Intro to Meditation with Jo Stewart

Join Jo Stewart for her Introduction to Meditation. This guided practice offers an approach to begin and strengthen your meditation practice.

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The theme music for this episode, “Cenote Angelita”, was written and produced by Mar Abajo Rio AKA MAR Yoga Music. Dive deeper into this and other orig...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hi, I'm Jo. Welcome to my introduction to mindfulness practice. Since this is an introductory practice, I'm mainly going to be talking and giving you a little bit of space. Of course, if you don't feel comfortable doing any of the instructions that I'm suggesting, feel free to skip them. This is your practice. A mindfulness practice helps to bring our awareness into the present moment. It's not about shoving the thoughts away or completely clearing our mind from thoughts. Instead, we're gently shifting our relationship to our thoughts so we can notice them arise and disperse without our attention leaving what's happening here and now in this moment. And it can be an ongoing process of noticing your awareness as wandered and then just gently guiding it back. You might like to start by just settling into the feeling of your body at rest. So traditionally, sitting upright is a great choice. A little bit of effort that goes into keeping the spine upright can be helpful to keep the mind present. But if this isn't a comfortable position for you, if it's going to be distracting, you're welcome to find another position where your body can be comfortably at rest, where there aren't going to be the distractions of pain or discomfort. And then settling into that feeling of your body, resting and settling into the chair or the ground or the bed. Feeling the places where your body meets support beneath it. Having a little scan through, seeing if there are any muscles that are currently working or tensing that could relax a little bit. Settling into that feeling of your body here and now at this moment. And then gently bringing your awareness from that feeling of your whole body into your hands. And so your hands might be resting on your legs or your lap or by your sides. Feeling the places where your hands are resting on something solid, that surface area. Feeling the places where your hands will touch the air around them, the temperature of that air, the shape of your hands, the palm of the hand, whether it's rounded or flat, the back of the hands, whether the fingers are curled or straight, whether there's space between the fingers or whether they're resting upon each other, the thumbs, the thumbnails. Just letting your mind explore the sensations that you feel here and now in your hands. And now bringing your awareness to your eyes. You might have already closed your eyes. If you haven't, gently closing them now. And just bringing your awareness to the dark space behind your eyelids. Is it completely black or do you see colours or shapes or static? Without putting any analysis or judgment into it, just observing what you see now behind the closed eyelids. You might even have a little check-in and seeing if it would be possible to let go of any clenching or tension around the eyes. The eyelids are just resting softly closed. And now letting your mind explore the sounds. The sounds that you hear in the room. You might hear some electronic sounds. Sounds that you hear outside of the room. You might hear rain or wind outside, distant traffic. Just letting your mind tune into the sounds without putting a lot of energy into analyzing them. Letting your mind just gently explore the sounds outside and how far away can you hear the furthest sound? And then bringing your awareness in and tuning into the sounds that you hear closest to you. Do you notice any sounds from your own body? Maybe you notice the sound of your breath as it flows in and out. You might be aware of the beat of your heart, the odd digestive gurgle. Just letting your mind rest here and now in the sounds that you hear. Now bringing your awareness to your breath without trying to change the breath, just noticing its flow in and out. Some people choose to focus their awareness on the breath as it enters and exits the nostrils. You might get a sense of cool freshness of the inhale flowing in and soft warmth of the breath as it leaves. And other people find it helpful to focus on the feeling of expansion of the inhale and release as the breath flows out. And this is a sensation that you might notice in your belly. The abdomen gently rising as the inhale floats in and the diaphragm descends. And as the breath flows out, you might just feel your belly naturally sink back towards your spine. There might be more something that you notice within the rib cage in the chest. Tuning into where you feel the breath and just observing that flow of your breath in and out. And so when the mind wanders, which is an inevitable part of this practice, especially as we're just beginning, as soon as you notice that you've got drawn into a storyline of a thought, as soon as you've become aware that you're thinking, you can settle back into that home base. And then from there, we're going to gradually start to gently open our awareness into the other sensations. Seeing if you can be simultaneously aware of the whole body as it rests in position, the hands, the flow of the breath, the sounds and space behind the eyelids. Gradually tuning into this soft open awareness of all the sensations of this moment. That moment of awareness, of noticing that your mind has drifted off, is that moment when you can just settle back into your home base and then gradually opening your awareness out. This can be a great chance to let the mind sort itself out. Those random thoughts can just arise, and you can just notice those thoughts without fighting against them or pushing them away, but knowing that they're just thoughts, and there's all these other aspects of this moment. Sometimes a really important thought will come to mind, and you'll have the chance to return to anything that needs your attention after this practice. But giving yourself this time now to just let the mind unwind. Tune into this moment rather than something in the future or the past. Tuning back into your hands, your breath, the sounds, the space behind your eyelids. Having a little mental check-in, just noticing your state of mind now as we complete this practice. Sometimes in our meditation practice, it can feel like our progress isn't linear. Some days are really challenging, some days it comes a little easier. And it can be really useful not just to see how you feel during the practice and directly afterwards, but how you feel through the rest of your day. Sometimes, if you've had a meditation practice where it feels like the mind was very active and very distracted, we can actually feel like after that practice, the mind's had that time to declutter and to clear out. And when we move back out into the rest of the world, we can do so with a sense of calm and ease. We might find ourselves less reactive. Often people find having a meditation practice in the afternoon means they'll have a better sleep that night because the mind has had that time to just sort itself out. I hope that this practice is useful and helpful for you, and its benefits stay with you as you move back out into your day. Thank you so much for meditating with me. Namaste.