Hey,
It's Doug here.
Thanks so much for joining me for another meditation.
Now we all know the importance of brushing our teeth,
Flossing our teeth and looking after them.
In fact,
I would hazard a guess that when you do it every day,
You wouldn't even think about not doing it.
Now that's not because you get the results immediately,
But rather that you know the results if you don't do it.
You know that without doing it,
Often this leads to decay and all sorts of illnesses of the mouth.
So instead of waiting for our teeth to be absolutely ruined to start brushing them,
We brush them and floss them every day to prevent this.
Meditation quite often is a similar thing.
People sometimes wait until there's a problem to start making changes.
But in fact,
Meditation is a great tool for preventing so many of those problems.
I want to introduce to you an idea of flossing the mind today.
So let's get started together.
Find yourself in any comfortable seat.
Get your back nice and straight.
Get into that dignified posture.
Let your shoulders relax down.
Have that open chest and heart.
Get this back nice and straight in this alert posture.
Can you now also bring some relaxation as you let your body just relax into the seat below you?
Great job.
You can keep the eyes open or bring them to close now.
Starting with some simple breathing in through the nose and out through the nose.
Bringing our awareness to this single point.
Allowing the mind to rest on this rhythmic and enjoyable breathing.
We become aware of what it's like just to sit and to breathe.
Now if you're anything like me,
The object of my practice quite often is to keep this focal point on the breath.
And that's a great practice.
Thoughts and ideas come up while we do this and we become aware of this and then simply bring our minds eye back to the breath as a form of concentration practice.
But today we're going to do things a little bit differently.
We're going to let these thoughts come into the mind.
And instead of choosing to come back to the breath,
I want us to pay a bit of attention to the thought.
I want you to imagine it's like flossing each one of the gaps between your teeth.
Often there's bits of food stuck in there and we can't help ourselves.
We often floss that part of our teeth.
And when we find something in between our teeth we quite often remove the floss and have a look at it.
And we see what is there as a form of morbid curiosity if nothing else.
Well we're going to do the same with our thoughts.
As a thought comes up I want you to imagine it's like flossing the brain.
Once you find that thought stuck in the brain we dislodge it and we have a look at it.
Just like you quite often rotate the floss around,
You look at it at all angles.
You see what this thought is.
What the heck is this?
So as these thoughts come into your mind now,
Just pick one,
Dislodge it,
Rotate it around on the floss and pay attention to it.
You don't have to see where it came from or what's its story,
Just look at it.
See what it is right there.
Get truly curious about it.
And just like when you floss your teeth,
When that thought is no longer interesting or you feel like you've examined it enough,
Simply wash it down the sink.
In this analogy,
Just simply breathing out is the equivalent of letting it go down the drain.
So when you're ready to let go of this thought,
Simply exhale and let it go.
You can come back to thinking about your breathing now.
And just letting that next thought emerge.
Each inhale like the piece of floss going into the brain,
Each exhale like it coming out.
Working your way through the mind with those gentle inhales and exhales.
Now a thought doesn't always present itself just like there's not food stuck in between every one of your teeth.
The next time you come across one,
Pull it out with kindness and curiosity.
Check it out.
What is this thought?
What type of thought is it?
Have you plucked out a memory,
A fantasy,
A plan for the future?
What is it?
You can take it a step further and see how does that thought make you feel.
Again,
Observing only,
Not judging.
Having a look.
Once you've collected all the information you think you can,
That exhale washes it down the drain.
And you carry on with your inhales,
Threading the floss in and your exhales,
Threading the floss up.
Doing it as many times as you need,
Gently,
With no rush.
The same thoughts may come up over and over again,
That's okay.
We just use the same process of flossing the mind to keep it healthy,
To keep it clean.
So carry on on your own now.
Be aware though,
That these thoughts can sometimes be a little bit cunning.
They may try and make you go in to the stories that come with the thoughts,
Leading on to another thought and another thought.
Before you know it,
You're far away from the practice of flossing your mind and instead you're on some train of a story.
If that's the case,
That's also okay.
Simply become aware of this and come back to the practice of flossing your mind.
Great job.
Through this art of paying attention to what thoughts are in our mind,
We take back agency over what exactly happens in there.
We get to know ourselves a little bit better as we also free ourselves up of the thoughts that may get stuck in our mind.
You're welcome to carry on practicing this and come back to this practice whenever you need,
As a way to declutter the mind and get rid of any thoughts that may plague it.
Until next time,
I look forward to having you back.
Namaste.
