Hey there everybody,
This is Kristen from Teaching Balance and I am here with you with this week's mindfulness meditation practice.
We are now in the month of July.
Woo!
Happy July.
The Teaching Balance theme for July is the idea of joy and lightness.
Really when you think about it,
Summer vacation,
Summer break is the best time.
I know there's a lot of joy to the world around the winter holidays and Christmas and all of that.
That's great.
But I also think there's a lot of joy when it comes to being in the middle of our summer holiday.
Even though things are continuing to look very different than they do most typical Julys,
Hopefully there is space for you and opportunities for you to invite in some joy in your life.
Sometimes I think when we talk about things like the idea of joy and lightness,
Kind of similar to last month's theme of rest,
There might be this hesitation or this questioning regarding how can we focus on joy when there's so much work to be done in the world and so much that needs to be changed and so many lives that need to be impacted and what about people that can't feel joy?
You can kind of go down the whole rabbit hole of that.
All of those concerns are of course valid and relevant,
But also similarly to the value of self-care and rest and taking care of your body and all of those things.
There's also really a deeply beneficial mental health component to allowing yourself to just feel joy and allowing yourself to be happy.
This can take a few different forms,
But for this week what I'm going to invite you to do is to reflect on this idea,
Which is do you find yourself sometimes experiencing joy or happiness and then getting unsettled by that sensation or that emotion?
If you do,
You are not alone.
I think many people feel that way where for whatever reason,
Whether it's something that we're just inhaling from the culture at large or if it's something that was a big part of your family or origin or beliefs that were taught to you,
A lot of us start to feel a little uncomfortable and a little skittish and concerned if there's too much joy,
If there's too much happiness,
Things are going too great and you're just kind of looking around waiting for the other shoe to drop like,
Oh my God,
I can't let myself be too happy,
Otherwise something bad is going to happen.
Or if I let myself be too happy,
That means I'm not working hard enough.
Or if I let myself be too happy,
That I'm not doing enough to change the world or whatever.
I mean,
You can fill in all of those blanks.
You can see where I'm going with this.
And I have suffered from that as well myself where I do sometimes feel this quality of,
Am I okay with being happy?
And it's interesting because I think I've talked about the book,
The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.
There's a whole thing in there,
Which I won't go into now in the interest of time,
But something called an upper limit problem.
And in a nutshell,
The premise is that we don't allow ourselves to get beyond some sort of predetermined ceiling of happiness or success or whatever,
Because we feel like we're not entitled to it or that we were taught not to,
Or we don't want to leave other people behind,
Or we don't want to shine too bright or all of these things.
Check out the book.
It's amazing.
The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.
And I believe that this feeling a little uncomfortable about happiness is part of that.
It's this upper limit problem.
And sometimes it's a conscious awareness like,
Is something bad going to happen because things are going so great and somehow I think that it all has to even out.
And it also might be not conscious.
It might be where things are going great and then you subconsciously do something to mess it up.
Like you pick a fight with your partner or you kind of like start worrying because there's always something to worry about.
So you get the idea.
So all in all,
What I'm going to invite you to do is just see if you can notice yourself doing that at all this week.
And if you do,
Whether it's a conscious noticing or maybe even after the fact,
Like why did I just start worrying when I was having this moment of peace and joy and happiness and maybe reflect on even after the fact.
And be willing maybe to take a closer look at that and see if the beliefs around it are things that you can be willing to let go of.
So in the interest of having a little happy time for us to sit together,
Let's go ahead and get started.
I'm going to get my timer going for 10 minutes.
Allow yourself just to settle in either on your chair or the cushion or the bed or the floor or wherever you are.
And of course,
The beauty of those deeper breaths is that it allows your body's relaxation response to kick in.
You just start to feel a little bit more grounded and a little more embodied,
Feeling yourself in your skin instead of being this floating thought bubble above your head,
Always anticipating and planning and list making and thinking and evaluating.
And of course,
For this time together,
We let go of all of that temporarily and we decide to just be.
To just be present to how things are in this moment and allowing ourselves to be present without trying to change it or improve it or even find fault with it in any way,
Just allowing it to be as it is and taking that short break from all the fixing that we do.
Assuming that you've practiced with me before,
You know that the objects for your awareness,
What you can rest your attention on for these 10 minutes can be either the breath or the body or sounds.
And there can also be this quality of open awareness where the object is just any sensory experience that you might be having from moment to moment,
Touch or smells,
Sounds,
Whatever's in this moment.
And part of it can be noticing our thoughts too,
Which of course is a part of this.
And just remembering that we're not following our thoughts,
You just notice that you started thinking about something or making plans and just noticing and making the decision to not follow it and to bring your attention back.
So you're not pushing it away or trying to not think.
You're present resting your attention on the breath or the body or any other sensory input experience and inevitably your mind will wander and you just notice if it's helpful,
You can even label the thoughts,
Say to yourself thinking or even more specifically planning or worrying.
See it for what it is,
Perhaps even appreciate it.
You need to make plans and it's okay to have that quality of anticipating and having concerns,
But we're taking a break from that right now.
So you just see it and then come back to the present.
Know that all that thinking and planning will be waiting for you when we're done.
So I'd love for us just to sit in silence for a little bit and I'll check in,
Keep an eye on the time,
But let's just allow ourselves to take that break and rest in present moment awareness for the time that remains.
Bye.
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Welcome to July.
I hope that it holds a myriad of opportunities for you to invite in some joy.
And of course this week's specific invitation to allow some happiness.
And notice when,
If you can,
Any quality of happiness fills you with a quality of resistance or discomfort or fear even.
And if you can,
Perhaps loosening what that feels like or even taking a closer look at it.
Shining a light on it might be a metaphorical light.
It might really be helpful as well.
So as always,
Thank you so much for taking this time for you.
And thank you for allowing me to accompany you on this journey.
And I will see you next week.
Take care.
Bye.
