Practicing Basic Mindfulness Everyday

Hello and welcome.

The following is a guided meditation by Renee Seals,

A somatic movement educator,

Energy worker,

And astrologer.

This meditation is intended to help support your embodied meditation practice.

If in the recording you are prompted to do something that doesn't feel good for your body,

Please adapt and modify to make it work for you.

Please also note that the content of this meditation sometimes explores deep and subtle states and memories,

And sometimes guided visualizations.

You are encouraged to work with discernment as you practice with them.

If any of the guidance Renee offers feels too activating or uncomfortable,

Please listen to your body's knowing and pause the recording until a later time if you wish to return to it.

These guided meditations range anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes and do not require any supplementary equipment to participate.

We hope you enjoy.

Hi there,

Welcome.

Today we're going to learn really basic mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a word you've probably heard plenty of times before.

You can apply it to pretty much anything.

The basic intent of mindfulness is to involve your mind and your current experience in a conscious way.

Because our minds are constantly doing what they do,

Which is making associations,

Usually on a mental level we're not present with the things that we're doing or with the people who we're with.

Especially now that so many of us spend so much of our attention on screens and gadgets,

There's in general more of a feeling of distraction and dissociation than probably there ever has been before.

I think humans are scattered and distracted anyway,

But certainly our devices aren't helpful in this manner.

So when we practice mindfulness,

It's the decision to just be where we are,

With whatever is arising.

And this is different than a lot of ideas that there are out there about meditation,

Where many people think,

Oh I don't know how to meditate because I can't get my brain to stop,

Or I should reach some state of bliss,

Or something like that.

That idea is actually really unhelpful.

The truth is that our minds wander,

They move around,

And making our minds stop or stopping thinking isn't necessarily the goal.

It might be something that happens as we meditate,

But it doesn't make it better than when we meditate and we think a lot.

What makes a successful meditation practice is how skilled we become at noticing what is happening in our minds.

So your mind is an amazing tool.

It perceives,

It remembers,

It creates stories,

It has a logic,

It can innovate.

The way that our minds work is complex and magical,

And we don't know.

We don't know a lot of it.

But what we do know is that what's going on in our minds has a direct impact on our emotions and our body states.

And likewise,

How we're feeling emotionally and mentally is going to impact our mental state.

You know this because you've had the experience of being emotionally distraught and not being able to get your mind on track to think positively.

You've had the experience of feeling ill or uncomfortable in your body and having your mind stuck on discomfort.

And the way that that then influences your mind and your body is going to be more important than it influences your emotional state.

So when we practice mindfulness,

Another thing that we're practicing is attunement to the connection between our minds,

Bodies,

And hearts,

And collaboration between these three.

So when we're in a mindful space,

We're able to more recognize what influence our emotions have on our thoughts or how our physical states of being are affecting or being affected by our thoughts.

And then often we're presented with more choices in emotional and physical realms as well as in mental realms.

So that's my intro to what mindfulness is.

And just to reiterate that this is not a practice that means that you're getting somewhere or coming away with anything.

There's not a goal and you're not going to be a better person at the end of it.

You might find more happiness and peace in your life in general if this is something that you start to practice because it allows you to be an agent in your life rather than a victim or kind of acted upon by your external circumstances.

You start to feel a little bit more like you can make choices in your responses,

But it won't bring you more money.

It won't make you more fashionable or successful in your business necessarily.

So this isn't something to do for a reason of outcome.

This is something to do again because we recognize that the present moment has a lot to offer and we want to be available for it.

All right,

So mindfulness as a technique can be practiced anywhere at any time in any position.

So go ahead and make yourself comfortable.

The classic meditation posture of sitting is a wonderful place to practice mindfulness in some ways because it's hard.

So if you sit without support behind your back,

If you have a cushion or something,

First of all you want to make sure that you've set yourself up in a way where you don't have to struggle so much.

And sitting for any duration of time for many of us is challenging,

But it becomes easier if your hips are slightly above your knees.

It becomes easier if you're seated atop your sit bones rather than rolling back onto your tailbone or forwards onto your pubic bone.

It becomes easier if your head and your chest and your pelvis are aligned.

And of course,

If you can breathe.

If sitting is uncomfortable for you in this moment,

Please feel free to lie down or to take a walk or to move in a different way.

You might do yoga poses or stretch or just intuitively let yourself move around as you take these words in.

So to begin,

Please close your eyes.

And we'll start with basic centering breath.

And this breath is a simple inhale through the nose and an exhale out the mouth.

And when you breathe in this way,

Allow yourself to feel the quality and sensation of the inhale,

To relax fully and surrender your weight on the exhale.

In these first moments of breathing,

It's helpful to listen for the sound of your own breath.

And to start to attune yourself to that sound.

So because mindfulness is a state of awareness and awakeness in our bodies,

The obvious place to begin is with sensation.

When you feel your breath,

See if you can allow it to expand inside of you,

That there's no need to force your breathing in any particular manner.

And just notice the quality of your breath.

In yogic wisdom,

We learn that the mind and the breath are related.

You might even say they're one.

That when there's calmness and there's a sense of calmness,

You can feel the calmness of your breath.

When you bring your attention to your breath,

You might see if you can bring a similar quality of ease to both the inhale and the exhale.

So when you're in the breath,

You can see that you can feel the calmness of your breath in the mind.

When you're in the breath,

You can feel the calmness of your breath in the mind.

When you bring a similar quality of ease to both the inhale and the exhale,

You might see if you can smooth out your breath.

And by smoothing,

I mean smoothing the ragged edges,

Letting your body receive your breath rather than forcing it,

Letting the transitions between inhale and exhale be spacious.

Many of us have an easier time with either the inhale or the exhale and might find the other a little more challenging.

And if you notice that's true for you,

Investigate relaxation in the cycle of breath that you find challenging.

So again,

There's not a forcing,

But there's a relaxing into.

And a softening of.

Feel the way that your body is in contact with gravity.

Whatever surfaces of your body are against the floor or some kind of support underneath you,

Yield.

Let yourself really explore that sensation of support.

Feel how weight travels through your muscles and through your bones.

Feel the way that you are supported from the ground underneath.

And notice how you can let your body receive that support.

So if there are places where there's a holding away from or gripping against,

You might see if your breath can actually travel to those places.

Letting yourself just arrive in the space that you're in,

Literally getting more grounded.

And then let yourself just be there for a moment.

And then listen.

Notice what sounds you hear.

Notice the way that my voice comes into your ears.

Notice the ambient noises in this recording.

You can hear them.

The ambient noises in the room around you.

As you hear sounds,

Feel the way that your body responds.

Notice when your mind identifies a sound and gives it a name.

See if you can listen just to listen.

And experience the sensation of sound without naming it.

And then open your eyes and see what's around you.

And can you see what's around you without hardening your gaze?

Without really looking at anything so that the visual information you're receiving is coming into your eyes,

Being delivered to your eyes,

That there's no need to make your eyes go out towards anything.

Can you let your eyes be soft so that you can perceive what's around you without focusing?

And with your body yielding into gravity,

With your breath smooth,

And with your eyes and ears open and receptive but not grasping,

Notice the way you feel.

And then check in a little bit with your emotional realm.

What's going on right now?

Who are the people in your life?

What are the situations you're experiencing?

And when I say those words,

Don't worry about getting anything right.

Just let whatever comes in come in.

And as these thoughts come in,

Notice what happens in your body.

Notice what sensations arise.

Do they have a location in your body?

Do they have a quality?

Do they have a tempo?

And then,

Without leaving those sensations,

Include also your awareness of your breath.

So there is a recognition and holding space for whatever is current,

The relationships,

The situations,

The thoughts.

And then there's also breath.

There's this inhale and there's this exhale.

And then can you also include a situation that is challenging for you right now?

Maybe that's one that's already come up.

Feel the feelings.

And notice how quickly the feelings turn to thoughts.

So there's the feeling,

There's the imagination or the identification of something,

And then there's the thoughts.

There's the names,

There's the stories.

How quickly do you travel from this moment of just breathing,

Just listening,

Into another time or another place,

Ones that might even be hypothetical,

Something that hasn't happened yet or something that's existing kind of more in a imaginative space?

And our minds are these really amazing creatures.

They have the power to live in the past and in the future.

When we remember past situations,

Oftentimes we're not able to live in the past.

We're not able to live in the past.

When we remember past situations,

Oftentimes our bodies also remember the sensations that correspond to those memories.

Sometimes we can easily slip into rumination,

Into fantasy.

Sometimes imagining what will be is wonderful,

But it can also induce anxiety and fear.

And it can also give us the sensation of being complete and sometimes leave us in a state of laziness.

I'd rather fantasize about that thing than actually go and make it happen.

So then come back to the present moment and practice.

Practice paying attention to what is right now.

That's all that mindfulness is,

Is paying attention to what is right now.

You might be having a conversation with someone and it could be a conversation that has a lot of plans or details in it that don't have to do with right now.

And those conversations are often necessary,

Not something to avoid.

But even within those conversations,

You can feel your breath.

You can feel the way that your body is in relationship to gravity.

You can sense the space around you and appreciate beautiful things like colors and light.

Often in our lives,

We have intense emotional situations.

And they can be overwhelming and wonderful or overwhelming and awful.

And when we're in those spaces,

Our bodies are actually releasing hormones.

There are hormones that get released that create feelings of happiness,

Of satisfaction,

Of satiation,

Of love and bonding.

And there are hormones that create feelings of distress and danger and fear.

When we're in a moment of being flooded with hormones,

It can be hard to remember mindfulness.

And that's a reason to practice mindfulness.

Usually it's better when we know how to use a tool for the moments that we need it.

So go ahead and think about this challenging situation or emotional situation.

And as you think about it,

You might even be able to feel hormone getting released into your body.

It's that quick that the power of thought becomes physical sensation.

And that physical sensation creates emotional reality.

And of course then our thoughts jump in and fill out the story and get caught in their grooves and habits.

And then come back to what's right now.

Come back to your breathing.

Come back to listening.

Come back to sensing.

So this basic tool of mindfulness is something that,

As I was saying before,

Is good to practice.

Because there will be moments when you really need it,

When there is actually something going on that is urgent and stressful.

But for most of us,

Most of the time,

When we really just pay attention,

There's actually not that much going on.

It might seem like there is because we have a lot of thoughts and there's talking and things that are bustling around.

But if we give ourselves a minute to just breathe,

To sense,

And to listen,

There's usually not a pressing emergency.

There's usually not a huge disaster.

There's usually not an overwhelming feeling of falling in love.

Those things happen and they can consume us.

And sometimes we might want to be consumed and oftentimes we might not.

But either way,

Mindfulness is a tool.

It can help us stay balanced and grounded.

And it is so easy.

Deceptively easy.

And again,

It's not about making your thoughts stop.

It's simply attuning your mind to what is right now.

So please continue with this meditation.

Feel free to continue now on your own.

Share it with people in your life.

There's definitely work we can all do together to promote mindfulness.

And that would have a positive impact in our worlds.

And keep practicing.

And thanks so much for practicing with this meditation.

I hope it serves you well.

Much love and until next time.

I'm signing off for now.