me it's a beautiful blue sky and it's nice and it's warm enough to sit outside finally.
But you can do this anywhere,
Sitting at home,
In your living room,
Lying in bed,
Whatever's comfortable for you.
Find a position where you can spend a few minutes comfortably,
Whether that's in a chair with your feet flat on the ground,
Or maybe a cushion on the floor,
Or on the couch,
Any place that you can be comfortable and not be interrupted by other folks.
Give this gift to yourself in just a few minutes of quiet time and see what you get out of it.
But the idea of the Be Here Now practice is.
.
.
Start with a breath,
Notice that you can just breathe any way that's comfortable for you.
And then as you breathe and exhale,
Just notice your surroundings.
Notice what's around you.
If you're in a room,
Notice what's on the walls of the room or the other furnishings that are in the room.
I'm noticing some different trees,
Pine trees,
Deciduous trees,
And oak.
Dirt on the ground,
Some rocks,
Some big rocks.
So after you take in visually for just a few seconds or moments,
What it is in that space,
You might wanna then tune into your ears and listen.
What do you hear in the space?
What are the noises?
Perhaps if you're home,
You hear the hum of the air conditioner or the heater.
You might hear neighbors' voices.
Or maybe like me,
You might hear some birds chirping if there's a window open,
Maybe you have a bird.
Maybe you hear people talking in another room.
Or a dog barking.
Just take it in,
No judgment,
Not good or bad.
It's just take in where you're at.
Like a symphony of dogs.
And after you've listened for a few moments,
I want you to play a little game with me.
And imagine that you could rise up,
Rise up out of your seat and look down not just on the room that you're sitting in,
But in the whole building or space that you're sitting in.
So if you're in a house,
Maybe you're looking down at the top of the house from up in the sky.
If you're in an apartment building,
You're looking at the whole complex.
If you're sitting outside,
Maybe you're just a few hundred feet in the air looking down at the area surrounding where you're sitting.
And imagine what that looks like.
What you're seeing.
Seeing yourself there as a dot in the midst of something a little bigger.
What else are you taking in?
The surrounding roads that are maybe neighboring to where you are.
Any movement of vehicles or people that's happening if you're in the city and there's people on the sidewalks.
And there you are in your room,
In your space.
But I want to invite you to rise up even higher than that.
So now,
Not only are you there in your space,
But you can also see the surrounding city or town that you're in.
Noticing all the people,
All the movement,
Everything that's going on at this time in that place.
Knowing that you're just one small part of that,
But you're part of this larger whole.
And take in everything that you can about what is happening there and what's not happening.
Now I want to invite you to go up even higher and imagine that now you can see the entire state that you live in.
The entire state that you live in if you're here in the United States,
If you're watching from another country.
Maybe it's just the entire region of where you're at.
And notice where you are in relation to the rest of that state or region.
Notice what you can about that and imagine what all is going on there at this very moment while you're sitting where you're sitting.
What all those people are doing,
How they're keeping themselves busy.
Let's go one step higher and now let's look at our whole country.
Right,
Whatever country you're in.
And look at the whole country and imagine the millions or billions of people in the country who are doing what they're doing at this very moment,
Just like you're doing what you're doing.
And how you fit into all of that and how you're connected to all of them.
Whether you like it or not.
We're all part of something.
And you know where we're going,
We're going even higher so now we're not only going to see ourselves as part of a country,
But we're going to see a part of ourselves of the hemisphere.
We can see the whole half the planet where we sit in our place versus what everything is going on in the planet,
Not just the people but the animals,
But the weather patterns all of mother nature,
The oceans,
The lakes and everything that's happening.
All of it is going on simultaneously while we sit in this space,
Giving ourselves this gift.
Now of course we've got to go even higher than that.
So now we can just we're standing on the moon and looking back at the earth,
Watching it,
Watching it rotate,
Being with that,
Knowing that we're part of that amazing,
Amazing planet,
All of the gifts that it gives us.
How we care for that.
Taking it all in.
Take one more big breath.
As you exhale,
We're going to zoom right back,
Zoom right back to that hemisphere,
We're going to zoom right back to our country,
Right back to our state,
Right back to our region,
Right back to our city,
Right back to on top of the building that we're in or the space that we're in if we're outside,
And then right back into the seat where we are.
So let me ask you,
How does that make you feel?
How does that make you feel,
Knowing that we sit here,
Yet we're part of something so much greater?
Some people would say that makes them feel scared and small.
And other people would say that makes them feel important.
And here's the thing you get to decide.
You get to decide.
As always,
I invite you to put this into your personal practice.
Let me know how it goes.
You can comment below,
You can contact me and let me know what you think.
If there's other kinds of practices you're interested in,
I always want to hear from you and know what,
If this worked for you,
Good or bad.
You can tell me and I'll try to adjust my future videos to help you out even more.
Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking with you soon.
Have an amazing day.
