Transcripts
1. Want to learn to meditate?: do you want to learn to meditate? But you just don't know how to get started. Do you wish you could experience some of the benefits of meditation like less stress, better sleep and more gratitude. But every time you sit down to meditate, it just feels like a struggle. Do you wish that somebody would explain how to practise mindfulness in a way that made sense and was based on reason and science? Hi, I'm Jeremy Liquids, and I'm excited that you're here. I've been teaching mindfulness meditation for the past seven years, and I've been practicing for over a decade. I'm a former scientist, and I've also spent time training as a Buddhist monk in Asia. And I'm here to tell you that learning how to meditate doesn't have to be a struggle. You don't have to travel to an Ashram in India or learn how to chant or by any special crystals. In fact, you can learn how to meditate from the comfort of your own home, just as you are right now. And in this course I'm going to show you how this course is designed as a 14 day training guide so that you can learn the fundamentals of mindfulness meditation in just two weeks. So if you're looking for a way to jump start your meditation practice, this is the course for you. In this course, you won't just be passively listening. Each section in the course includes a guided meditation, so you can be actively learning the skill of mindfulness as this course progresses. By the end of the course, you will be able to meditate with ease anytime and anywhere, and you'll also begin experiencing some of the profound benefits that mindfulness has to offer. So what are you waiting for? Let's get started.
2. Day 1 – 5 Keys to Success: welcome to the course. Learning to meditate is one of the most powerful and impactful things you can do for your own personal mental health and well being. So I'm glad that you signed up and I'm excited to get started before we jump into the meditation practices. I want to make sure that you get the most out of this course. So in this video I'll be describing the five keys to success number one. Do the guided meditations. The videos in this course have everything you need in order to learn the fundamentals until all you need to do is follow along with the guided meditations. I really can't stress this one enough. You can't learn how to do mindfulness just by reading a book or watching YouTube video. In order to really learn the skill of mindfulness, you just have to do the practices. Number two focus on doing just a little bit each day. This course is structured specifically as a 14 day training guide, so each day there is a new section with new material. So rather than doing it all at once and just jamming through the course, really see if you can spread it out over these 14 days, or even a little bit longer if you need the time number three, aim for consistency. See if you're able to do the practices at roughly the same time each day, so that can be either in the morning, just after you wake up, or maybe in the evening, just before you go to bed. It's really different for each person, but just finding what works for your schedule and then seeing if you can be consistent each day. And if you miss a day, don't worry about it. Just get right back on track the next day. Number four. Bring the practices into your daily life. Learning to meditate is really about how we bring what we learned on the meditation cushion or in the chair in tow, our daily life. So it's about how we're relating to the world and how we can have a better relationship to what happens in our life. So as much as you can see if you can apply the practices from this course to your daily life and finally number five, have fun. Don't take this course too seriously. Really. Use this course as a playground or as an exploration for getting to know yourself. So those are my five keys to success in this course. I'll see you in the next video.
3. Day 1 – How to Sit: in this video, we're gonna go over one of the most common questions from beginning meditators, and that's the question of how to sit. Is there a correct posture for meditation now, From, you know, society and movies, we get a lot of images of what a good meditator looks like. And usually when we see it in the movies, they're doing some sort of funky yoga pose or full lotus posture. But I'm here to tell you that you don't have to do any funky yoga positions to practise mindfulness. Mindfulness is really more about something we're doing with her mind then something we're doing with her body. So you can really do mindfulness in any position, whether you're sitting, standing, walking or lying down, even when you're chopping vegetables or brushing your teeth. So in terms of how to sit really just finding a comfortable place to sit, and then once you're sitting, one of the important things is just to keep a straight back. So one way to do this is to just lengthen the spine a bit, but we don't want to be to erect. You know, you'll see some people meditating in there too stiff like this. So instead we want to be relaxed at the same time. A good way to remember this is just to remember the phrase alert yet relaxed so we can lengthen the spine to be alert. And then we can relax the shoulders to be relaxed, and in this way we can have a nice, stable posture. Of course, you can also do this practice lying down. The one thing to mention about lying down is that it can be hard to stay awake if you're doing a lying down meditation practice. So if you have some serious physical injury or, um, sitting is just not available to you, feel free to do this. Lying down in the next video, we'll learn how to set up the proper mental foundation for beginning our meditation practice. I'll see you there.
4. Day 1 – PRACTICE: Learning to Rest: hello and welcome to the first practice session of the course. In this video, we're gonna be going over just a foundation of how to get prepared for a meditation session . So I'll invite you to go ahead and find a comfortable place to sit again. This can be sitting in a chair on a couch. We're on a cushion on the ground anywhere that feels comfortable and again aligning the spine, so lengthening the spine and then relaxing the shoulders. And then when you found your place to sit Oh, and bite you to close your eyes if you feel comfortable doing so, and if you prefer to keep your eyes open, you can have just a soft gaze towards the ground, and we can begin this meditation session just by taking a few deep breaths. So breathing in deeply and breathing out slow the Let's do that one more time, breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly, and then just taking a few moments to rest in his present moment. Just giving yourself permission to be here without having to go anywhere or do anything putting down your to do this, your agendas. Just allowing yourself to rest and so setting up a good foundation for meditation. We can just do some body relax, ation. The more relaxed we can get our body when we begin, it helps to relax the mind as well. So we'll do this just by checking in with the body. And if we notice any spots of tension or tightness, we can soften around those areas. So breaking your awareness to your face and particularly the muscles around your eyes. Seeing if you can soften any tension in those muscles around the eyes, bringing your awareness to the muscles in your jaw, the muscles around your cheeks again. Just letting go of any unnecessary attention. Softening where you can and again just resting slowly moving your attention down the neck in the shoulders, feeling the weight of gravity, pulling down on the shoulders gently and in mindfulness meditation. There's really nothing to achieve nothing to accomplish, so we can just give ourselves that permission each time we sit down, reminding ourselves that there's nowhere we need to get to. But just learning to rest in the present moment. Toe end this meditation. We can take a deep breath in together, breathing in and breathing out and then slowly you can allow your eyes to open. Take a moment to take in the room around you just noticing anything you see you're here. Take a moment to also notice how you feel. You might notice some calm or relax ation. So this is how we set a good foundation for meditation practice, learning how to rest in the present moment without needing to get anywhere or experience anything. So that's it for today. I'll see you tomorrow. Where will be going over the basics of mindfulness and learning how to practice. Mindful breathing. I'll see you then.
5. Day 2 – What is Mindfulness?: hi and welcome to Day two of the course. In this video, I'll be explaining what mindfulness actually is and also how to practice mindful, breathing. So one of the best definitions of mindfulness is that it is a present moment, nonjudgmental awareness. What this means is paying attention to what's going on in the present moment without judging it as good or bad. So just observing the present moment really experiencing it without judging it as something good that we want more of, and without judging it as something bad that we want to get rid of just observing a great way to think of this is just being in tune with the present moment. So, for example, if you were watching a beautiful sunset and just seeing the colors of the sunset just enjoying it, enjoying the present moment without thinking, Oh, it should be more red here, more green there when we're really just accepting the present moment as it is, this is mindfulness, so so we can actually practice mindfulness in any of our senses. So we have the traditional five senses we have seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing and touching, and in the Buddhist tradition, they add on 1/6 sense, which is the sense of mental phenomena, and this is something we can be aware of also. So, for example, being aware of emotions like sadness or being aware of thoughts and feelings. So any of these six senses are great arena to practice bind for my saying and again, don't worry too much about writing any of this town or memorizing this. We're gonna be going through all of this and the guided meditations. So in this video, we're also going to talk about how to practice mindful, breathing in mindful, breathing. We're tapping into some of the sensations of touch and feelings in the body. So, for example, as you're breathing in and out, just noticing the physical sensations of the in breath and out breath and just paying attention to that those feelings in the body without judging them as good or bad. This is mindful reading now. It's one thing to hear a definition, and it's another thing to practice it, and it's much more important that we actually get to know what mindfulness is from an experiential point of view rather than a conceptual one. So throughout this course and the guided meditations, I'll be guiding you through how to really tap into what mindfulness is so that you can really experience mindfulness rather than just knowing it as a concept. In the next video, we'll be doing a mindful breathing practice, so when you're ready to get started, go ahead and click on the next video.
6. Day 2 – PRACTICE: Mindful Breathing: hi and welcome to our practice session on Day two. In this video will be going over how to practice mindful breathing. So go ahead and find a comfortable seat. And when you found your seat, just allow your eyes to close. If you prefer to keep your eyes open, you can just have a soft gays pointed towards the ground. We can begin with just a few deep breaths, setting up this good foundation, so breathing in deeply and breathing out slow. The Let's do that one more time really relaxing the shoulders on the out breath. Oh, breathing in deeply and breathing out slow the And from here you can just allow your breath to return to its natural rhythm. So there's no need to control the breath in any way but just allowing the body to breathe itself, allowing the natural rhythm of the body to take over. And just as we learned in the first session, setting up this good foundation, so giving ourselves permission to just be here without having anything to do without having to go anywhere or achieve anything, just allowing the body and the mind to rest. Keeping the spine length and relaxing the shoulders, relaxing the muscles in the face in the jaw, relaxing the neck, just noticing if there any areas of tension or tightness and seeing if you can soften those areas as you continue to allow your body to breathe naturally and from this place off stillness in this place of relax ation, you can bring your awareness onto the feeling of the breath in the body. So just notice. Where do you feel the breath the most in the body? Where can you notice any physical sensations of movement in the body? You might notice the rising and falling of the belly might bring your attention to the expansion and contraction of the chest. Or perhaps you'll notice. So I'm feeling of the air as it passes through the nostrils, just noticing where you feel the breath the most seeing if you can connect with the raw physical sensations, just noticing the texture of the breath without judging it as good or bad. We're just observing. You might notice the whole movement of the breath as it comes in through the nostrils down the throat and as the belly expands, then on the out breath as the belly can tracks in the air, gets pushed up through the lungs, out the throat and out the nostrils and see if you can follow the movement of the breath. You can either pick a single spot and see how the breath changes in that spot over time, or follow through the different places in the body. Just stay connected to the present moment and then toe end this meditation. We can go ahead and take a deep breath in in a deep breath out and in your own time, allow your eyes to open again, taking in the room around you. Just noticing your environment, checking in with your feelings and emotions, seeing if you notice any calm or relax ation. If you need to take another deep breath, feel free to do so and that's it for day two. I hope you have a wonderful day and I'll see you back here tomorrow for Day three. Where will be working with the mind that wanders away? I'll see you then
7. Day 3 – Coming Back to the Breath: Hello and welcome to day three. I'm glad you're still here. So over the past two days have been working with mindful, breathing, just learning how to pay attention to the feelings of the breath in a relaxed way. So noticing the sensations in the body when we breathe in and when we breathe out today, we're going to add another layer to that, and we're going to learn how to work with the wandering mind. So what you might have noticed in our first couple sessions is that when you try to pay attention to the breath, the mind very quickly starts to wander away. The mind will go into the past thinking about regrets. Who are things It's done are things other people have done. Or it might go into the future and started thinking about all the things used to love. To do your work and e mails and have to message this friend and that friend. And so the mind just does this. It wanders all over the place. It's very important to know that when your mind wanders, it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. This is just what the mind does. It's what the mind was made to do toe wander to think so in mindfulness. We just want to notice when it wanders, and then we want to gently bring our attention back to the breath. This is really how we practice, mindful, breathing as we feel the sensations of the breath in the body, and then eventually the mind will start to wander off. When it does, we just notice it whenever we wake up. Whenever we realize. Oh, I'm lost in thought and we bring our attention back to the breath, and how we bring our attention back is actually very important. We want to come back with patience and with kindness rather than with self criticism or self doubt. This is something that I really wish I had known when I first started meditation. This would have saved me years of feeding myself up and feeling like I was no good at meditating. Is understanding that meditation is not about just being with the breath. It's much more important to be able to be patient with yourself than it is to just stay with the breath, because essentially mindfulness is not about the breath. It's about how we're relating to our experience, and so we really want to relate to everything with patience and kindness rather than with judgment and self criticism. So in the next video lesson and then guided meditation, we're gonna work with this with learning how to come back with patients rather than noticing that were lost in thought and feeding ourselves up for it. So if you're ready to get started, go ahead and click on the next video and I'll see you there.
8. Day 3 – PRACTICE: Patience and Kindness: So hello and welcome to our guided meditation for a day three. So go ahead and find your comfortable seat, and whenever you're ready, you can allow your eyes to close. Just spend a moment settling into your posture and your position. We can begin this meditation by taking a few deep breaths, so breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly. Let's do that one more time, breathing in deeply and breathing out, slowly doing a quick check in with your body, seeing if there's any tension or tightness that you can soften or let go of checking in with the muscles in your face. Muscles around the eyes, checking in with your jaw and your neck on your shoulders, just allowing these areas to soften. Then once again giving yourself permission to be here out having to go anywhere else or accomplish anything. Just learning to rest in the present moment and then setting the intention to get to know your experience. It's really observe what's going on without judgment, and then when you're ready, you can bring your attention onto the feeling of the breath in the body, just noticing where you feel the breath the most again you might notice. The feeling of air is it passes through the nostrils, perhaps the subtle expansion and contraction of the chest. Or maybe the rising and falling of the belly. Just choose a place that is most obvious to you wherever you can, feel the breath most clearly, then use this as your anchor spot spot that you can come back to just turning into the physical sensations. They're all texture of the breath, bringing your mind down into your body, just noticing the movement of the breath, and eventually you'll notice your mind has wandered off from the breath. You've gotten lost in thought, and when this happens, just acknowledging the wandering mind again, realizing that this is totally normal, it doesn't mean anything is going on. So just acknowledging that the mind has wandered and then very gently with patients, just bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath again, reconnecting with the physical sensations down in the body, just watching the movement, just watching how the breath changes from moment to moment again, noticing when your mind has gotten lost in thought without judgment, without any self criticism. Just notice. Lost in thought and bring your attention back to the breath. - Just notice where is your attention right now? Notice if your attention is with thinking or getting lost in the past to the future. So often we go throughout our life, just lost in thought and so in mindfulness were actually training the mind to learn how to recognize when we're lost in thought. And then we can come back to the present moment, training our mind in this skill of coming back and then again, patiently, patiently bringing your attention back to the sensations of the breath in the body. It's reconnecting with physical senses that you feel it doesn't matter if you have been lost in thought for five seconds or five minutes. Each time we come back to the breath in the same way, without any self judgment, and to end this meditation, we can take a deep breath together, so breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly and when you're ready in your own time, you can gently open your eyes coming back into the room, getting back into your senses and just take a moment to again, notice how you feel so great work in learning how to come back to the breath tomorrow will be learning a technique that will help us build our concentration even more in meditation. I'll see you then.
9. Day 4 – Improving Concentration: Hi. Welcome to Day four. Over the last few days, we've been practicing with mindful breathing, and yesterday we learned how to come back to the breath when the mind wanders away. In today's lesson, we're gonna be talking about how to improve our concentration in staying with the breath. And this is a technique known as labeling. So what we're gonna do today is learn about the practice of labeling the breath. Now, as I mentioned yesterday, when the mind starts to wander, it doesn't mean anything's going wrong. This is just what the mind does. It thinks about the past. It wanders into the future, goes all over the place in Buddhism. This is something that they call the monkey mind in the sense that the mind is always jumping around from branch to branch and from tree to tree, and it never seems to slow down. So this is the monkey mind in meditation. What we want to do is learn how to work with the monkey mind. So instead of trying to force the monkey to stay put and not jump around, we can actually give that monkey something to do. And this is the technique of labelling or using a short mantra or short phrase that we repeat in our mind. So what this is gonna look like is, as you breathe in, you can just say quietly in your mind, rising and feel the belly rising. And then, as you breathe out, you can quietly in your mind, say, falling and then feel the falling of the belly in the falling of the chest. So when we do this labelling of the breath to improve our concentration, we want to make sure that most of our attention is still on actual physical sensations of the breath. About 90% of your attention should still be feeling the breath in the body in just about 10% of your attention being with the words rising and falling. We want to do this because if all of your attention is just on the word rising and falling , it's still a very conceptual exercise. And in mindfulness, we really want to tap into the raw sensations that were experiencing so in the meditation. Today will be continuing with mindful breathing, just noticing the physical sensations and also bringing our attention back. And then we'll be adding in this other layer of labeling the breath. So when you're ready to get started, go ahead and click on the next video.
10. Day 4 – PRACTICE: Labeling the Breath: Hello and welcome to the guided meditation practice for Day four in this video will be learning how to improve our concentration with the labelling technique, so go ahead and find your comfortable position. Take a few moments to settle in and then gently allow your eyes to close whenever you're ready. And as usual, we can start just by taking a few deep breaths to relax the body and relax the mind. So breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly, taking one more deep breath for you thing in and breathing out. Just allowing your breath to return to its natural rhythm, letting the body breathe itself and then spending a few moments again, just inviting the body to soften and to relax, letting go of any to do this, letting a go of any agenda just giving yourself permission to be here. And when you're ready, you can bring your attention onto the feeling of the breath, once again practicing the mindful breathing techniques that we've learned so far. So connecting with wherever you feel the breath the most, just noticing the movement of the breath, noticing how it changes over time, so here we can start to practice the labelling technique, just saying the short phrase to help us stay focused on the breath. So as he breathed in just quietly in your mind, saying the word rising and then actually feeling the rising of the belly of the chest are the in breath at the nostrils. Then, as you breathe out just quietly in your mind, saying, falling and feeling the falling of the belly or the chest or the out breath of the nostrils breathing in rising, breathing out, falling rising, falling again whenever you're attention wanders away from the breath. Whenever you notice, just acknowledge that the attention has wandered and gently bring your attention back to the breath without any judgment or self criticism. Just practicing acceptance and then once again reconnecting with the breath and the phrases breathing in rising, breathing out, falling, rising, falling. And as you repeat, those words, really see if you can keep most of your awareness on the physical sensations of the breath , just letting the words be very quiet and soft voice in the back of your mind. Just something to keep pointing your attention to the breath, breathing in noting rising, breathing out, noting falling with the noting practice. We're just giving the monkey mind something to do something to keep it busy. Then we just keep bringing our attention back to the present moment. Just observing what you're experiencing. - Just notice. Where is your attention right now? Is it with a thought, A pain in the body? A judgment? Wherever your attention is, just notice. Acknowledge it, allowing it to be there, but then inviting your attention back to the feeling of the breath in the body. Just feeling the rise and fall of the belly or the chest, using the words the phrases to help you stay connected. I really don't worry too much about what is distracting him, whether it's a sound in the environment or, I thought in an emotion, Pain in the body, Whatever is distracting you just acknowledge it and let it go, Inviting the attention back to the breath, breathing in rising, breathing out falling toe End this meditation. Today we can get a deep breath in together, so breathing in deeply and breathing out so in your own time, allowing your eyes to open. Just take a moment to notice how you feel and be connecting with your breath just for a moment. Once again. So great work today on learning how to use the phrase is the labeling of the breath to gain just a little more concentration. Of course, the mind will still wander. It will keep wandering, but this will help us keep coming back to the breath. So tomorrow we'll be working with a new technique on learning how to cultivate a body awareness with the body scan meditation. Now enjoy it the rest of your day and I'll see you tomorrow.
11. Day 5 – Cultivating Body Awareness: Welcome to Day five. Up to now, we've been mostly working with mindfulness of the breath. But today we're gonna do something a little bit different. Today. We're going to expand that awareness to the rest of our body and practice something that's known as the Body Scan meditation. This will help us cultivate more of a body awareness. So you might be wondering, Why should we cultivate a body awareness? Why not just stick with the breath? So there's a few reasons. The first reason is that mindfulness is not just about getting good at noticing the breath . Mindfulness is about opening up to all of the aspects of our life, including our body. Sadly, most of us have lost touch with our bodies. We live most of our lives lost in our head, completely wrapped up in the stories that we're telling ourselves about our life. Another great benefit of body or Innis is that it can be a sign for when we're feeling stress and tension. Often we carry a lot of stress and tension in the body, for example, in the shoulders and in our fists and in the muscles in our face. And so the more we can cultivate a body awareness. The Mormon we can actually notice when we're feeling stressed intense. And we can actually start to lessen some of that tension, slowly relaxing some of the body. I'm sure you know what it's like to get home at the end of the day on Lee to realize that you're just a big bundle of stress and tension. And so if we practice mindfulness of the body, what happens is that during our day, we notice our shoulders creeping up. We noticed our fist clenching. When we get angry, we notice are jaw getting tight and we can actually let this go before it builds up. So this is one of the benefits of practicing body awareness and the body scan meditation. So how do you actually practice the body scan meditation? This is very similar to how we practice mindful, breathing. We just want to notice the physical sensations in our body, but bringing our awareness to different parts of the body, not just staying with the breath. So what will be doing is going through the body part by part and piece by piece and just bringing our awareness to the different places, noticing any physical sensations that you can actually feel. There may be some places where you don't feel anything, and that's totally fine again, just practicing acceptance. So if you ready to try the body scan meditation, go ahead and click on the next video, I'll see you there.
12. Day 5 – PRACTICE: Body Scan Meditation: hello and welcome to our guided meditation for a day five. So go ahead and find your comfortable position, and when you're ready, you can allow your eyes to close and again. If you prefer to keep your eyes open, just have a soft gaze towards the ground. And we can start this meditation as we normally do just by taking a few deep breaths. So breathing in deeply together and breathing out, slowly, doing one more deep breath, breathing in and breathing out, and then just allowing the breath to return to its natural rhythm in mindfulness. There's no need to control the breath in any way, just letting the body breathe itself. And today will be expanding our awareness beyond the breath, and we'll be practicing the body scan meditation. And to do this will just bring our attention to different parts of the body, just opening up and practicing an awareness, seeing if you can notice any physical sensations, any warm, their coolness, tingling vibration, pain, whatever you notice. And so we'll start at the very top of the head, just bringing your awareness to the crown of your head. Bring your awareness there and see if you notice any physical sensations on the scalp, maybe some tingling, some heat coolness and then slowly moving your awareness down the forehead. Just feeling any sensations in the forehead and then slowly moving down into the eyes and feeling the muscles around the eyes. You can invite these muscles to soften and relax, or just notice how they feel practicing and nonjudgmental awareness and move in your awareness down the nose and into the cheeks. Just feeling the cheeks for a moment, noticing any sensations. Moving your awareness down the jaw and into the mouth and just feeling the tongue for a moment, becoming aware of the tongue and how it feels and letting the attention drift down the neck and spreading out into both shoulders, feeling both the right shoulder and then the left shoulder when will move the attention down the right side of the body, so letting your awareness drift down the right arm into the right elbow in the right forearm, Noticing any sensations in the right wrist and then allowing your attention to rest in the palm of your right hand. It's noticing any warmth or coolness, any tingling or vibration, then allow that awareness to extend all the way to the tips of the fingers in your right hand moving your attention back up the right arm and over to the left shoulder. Just bringing your mind into your body and feeling the area of the left shoulder. Slowly moving your attention down the left arm through the left elbow, the left forearm into the left wrist and then resting your attention in the palm of your left hand again. Just asking yourself, What do you feel? What physical sensations do you notice in the palm of your left hand and then again letting your awareness extend all the way out to the fingertips and so bringing your attention now to the center of the chest, right around the area of your sternum? What sensations do you notice in the center of your chest? Can you feel the fabric of your shirt and then moving down into the belly in the abdomen, feeling the gentle rise and fall of the belly in mindfulness? We just want to connect with these raw, physical sensations just to notice the physical sensations and moving your awareness down through the pelvis. On first, moving down through the right leg. Feeling the right thigh, moving your awareness down into the right knee in the right cash. Bring it down into the right ankle and resting your awareness in the soul of the right foot . Then moving your attention back up to the top of the left leg, moving down through the left thigh, feeling any sensations in the left knee, moving down through the lower left leg through the ankle and then resting your attention again in the soul of the left foot. And then just bring your attention back to the entire body, giving your whole body sitting where you are. Bringing your awareness back to the feeling of your breath in the belly or the chest. And just feeling this body awareness. Feeling your body in space and to end this meditation, we can take a deep breath together, so breathing in deeply and breathing out and very gently in your own time, allow your eyes toe open, coming back into the room, maybe looking around the room and just seeing what you notice may be checking in with how you feel once again. So great work. That was our first body scan meditation. I hope it made you feel a little more relaxed. Tomorrow will be learning a new technique called mindful listening, which is actually one of my favorite techniques. I'll see you tomorrow.
13. Day 6 – Awareness of Sounds: So hello and welcome to Day Six of the course. Today is an exciting day. We're going to learn one of my favorite practices and this is called mindful listening. So so far, we've been working mostly with the breath and feelings in the body. And today we're gonna expand our awareness outside of our body and begin paying attention to sounds in the environment around us. When I first started meditating, I would often get distracted. When I tried meditating, people would be talking in the background or there would be noises in the environment might be construction or cars driving by. And I found it really tough to concentrate on my breath. And then one day one of my teachers taught me about mindful listening and that we could actually open up to sounds in the same way that we open up to the breath. And this really transformed how I practice because essentially it eliminated the distractions of noises. So how do we practice? Mindful, listening well with mindfulness of the breath and mindfulness of the body. What we were doing was bringing our attention, being mindful of just the raw physical sensations that we were feeling without getting lost in the stories behind those sensations, but just really tapping into the raw texture of the breath from the body sensations with mindful listing, we really want to do the same, which is to just tap into the raw vibration of the sounds going on around us without getting lost in the stories behind the sounds like what's making the sounds or one. Is it going to stop? So just opening up to all the different sounds around us? Just as with mindful, breathing and mindfulness of the body, we really want to stay in contact with the present moment. So just continually opening up to the present moment and what's going to happen is you're going to get lost in thought. But whenever you notice it, just come back to the present moment sounds going on around you. So that moment, when you notice how lost in thought, just let it go, you can acknowledge it and then let it drift away and bring your attention back to the present moment, once again asking what sounds a my noticing right now. In this moment, one of the beautiful ways to work with sounds is too approach all the sounds going on around you as if it were a song and you were just paying attention and listening to the song so really not judging anything not saying, Oh, this sound shouldn't be here. That sound shouldn't be there, but really accepting everything, just allowing all the sounds to be there and paying attention to them. When you're ready to get started, go ahead and click on the next video and we'll jump into mindful listening.
14. Day 6 – PRACTICE: Mindful Listening: Hello and welcome to the guided meditation for Day six Today we're going to be practicing, mindful, listening. So go ahead and find your comfortable position taking your seat and then gently allow your eyes to close. If you prefer to keep your eyes open, you can just have a soft gays pointed towards the ground. And, as we always do, just taking a few deep breaths to allow the body in the mind to relax. So breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly. One more breathing in deeply and breathing out, so the allowing your body to rest and settle into your seat or cushion, allowing your mind to rest. A swell just mentally. Putting down your to do list your list of goals, anything you need to get done. Just allowing yourself to be here and we can start with some mindful breathing. So bringing your attention to the feeling of the breath in the body, connecting with the rising and falling of the belly of the chest. Just paying attention to the raw physical sensations. Breathing in rising, breathing out falling. When your mind starts to wander away, just acknowledge that it has wandered. Then invite your attention back into the present moment, reconnecting with the body, strengthening your ability to be in the present moment and now to practice mindful, listening, just opening up your awareness and noticing any sounds in the environment around you, seeing if you can notice all the different sounds going on and in mindfulness, we just practice a nonjudgmental present moment awareness. So just being aware of the sounds without judging them, just being the observer, hearing animals in the background, maybe hearing cars or traffic. There's no need to push any of this away, but just notice it. You might notice planes in the sky very distant. Sounds whatever sound to notice. Just observe. Keep bringing your attention back to the present moment when you notice that your mind has gotten lost in thought. Just acknowledge thinking and then gently bring your attention back to sounds in the environment. See if you can stay curious about sounds even when there are no sounds. Is being open and receptive. Tried to notice if you are judging any sounds not to judge the judgment, but just to notice how are we relating to different sounds and then once again, just set the intention to be open and accepting of all sounds, seeing if we cannot get lost in the stories behind the sounds, but just connecting with the raw vibration, the raw texture of the sounds, as if all the sounds around you are a beautiful painting and we were just watching the painting being made. And then you can bring your attention back to the feelings of the breath in the body, just reconnecting with the rising and falling of the belly of the chest, maybe connecting with how you feel in the present moment. And to end this meditation. We can take a deep breath together, so breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly and when you're ready in your own time, gently opening your eyes, coming back into the room and just noticing your surroundings. Great work. That was our first mindful listening meditation. Enjoy the rest of your day and I'll see you tomorrow
15. Day 7 – Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos: hi. Today we're gonna talk about equanimity. So what does this word mean? Essentially, equanimity is the ability to maintain your calm or maintain your inner peace regardless of what's going on in the world around you. So whether the environment is noisy and chaotic, or whether you're going through some frustrating experience, the ability to stay calm to maintain that inner peace, to not react with frustration or anger or hatred with just keeping that inner balance. This is equanimity. So take a moment to think of someone who has this quality of equanimity. It could be someone from your life or even a fictional character from a book you've read or a movie. You've watched someone who is able to keep a level head or to maintain calm under pressure . Thinking of this person can be a great way to conjure up the feeling of equanimity. This inner balance and can help inspire us to practice, because this is what we're going for. We want to cultivate this ability to stay calm, regardless of how chaotic our environment gets. Now, on a technical level, at least in terms of meditation, equanimity means not reacting to anything with craving or a version with just observing what's going on. So to practice equanimity, there's actually two ways. One is just naturally calling up this quality, calling up this nonreactive quality of just observing without reacting with craving or aversion. And the other way is using a short phrase similar to how we studied our attention with the breath we use that phrase rising and falling with equanimity. We can use a different phrase to again just help conjure up the A feeling of equanimity in this phrase is right Now it's like this or this is how it iss right now. And so what we're doing with this phrase is actually just cultivating an acceptance of the present moment as it is. And if you can say this in your mind with a calm voice, then you can actually start to cultivate a little bit of that feeling of equanimity. So, for example, if you are noticing a lot of destruction in your mind and you just pause and say, Oh, right now it's like this or that say you're having pain in the body, you can bring your attention to pain and say, Oh, right now, it's like this So what we're doing is cultivating this ability to notice what's going on without reacting with craving or aversion. So when the guided practice today, we're going to continue with mindful, breathing and what we've learned so far, and we're just going toe. Add in some of this equanimity practice, so when you're ready, go ahead and click on the next video.
16. Day 7 – PRACTICE: Practicing Equanimity: So hello and welcome to the guided practice for Day seven. Today we'll be practicing with equanimity, so go ahead and find a comfortable position, and when you're ready, you can allow your eyes to close. We can start by just taking a few deep breaths. So breathing in deeply and breathing out though the one more time breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly and then just allowing your breath to return to its natural rhythm. It's natural pace. And then just picking up the mindful breathing practice, turning into the feeling of the breath in the body, just noticing the physical sensations of rising and falling again. If it helps with your concentration, you can just use the short phrase rising with every in breath and then falling with every out breath. I was paying attention to the feelings of the breath in the body and having the words be very quiet in the background, rising, falling, rising, falling and to cultivate equanimity. We can just set the intention to practice acceptance of whatever arises in this meditation to not react to anything with hatred or judgment or craving, just allowing things to be as they are just setting this intention for this meditation session to not react but to just observe and pay attention, keeping your inner peace your inner balance. Whenever you notice that your mind is getting lost in thought, just gently acknowledge it again, not judging it, not reacting to it with a version just letting it be. And then you can gently bring your attention back to the breath in the body, just feeling the rise and fall, tapping into the raw texture of the breath. Another way we can practice equanimity is by using the phrases just the phrase. Right now it's like this. And so whatever arises, whatever emotions arise, whatever thoughts arise whenever sounds or body sensations just noticing what arises. And then gently saying the phrase, Ah, right now it's like this. So if you are noticing a distracted mind or wandering mind, just notice it. Ah, distraction. Right now it's like this. If you're noticing restlessness or anxiety, let's bring your attention to that and acknowledge it. Ah, right now it's like this feeling the breath in the body and allowing the breath to be as it is right now. The breath is like this, bringing your mind down to the belly or the chest. I'm just happen into the raw experience. Notice. Where is your attention right now? What are you noticing in this moment and then just bring up the phrase of equanimity Right now, it's like this, using the breath as an anchor. So if you are ever completely lost in thought, well, you just don't know what to do. You can always bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. How are you relating to your experience right now? Are you judging it in any way or having any aversion or craving for any experience? Just notice. And then again set the intention to practice equanimity, setting the intention to just accept the things as they are. Whatever arises, can we just notice it and then toe end this meditation? We can take a deep breath in together, so breathing in deeply and breathing out, So the allowing your eyes toe open, coming back into the room Just connect with your senses, the sense of sight and sense of sound. Maybe check in with how you feel. Start to move again. So great work. Practicing equanimity. Tomorrow we're gonna learn how to deal with thoughts, and we're going to practice a technique for bringing our awareness directly to the thinking mind. Now enjoy it the rest of your day and I'll see you tomorrow.
17. Day 8 – Obstacle #1 Non-Stop Thinking: in this video, we're gonna be going over one of the first major common obstacles in meditation. And this is how to deal with a mind that just won't shut off. I still remember in my early days of meditating, sitting down and trying to focus on my breath, and my mind would just be going wild. It would just be going at 100 miles an hour and zipping all around from this story to that story. And the harder I tried to focus on my breath, the more my mind would spin. It was tough because it made me feel like I was no good at meditation. I felt like I was a failure. But eventually I learned that you can actually work with thoughts in the same way that you work with the breath. And so in this video, we're gonna learn how to actually just bring our attention to the thoughts and and stay there and actually notice the thoughts. So what do we do when the mind is on overdrive? Well, just as we've learned in the past, instead of trying to fight the thoughts, we just allow them toe happen. You can just let outs come and go. I don't have to push them away. And instead, in this practice, we're going to actually bring our attention to the thoughts were going to notice thoughts coming and going. A useful way to think of this is imagining thoughts, like clouds floating through the sky. And so each time I thought it comes, you can actually just see it as if it were cloud floating through the sky. So in this practice we can let our awareness be like the vast open blue sky. And each time I thought comes. It's just a cloud floating through. And what you'll notice is that just as with clouds, they just come and go their impermanent. They never last for long. So when thoughts air getting overbearing when you're having too many thoughts, just allow them to come and go. Just see them as clouds floating through the sky and again. Another thing to remind yourself is that it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. If the mind is thinking this is just the natural inclination of the mind. That's what the mind was made to do. So when you notice thinking, don't worry about it, it happens to everyone, even meditators with decades of experience. So in this practice, we're just gonna bring our attention to thinking. So when you're ready to get started, go ahead and click on the next video.
18. Day 8 – PRACTICE: Letting Thoughts Come and Go: fine. Today, we're going to work with one of the most common obstacles in meditation, which is an overactive mind, and we're gonna go through how to actually be with thoughts, as opposed to trying to push thoughts away. So when you're ready, go ahead and find a comfortable position and then just gently allow your eyes to close. We can start with a few deep breaths, breathing in and breathing out, breathing in and breathing out, allowing the shoulders to drop, letting go of any tension or tightness in the body, allowing the muscles in your face to soften and relax. Just letting go of any unnecessary tension. Setting up this good foundation for mindfulness practice. And we can also invite some equanimity what we practiced yesterday and again just set the intention to not react to anything with craving or aversion to not push anything away and also not try to grasp on to anything. Just a Let things come and go as they are so just setting that intention for this practice and then allow your attention to come on to the feeling of the breath. Practicing your mindful breathing, just asking yourself with your eyes closed How do you know that? Your breathing, what movements? Air sensations in the body tell you that the body is breathing right now, really bringing your attention to these physical sensations, seeing if you can stay with the movement of the breath has following the rising and falling movement, and today we're going to practice mindfulness of thoughts as well. So when you notice yourself thinking, we can first acknowledge it and then instead of bringing your attention back to the breath , just allow your attention to stay with the thoughts for a moment, and you can visualize the thoughts as if they were clouds in the sky, understanding that your awareness is like the vast blue sky is open expanse and all the thoughts and emotions and feelings are just clouds floating through. So each time you noticed that you've gotten lost in thought, just take a step back and recognise, Oh, another cloud, another thought. And then, of course, you can always bring your attention back to the breath whenever you are not sure what to do next is feeling the rising and falling of the belly or the chest again noticing when thoughts are present, not judging yourself for being lost in thought, practicing that equanimity, nonreactive awareness and then just acknowledge thinking. Just another cloud floating through this thought will pass. This thought is temporary and permanent and bring your attention to the present moment, reminding yourself that the mind was made to think and toe wander. So it's not doing anything wrong. It's not a sign that you're doing the meditation wrong or that you're a bad meditator. It's just the mind doing what it does, just the mind thinking. So see if you can just notice it. Uh, right now, it's like this when you notice a thought and you realize that it is like a cloud floating through, see if you can then turn around and ask What is awareness? If the thought is a cloud, what is the blue sky behind it? Asking yourself, What is this awareness onto which thoughts appear in her eyes and just feeling that open space of awareness again, returning your attention to the breath whenever you get to lost in thought? We can also send some gratitude to the thinking. Mind knowing how important our mind is in terms of getting us through the day and So sometimes we get frustrated with the mind that doesn't shut off, but ultimately knowing that everything the mind does, it does because it's trying to help us. The mind is trying to make us happy. So just sending some appreciation, saying thank you to the mind for doing what it does, even if sometimes it's a little misguided. And then toe end this meditation, he can take a deep breath, breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly in your own time. Just gently allowing your eyes toe open, reconnecting with the room, starting to bring some movement back into your body. Now you know how to work with thoughts and emotions in meditation. Breakfast tomorrow will be working with how to deal with distractions in the environment. I'll see you tomorrow.
19. Day 9 – Obstacle #2 Distractions: Another common obstacle to meditation is distractions, distractions in the environment around you and also internal distractions. For example, you sit down to meditate. Everything's quiet and peaceful. In one minute into your meditation, you start hearing a conversation just outside your room. Or maybe there's a construction site a block away and you start hearing a jackhammer from above about football. So what do we do in this? In this situation, the inclination of the mind is to run away and say, Oh, I can't meditate like this. This too noisy in the environment. I need a quiet and peaceful place. But what you realize is that almost anywhere you go will have some distractions, whether destructions in the sound or they might be internal distractions destructions, we bring about ourselves like distracting thoughts and distracting emotions. So today we're gonna learn how to work with distractions of any kind, whether it's an external distraction, like sounds or sights or smells, or internal distractions like feelings in the body or emotions or thoughts. No matter what the destruction is, we can work with it in the same way. There's a very helpful quote that I like that tells us what to do with this. And the quote is that which gets in the way of your task is your task. So, in other words, the thing that's blocking us from trying to meditate is the thing we can use as the object of our meditation. So let's say, for example, you're sitting down to practice, mindful, breathing, and you're just feeling the sensations of the in breath and out breath and outside. There's a lot of noise, maybe a conversation or some traffic noise. Instead of letting the noise outside pull your attention away and distract you from the breath. You can just allow your attention to go there, using the sound as the new object of meditation. So now we've learned how to work with meditation of all different kinds. We know, mind for breathing, mindfulness of the body. We know mind for listening, and we also know mindfulness of thoughts, emotions. So no matter where our attention goes, you can just practice mindfulness of wherever it is in that moment. So when you're ready to get started, go ahead and click on the next video
20. Day 9 – PRACTICE: Focusing on Distractions: in this guided meditation practice will be learning how to work with distractions during meditation practice. So go ahead and find your comfortable seat. You could be sitting anywhere on a chair on a couch on a cushion on the ground or lying down if your body needs it. And then when you're ready, just allow your eyes to close. And we can start just by taking a few deep breaths to settle the body, breathing in and breathing out one more time, breathing in and breathing out, and then allowing your breath to return to its natural rhythm, reminding yourself that there's no need to control the breath in any way in meditation, particularly in mindfulness. We just want to practice, letting things be as they are. So this starts with the breath just letting the breath be natural and inviting your body to soften and relax, allowing yourself to really sink into your seat, feeling the weight of gravity. Pull you down gently and perhaps also connecting with the feeling of the seat beneath you, seeing if you can connect with the sensations, the pressure and the the weight in this support, just noticing where your butt touches the sea or the cushion and then bringing your awareness onto the breath. Using the breath has a way to really tap into the present moment, just noticing the rising and falling movement of the breath and see if you can stay curious about the breath. It's easy to think that we know what the breath is like and to just zone out. But really, see if you can be curious about what does the breath feel like in this moment, understanding that each moment is unique. - So in this meditation will be learning toe work with distractions. And so we can remind ourselves of this quote that which gets in the way of your task is your task. So whatever captures our attention, whatever polls our attention away from the breath, we can allow that to be the new object of meditation. So if we notice we're getting distracted by a sound in the environment, just allowing your attention to go to sounds and to practice mindful, listening, just opening up for a moment and being aware of the sounds around you noticing the sounds outside the room in the sounds inside the room is paying attention to the raw vibration of the sounds. And when there's no more sounds, you can bring your attention back to the breath. If you are noticing that you're getting distracted by some sensation in the body like an itch, more some numbness we're paying. Just allow your attention to go to that spot and feel the physical sensations wherever your attention has been pulled. Wherever your attention goes, bring your awareness along with it. There's no need to fight your awareness or fight your attention. Whatever pulls your attention from the breath, just allow yourself to be aware of where it has gone, tapping into the raw sensations, raw experience, whether it's sounds or physical sensations in the body. Our thoughts, wherever your attention goes, allow that to be the object of your meditation. And then when the sensation or the thought or the sound is no longer there, you can bring your attention back to the breath, just using the breath as an anchor, keeping you rooted in the present moment. If a particular thought keeps distracting, you just allow yourself to be aware of the thought in bringing your attention back to the breath whenever you need it. Noticing the rising and falling, staying with the subtle sensations of movement and end this meditation. You can take a deep breath, so breathing in deeply and breathing out slow the and in your own time, allowing your eyes toe open, allowing yourself to come back to the room, noticing how you feel so great work in learning how to deal with distractions and meditation. Now there is nothing that can stop you from meditating. Tomorrow will be working with strong emotions and how to deal with strong emotions in meditation, so I'll see you back here tomorrow for day 10.
21. Day 10 – Obstacle #3 Difficult Emotions: So in this video we're gonna work with the next obstacle and meditation, which is what to do when you have strong or painful emotions. And this can happen to almost everyone in meditation. At some point you sit down to meditate and some really strong, painful emotional rises something like sadness or anger or frustration. Restlessness. All sorts of emotions can come up that are really difficult to work with. So in this video I'll be describing a technique that you can use for particularly nasty emotions and feelings. The basis for this practice is understanding that that which we push away gets stronger. So the more we fight a particular emotion, the stronger they become. If you're pushing sadness away, it's not gonna go away, actually, just get stronger. So it's a lot like an old fairy tale with a monster, the more you send in the soldiers to fight the monster that stronger the monster gets. But as soon as you turn to the monster and invited in treaty, it gets smaller and weaker. So in this practice, what we want to do is practice, inviting our painful emotions in actually welcoming them in for tea and So whenever a strong emotional rises, you can actually turn to it and just say hello, my old friend. So, for example, if it's sadness Ah, sadness. Hello, my old friend and then invited in Just allow it to be there and bring your attention toe how sadness feels in the body. You can do this for any emotion. Frustration, anger, sadness, loneliness doesn't matter what the emotion is whenever you notice it, turned to it and say, Ah, hello, my old friend and then invited in and explore and investigate. How does it actually feel in the body? And in this way, instead of fighting are painful emotions. We can start to get acquainted with them and really cultivates himself. Awareness around these difficult emotions and what you'll find is that they're much easier to work with when you're stopped struggling against them when you just allow them to be there. So in the guided meditation today, each time a painful emotion or difficult emotional rises, see if you can notice it and label it and then say hello to it, as if it were an old friend, and then explore how it feels in the body. And if you don't notice anything in the body. Just bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. So that's it for today. When you're ready to do the guided meditation, go ahead and click on the next video, I'll see you there.
22. Day 10 – PRACTICE: Inviting Everything in for Tea: Hello and welcome to the guided meditation on working with strong or difficult emotions. Whenever you're ready, uh, find your comfortable seat and allow your eyes to close, and we can start just with our a few deep breaths at the beginning. So breathing in and breathing out, breathing in and breathing out and then allowing your breath to return to its natural rhythm. And we can set an intention for equanimity in today's practice, just allowing things to be as they are. Whatever arises in this meditation setting that intention to be kind, impatient and so allowing your attention to connect with the breath. Practicing your mindful breathing, I was feeling the rise and fall of the belly or feeling the expansion and contraction of the chest, or whatever physical sensations you can tap into whatever you can notice about the breath and how it moves in the body. So in today's meditation were going toe work with strong and painful or difficult emotions . This will help you gain some deeper clarity about what you're experiencing, so see if you can notice what you're feeling right now. Just give it a label. Might be feeling calm, were peaceful. You might be feeling anxious. We're stressed. You might be feeling frustrated, judgmental, fearful. Whatever is true for you, just connecting with it right now. It's like this and understand that there's no correct way to feel. There's nothing we're supposed to be feeling, which is getting in tune with how you feel what is true in your experience right now. Agitation, frustration, concentration, whatever is true, just connecting with it. And if you ever become aware of a painful emotion or a difficult emotion, you see if you can turn towards it, welcoming it in as if you were inviting it in for tea. So whether it's sadness or anger, jealousy, any sort of negative emotion first acknowledge it. Ah, hello, my old friend. Sadness. Come in and then invited into the body and connect with the body. See how that emotion feels in your body. One of the physical manifestations of this particular emotion. You can even use a soft phrase. Ah, so this is how sadness feels in the body. This is how anger feels in the body, really connecting with physical feelings, maybe tight shoulders or an empty pit in the stomach. Whatever is true for you, just allowing any emotions to be there, bringing your awareness to any feelings or emotions that arise, not turning anything away, practicing a nonjudgmental awareness, just being kind to any emotions that arise when you notice a strong or painful emotion. Just greed it as if it were an old friend. Hello, my old friend. It's good to see you come on in. We could also understand that all of our emotions and feelings, even the painful ones, are there because they're trying to help us. They're trying to protect us, so even if they're misguided, the intentions are are good. And so just sending some gratitude. You can just say, Ah, thank you for trying to help me and protect me, but I don't need you right now. And then toe end this meditation. Just taking a moment to notice how you feel connecting with any emotions that air there. Then we can take a deep breath to end, so breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly, allowing the eyes to open and reconnecting with the room with your senses. So great work in dealing with difficult and painful emotions. Tomorrow we're going to be working with how to deal with pain in the body. This is a really important one. So looking forward to doing that, so I'll see you back here tomorrow for day 11.
23. Day 11 – Obstacle #4 Pain in the Body: So in this video I want to talk about how to work with pain in the body. So how we work with pain in the body is in many ways very similar to how we work with distractions or strong or difficult emotions in the sense that we want to just bring our attention to the pain and notice how it feels in the body. But there are some important differences with pain, and so I wanna bring our attention to that. So first, when you notice pain in the body, the first thing to do is actually bring your attention to the pain. Really? See if you can notice where it is in the body, noticing just the raw physical sensations of pain. Pain itself is just a concept. And so what we want to do is break down the concept and actually start to feel what it is exactly that we're feeling rather than just saying to yourself, Oh, there's pain in the lake where there's pain in the lower back. Really bring your awareness there and say, Well, what is this made of? Is it heat or coolness there stretching or vibration or attention? What does it actually feel like and see if you can really locate the the precise point where you feel the pain. Often, you'll find that when you try to locate the pain, you can't actually find it. So it's very useful to try to investigate in the body and really just feel the pain. Noticing the raw sensations. Now this might seem like bad advice. At first you might be thinking, Wait, you want me to actually explore my pain? You want me to bring more attention to pain, and I know it sounds a little bit strange at first, but what you start to realize is that most of the difficulty with pain actually comes from the fear of pain or our resistance to pain. There's a really lovely quote that someone once said, which is pain times. Resistance equals suffering, so if you can take away, the resistance to the pain is much less suffering. Pain can still be there, but you don't have to suffer because of it. No, There's also an important difference in how we work with pain, from how we work with things like distractions or difficult emotions, and this is to not push yourself too far in pain. There might be times when the pain is actually too much when our equanimity and our mindfulness is not strong enough to match the pain. In these times, when the pain is overwhelming, when it's just too much, it's really OK to to bring your attention elsewhere so you can bring your attention to the feeling of the breath or opening up to sounds and actually just divert your attention away from the pain. If it's overwhelming, there's really no point in torturing yourself. Mindfulness is not about greeting your teeth and sitting with pain, so if it gets to the point where it's overwhelming where you just can't handle it, there's no need to keep your attention there in mindfulness. We want to come just to the edge of our discomfort and see if we can just take one step over and be there patiently investigating the feelings without reacting to it. But once you noticed that you're starting to get overwhelmed by it, just allow your attention to go back to the breath or toe open up to sounds. This is really about being kind to yourself, being compassionate, so learning to take a step back when you need to. And if the pain is is serious and really overwhelming, it's also okay to adjust your position or even just take a break from meditation. So in today's guided practice, we're gonna be working with just noticing pain in the body man, seeing if you convey their and investigated patiently and then when it's too strong, just bringing your attention back to the feeling of the breath. So when you're ready to get started, go ahead and click on that next video.
24. Day 11 – PRACTICE: Meditating with Pain: so go ahead and find a comfortable place to sit. You don't have to sit in any special way for this meditation just sitting normally and then allowing your eyes to close, taking a few moments to settle the body. Just allow yourself to be here. We can take a couple deep breaths together. So breathing in deeply and breathing out though the breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly, then allowing your breath to return to its natural rhythm, just allowing the body to breathe itself. There's no need to control the breath in any way. Today will be working with pain and discomfort in the body, just learning how to bring our attention to the pain and discomfort and how to be there with gentleness and kindness and compassion, and how to all our attention back from it if it's overwhelming, but first just connecting with the breath, connecting with the present moment, feeling the in and out feeling the rising and falling, just tapping into the raw texture of the breath. - Whenever you notice that your mind has gotten lost in thought. Just acknowledging the thinking mind and then patiently bring your attention back to the breath or back to sounds and then bringing your attention to any spots of pain or tightness in the body or any physical discomfort at all. Even if it's a minor discomfort, let's bring your attention there and see if you can tap into the physical sensations that you notice, letting go of the concept of pain. But tapping into what am I actually feeling? Is it hot or cold? Is their vibration or stretching really being curious? What does this pain feel like? Bringing your awareness there, seeing if you can be with the pain or be with the discomfort patiently just observing with equanimity? Right now it feels like this. They keep bringing your attention there. As long as it is calling your attention, it no longer calls your attention. Or if the pain goes away, you can just bring your attention back to the breath or back to sounds wherever you are, just connecting with what you are experiencing in the present moment without judging anything as good or bad. Just noticing observing. If you have a very strong or intense pain in the body, you can invite your attention to go there and just see if you can be with it patiently. See if your mindfulness and equanimity are strong enough to be there without cultivating a version. See if you can just notice the physical sensations. But if he sensation is too strong, if the pain is too overwhelming, it's totally fine to just bring your attention back to the breath, feeling the rising and falling. And, of course, the pain will call your attention again. You can see if you're able to go there, but again, if it's too strong, just keep your attention with the breath. Keep rooting your attention down. If the breath isn't strong enough to keep your attention away, you can also connect with the soles of your feet, bringing your awareness down into your feet and feeling that connection with the floor beneath you. And then, finally, if the pain is just excruciating, if it's too overwhelming, it's okay to change your posture or to stand up. It's even okay to stop meditating, so we just want to see if we can be with pain. But when it becomes overwhelming when we're just cultivating mawr version, then it's fine to take a break. So do what you need to do to take care of yourself to be compassionate, practicing self care, bringing your attention to pain in the body when you're able to, and when it's too strong, connecting with the breath on with the soles of your feet. And if even that is too much than just taking a break and coming back to meditation later on and toe end this meditation, we can take a deep breath together, breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly and in your own time. Gently allow your eyes to open, bringing your awareness back into the room back into your body. In congratulating yourself for doing this difficult practice of being with pain in the body , tomorrow will be working with the obstacle of doubt and self judgment, so I'll see you back here tomorrow.
25. Day 12 – Obstacle #5 Doubt: Hello and welcome to day 12. We're almost at the end of the course today. We're going to be working with the last of the major common obstacles in meditation. And today is the obstacle of dealing with doubt in practice, no doubt comes in many forms during meditation. Sometimes it comes in the form of doubting ourselves, thinking, Oh, I'm just no good at this was never meant to be a meditator. I'm never gonna get this right. Why do I always make the same mistakes? These air examples of self doubt that we might have and sometimes doubt comes in the form of doubting the practice or the method. So we might wonder, Is this really working? What's the point of doing this? Why should I follow my breath? Unfortunately, doubt can be a huge hindrance to meditation practice. It can actually derail your practice completely. It can make you not even want to sit down, to meditate or to get up and actually leave your meditation once you've started. So this is why we have to really be careful without So how do we actually work without in this guided meditation? We're gonna be going through a process of just noticing and labelling doubt. And really, that's all you have to do whenever you're aware of a thought that is full of doubt or full of self judgment just going to label it. There is doubt again, just as we did with the painful or negative or difficult emotions. We just want to notice it and then allow it to be there. We don't have to push it away, but just label it. So when you're ready to get started, go ahead and click on the next video, I'll see you there.
26. Day 12 – PRACTICE: Noticing Doubt: hello and welcome to our guided meditation practice for Day 12. Today we're going to be working with doubt and self judgment, and we're just going to be noticing when these arise, labeling them and then gently bringing our attention back. So when you're ready, go ahead and close your eyes. Allow yourself to settle into your seat or your cushion. If you wish to start with a few deep breaths, you can do so breathing in deeply and breathing out though the doing one more deep breath just at your own pace. And today we're going to be specifically working with doubt in our practice, noticing when doubt arises, just giving it a label and allowing it to be there. There's no need to push it away or fight against it, but we just want to notice when it's there. And so whenever you notice a doubt, whether it's self doubt doubting the practice, doubting someone else just label it, uh, there's doubt, and then bring your attention back to the breath or back to the body. And if you would like to set an intention for equanimity for this practice, setting that intention to remain calm when observing what arises to see if you can just notice what happens without reacting, giving yourself these few minutes to get to know your experience. - Practicing the labelling technique of just quietly in your mind saying the word rising with every in breath and the word falling with every out breath. Seeing if you can bring most of your attention to the physical sensation, just have those words. Be very soft in the background and , as always, when you notice that your mind has gotten lost and thought gently coming back without any self judgment or self criticism. - Whatever is pulling at your attention right now, just allow your awareness to go there practicing your mindful observation of anything that arises. Sound body sensation, pain, emotions. Just noticing what is arising in this moment. Practicing your nonjudgmental awareness. - And if you noticed out arising, doubting what you should be doing. Touting the practice, doubting your own abilities. Just notice it. Give it at a label. Uh, there is doubt again when you notice your mind has gotten lost in thought. Just check and see what kind of thought is this? You can give that a label. Just make the label very simple, I think. Planning Remembering just giving a soft label, then reconnecting with the present moment and thinking yourself for coming and sitting on the cushion or in the chair, knowing how beneficial meditation is for your mental health. Just congratulating yourself for taking your time out of your day To do this toe end this meditation. We can take a deep breath in, breathing in and breathing out in your own time, gently allowing your eyes to open coming back to your senses. So great work. We're just two days away from the end of the course, so you're almost there. Keep up the good work and I'll see you back here tomorrow for day 13.
27. Day 13 – Cultivating Care for Others: So hello and welcome to Day 13. You're just one day away from completing the course. Today, we're going to be learning how to practice the loving kindness. Meditation, now loving kindness is not technically a mindfulness meditation, but it's often used in conjunction with mindfulness and really help support our mindfulness practice. So the way to practice love and kindness is will be using a set of phrases of wishing well for other people. And we're just going to repeat the phrases in our mind like a mantra. And what we do is bring to mind certain people, as we say these phrases and just set the intention for wishing well for these people. The point here is just to be setting the intention, and what we're doing is laying the groundwork to begin cultivating this, while wishing, in our mind were actually strengthening these neural pathways of wishing well for other people. So the way we practice loving kindness is again, we're just going to imagine someone in our life that we care about. And then, while we're picturing this person, we're going to repeat a phrase in our mind, a phrase of well wishing or of health and happiness and the first phrases. May you be happy and peaceful, and we'll just wish this to one of our friends or benefactor. We can imagine them being happy and peaceful. The next phrase is. May you be healthy and strong. The third phrases may you feel safe and protected. And then the last phrases may you live with ease and well being. So an important thing to understand about loving, kindness, meditation. When we send these phrases to different people, it's not about actually making these things come true for these other people. When we send these phrases, it's much more about how we're changing and transforming our own heart and mind. We're making our mind a more loving place. Rather than being selfish and really self centered and self absorbed, we're beginning to cultivate a care and an interaction with those around us. So it's really about transforming our own heart and mind, though there can be some benefits to this in your relationships when you transform your own heart, you actually might end up having a better relationship with those around you because of what you're bringing to the relationship. So this is the practice of loving kindness. And in the guided meditation, I'll be walking you through it step by step. So when you're ready to get started with this practice, go ahead and click on the next video, I'll see you there.
28. Day 13 – PRACTICE: Loving-Kindness Meditation: so welcome to the guided meditation for Day 13 in this practice will be doing the loving kindness. Meditation. So for this one, it's actually very important to find a comfortable seat. Really, allow yourself to relax, so me totally find to lean back in a chair or recline yourself in a couch. Really get as comfortable as possible. Once you found your position can go ahead and close your eyes. We'll be taking a few deep breaths, breathing in and breathing out. Do one more deep breath at your own pace and then letting go of any tension in the body, letting the body relax and be soft, letting the shoulders hang heavy, letting the arms rest in your lock or gently at your sides. In this meditation, we're going to be sending well wishes to others going to be wishing well for the people in our lives. So first, bringing to mind someone who has helped you out and like someone who has made a difference and really cared for you in some way, it might be a former coach or a teacher or mentor. Maybe, Ah, an older relative who took care of you when you were young. Just whoever comes to mind someone that you know cares for you deeply. You can imagine this person sitting here in front of you, yes, smiling down on you and just feel the warmth coming from this person knowing that this person cares deeply about you. They don't care how successful you are or how much money you have. I just want you to be happy and so feeling that warmth, imagining them smiling. You can even imagine a beam of light coming from that person on to you knowing that you are cared for and loved. And just as they care for you, you can also care for them knowing that they also go through struggles in life, that they deal with sadness and frustration. And so, in the same way that they wish you happiness, we can wish that for them as well. So again bringing them to mind, just imagining them, sitting in front of you and smiling. And then we can repeat the phrases of loving kindness so quietly in your mind repeating the phrase May you be happy and peaceful. Just imagine this person being happy and peaceful in life and silently repeating the phrase . May you be healthy and strong and imagine them being healthy and strong and then repeating the phrase May you feel safe and protected, Really picturing that coming true and then last repeating the phrase May you live with ease and well being, setting the intention for them to live a life that is full of ease and full of well being and just imagining this person smiling, living a happy and peaceful life and feeling the well wishes coming from you and going towards this person like a beam of warm light shining on the person. Just connect with that intention, wishing well for the other and then bringing to mind a neutral person someone who you might see on a regular basis. But you don't have strong feelings about one way or the other, maybe a clerk at the grocery store or a bus driver or someone that you just see around town and bringing them to mind and again. Imagine them smiling and knowing also that they struggle sometimes, and they also wish to be happy so we can just send them that positivity as well. May you be happy and peaceful. May you be healthy and strong. May you feel safe and protected. May you live with ease and well being. Just imagining thes coming true for this person setting the intention to wish this upon the person and then finally bringing yourself to mind, understanding that you are just as deserving of this good will in this love and kindness and that often we don't treat ourselves so well knowing that we can send the same good wishes to ourselves. So now, imagining yourself sitting in front of you, you can either imagine yourself as you are now, or maybe a younger version of yourself, even as a young kid bringing yourself to mind and again repeating the phrases. May I be happy and peaceful and imagine yourself being happy living a peaceful life? May I be healthy and strong? Just sending this wish for yourself to be healthy? May I feel safe and protected? Just wishing yourself a life of safety and protection? And finally, may I live with ease and well being and just imagine yourself in a scenario where you feel perfectly at ease imagining that smile on your face, knowing that we practiced this loving kindness, not just for our own benefit and not for just the benefit of those we love, but for the benefit of all beings. Just bringing all beings to mind all sentiment, life. And we can repeat the phrases for all beings as well. May all beings be happy and peaceful. May all beings the healthy and strong may all beings feel safe and protected. May all beings lived with ease and well being, bringing your awareness back to your body. And to end this meditation we can take a deep breath together, so breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly and really in your own time, gently allowing your eyes toe open. Just feeling the warmth and goodness that has been cultivated from this practice. So great work today. On Day 13 we've got just one more day left in the course. Tomorrow will be bringing it all together, so I look forward to seeing you. Then on Day 14
29. Day 14 – Bringing it all Together: so welcome to Day 14. Our last day of meditation in today's meditation will be bringing everything together. It will really be an open practice so you can practice any of the techniques we've gone over from mindful, listening to find for breathing to the body, scan, meditation or working with thoughts and feelings and judgments. You can even do some loving kindness, meditation If you enjoyed that, so when you're ready to get started, go ahead and click on that next video and I'll see you there.
30. Day 14 – PRACTICE: Open Practice: So hello and welcome to our final day of meditation. Today we're going to practice mostly an open meditation period. It's we'll be offering a little bit of guidance, but for the most part you'll be on your own. So when you're ready to get started, go ahead and close your eyes. If you wish to take a few deep breaths, you can do so. Maybe giving yourself permission to just explore this meditation, letting go of any expectations of what should happen in this session. And so notice where your mind is. What are you paying attention to? You can bring your awareness to the feeling of the breath, tapping into the raw physical sensations or perhaps practicing the body scan and just moving through the body. Being aware of different parts of the body piece by piece, - just keep bringing your attention back and asking, What am I paying attention to? Where is my mind? And how am I relating to what's arising? No matter where you are, just seeing if you can practice a nonjudgmental awareness, just observing, being patient and kind towards whatever arises the moment you realize that you've been lost in thought, seeing if you can acknowledge it without judging yourself and then coming back to the present moment patiently with gentleness that's returning to whatever object of meditation you have chosen to work with. The breath for the body sounds or thoughts and feelings noticing. How are you relating to your experience? Is there anything that you are judging? Just practicing this calm equanimity? All right, now it's like this. - Whenever you are unsure what to do, you can always bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath, just tapping into your direct experience of the present moment. - Is there anything distracting you in this moment and allowing your attention to go? Observe what is distracting you on Judge mentally observing the present moment and then for the last few moments of this meditation this let go of any meditation practice. Let go of mindfulness and just allow your mind to wander. Allow your mind to do whatever it wants, and then we'll take a deep breath in tow end so breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly in your own time, allowing your eyes toe open, coming back into the room in great work. On this last meditation, there's one more video left for you, So whenever you're ready, don't see you in the next video
31. Congratulations!: So here we are. You've made it to the end of the course. Congratulations on a well done job learning to meditate. It's such an important and powerful skill and tool to have in your toolbox. So it's really a great thing you've done and so last. I just want to say thank you for joining me on this adventure. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. So until next time, take care.
Jeremy Lipkowitz, Mindfulness Meditation Coaching
