How To Be Open To Insight And Inspiration

The first step is to become aware of your breath.

Feel the breath in your body Noticing all the physical sensations related to the breath I'd invite you to not concentrate and not focus on the breath Let's see if you can keep a really nice open awareness that accommodates everything that's happening in the present moment So alongside the breath there'll be other sensations in the body You'll hear sounds and have thoughts and feelings So I don't want you to ignore anything or try and exclude anything from your awareness But just simply bringing the breath to begin with into the foreground,

Into the centre of your awareness And allow everything else to be there just around the breath,

Just in the background Keeping the awareness nice and open and just follow the breath for a few breaths,

Feeling the breath in the body And don't try and change your breath in any way,

It really doesn't matter whether you're breathing slowly or quickly,

Deeply or quite shallowly Just follow your breath as you experience it Welcome the breath into the body and allow it to leave the body,

But don't make any effort to change the breath Allow your breath to find its own rhythm,

Its own depth,

Its own speed,

In its own time Remembering to keep that awareness nice and open,

Allowing everything of this present moment to be within your awareness Choosing to show a bit more interest for now in the experience of your breath,

Allowing everything else to be there just as it is with your breath And before we move on to mindfulness of thoughts,

See if you can get a sense of the body being breathed by the breath So rather than you or your body having to make the breath happen or make any effort to breathe See if you can have that experience of being the passive recipient of the breath So it's the air,

The breath,

That's doing all the work,

And you're just allowing the breath to come and go,

To flow through the body without having to make any effort at all Allowing the body to be breathed by the breath So we're going to just shift our awareness slightly and allow the breath to join everything else Sounds,

Sensations,

Feelings,

And we're going to invite our thoughts to become the centre of our awareness So you're allowing your thoughts to move into the foreground of your open awareness So the breath can join everything else just there,

Just in the background,

Simply shifting our interest towards the thoughts and the experience of thinking This may feel a little strange if you're not used to it,

As normally we're so identified with our thoughts,

It can take a little getting used to,

To be the observer of your thoughts So we're treating our thoughts just like anything else that's happening in this present moment,

Just another experience within our open awareness And don't try and change your thoughts in any way at all,

Because we're the observer of our thoughts,

That means we don't have to engage with them We don't have to try and change them,

Or redirect them,

Or stop them,

Or slow them down So use this opportunity to give your thoughts complete freedom to think and do whatever they want to do It really doesn't matter at all what the content of your thoughts are for this meditation,

It doesn't matter how positive or negative,

Fast or slow So you can genuinely welcome and allow any thought to pass through your awareness,

Just as it is,

And we just notice,

Watch,

Look,

Listen,

Feel,

Be aware of thoughts Letting them come and go,

Just as we let the breath come and go in the body Keeping the awareness nice and open,

Still aware of the breath,

The body,

The sounds,

Still open to everything of this present moment And the thoughts are just one more thing happening right now that we're paying particular interest towards Interested in the experience of thinking,

But disinterested in the content of the thoughts,

It really doesn't matter what you're thinking,

Just that you are aware that you are thinking And the thoughts are just one thing happening right now that we're paying particular interest towards And perhaps you can begin to get a sense that Just as with the breath again,

You don't have to make any effort to think,

You don't have to remember to think or to consciously create a thought You may notice that your thoughts will just come naturally,

Spontaneously,

Automatically,

Without any effort whatsoever And we can experience ourselves to be the passive recipient of thoughts,

Just as the body can be the passive recipient of breath And the breath is just one thing happening right now that we're paying particular interest towards The final stage of the meditation before we have some time in silence without commentary is to prepare the mind to be open and welcoming and receptive to new thoughts,

To perhaps thoughts that don't follow our normal habitual patterns of thinking So inviting insight,

Inspiration,

Intuition into the mind,

Not making any effort to create any particular thought,

But just keeping that awareness nice and open so there is a space there for those thoughts to arise So without expectation,

Just with preparation,

Turn your interest not to the current thoughts you're having,

Just allow them to be there and do whatever they want to do Just as sounds around you are just there doing whatever they want to do,

And turn your interest,

Your attention,

Your alertness to what your next thought may be Not trying to guess or predict what it will be,

But seeing if you can catch the arrival of your next thought,

And you'll be open and alert enough to notice the thought as soon as it arrives in your mind When a thought comes,

That becomes a current thought,

And we keep turning our attention to what the next thought will be,

Will we catch the arrival of the next thought So for a few minutes if you just keep your awareness nice and open,

Connected to the present,

And really genuinely interested in catching the arrival of your next new thought,

And an open invitation for intuition,

Inspiration,

Insight So maybe about 5 minutes without commentary,

And then we can begin to conclude the meditation after that Thank you So a couple more minutes just keeping your attention turned towards being open to receiving your next thought,

The next new thought remaining open and present and receptive coming on converging ok So we'll begin to slowly draw the meditation to a close and just come back through those steps that we started with within your open awareness,

Just noticing your thoughts coming and going without any effort to create those thoughts not trying to change your thoughts in any way allowing them to flow freely through the mind coming away of the breath again in the centre of your awareness allowing the breath into the body and letting go of the breath as you breathe out allowing the breath to flow freely through the body free flowing breath,

Free flowing thoughts within and open and present awareness okay so we'll finish that