Mindful Mondays|Week 26: Zen

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What better way to end Season One of all these Monday meditations than with Zen — which is a Japanese translation of the Sanskrit word meaning “meditation”. For us, we also recognize this word to mean peaceful, calm, enlightened, relaxed. The original word also has to do with simplicity, not worrying, awareness. So let’s play with those concepts today and find a moment of Zen.

Today if you are able, find a comfortable place to lie down, with feet either propped up or the knees bent slightly to keep any tension off the lower back. Whether sitting or standing or lying, put one hand on your chest cavity above your diaphragm and place the other right on or below your diaphragm in the stomach region. Take a nice cleansing inhale and let it out slowly on the exhale. Close your eyes when you’re ready.

For a few minutes of Zen, just lie here. Let your body get heavy and sink into the earth below you. Let your mind quiet itself. And notice your breath, which is always easier to focus on with your hands holding the movements of the body. Stay present in the moment without falling asleep. See if you can straddle the line between staying aware that you are lying here in this moment with the other side of consciousness where total relaxation can occur. Stay with both those realities, and just breathe. Just be Zen.

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If you’ve got lost in thought and lost your sense of Zen, just come on back. Welcome your mind to anchor down into the breath, feel the sensations below your hands as your inhales and exhales flow, and keep your relaxation at peak calmness without losing your present awareness to your body.

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That, my friends, is our Zen practice for today. Simple, peaceful, and unhurried. Just being, no doing. Alert but calm. That’s the practice. You nailed it. And if you want more, stay right here after my voice fades, and keep on in the Zen for as long as you want. You earned this; you deserve this. See you next season for more mindful moments together. Be well, Survivors.

Mindful Mondays|Week 15: Oscillation

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Before we begin, let’s get settled down into a chair or on the floor, in a tall, seated position with a nice long spine that creates an alertness and yet is not rigid. Before we close our eyes, let’s take a moment to slowly move our head from side to side. Looking as far to the right as you can, take a nice long exhale. On the inhale, come back to the center. On the next exhale, look as far as you can to the left. Inhale again back to the center, and on the next exhale, lower your chin to your chest. Feel a nice, opening stretch on the back of your neck. We’re going to do the side-to-side motion a couple more times just to loosen the neck. Let’s get familiar with the room and the surroundings as well as stretch out those neck muscles. Oscillate your head very slowly from the right and left a couple of more times on your own. Settle back to the center when you’ve done a few more.

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When you’re ready and if it’s safe to do so, go ahead and close your eyes. Take a moment to feel the looseness in your neck. Now, focus your attention inward to the breath. Get a good sense of grounding here. Feel your body as a whole breathing in and breathing out. Allow whatever comes up to come up. Maybe it is thoughts come in or something you know you need to get done or something you are worrying or stressing about. Maybe it’s an emotion — a good one or a more difficult one to handle. Let those just come in — the thoughts, feelings, emotions, or any sensations. They can come in and you can go back to the focus on the breath. No need to stay on one thing. Just allow a nice flow. Allow the thoughts to come in, to rise, and to fall. Allow any emotion to bubble to the surface and watch as it falls back as you refocus on your breath.

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As your thoughts and feelings rise in you like a wave, just imagine they are pulling you to the left and to the right. Just like your neck, the oscillation of a fan is sitting on one centered joint. This is moving with ease, not restraining or restriction. It’s okay if something pulls you to the left or pulls you to the right. Can you find some balance here? Allow things to sway you nice and gently, evenly, from side to side — but always returning to the center.

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I wonder if it’s okay here to have pendulating emotions? If you are remaining on a centered post and an emotion is bringing you from the left to the right, is there choppiness there? Is there a high swing or low swing? If it’s too fast, it can start to feel uncentered. A nice, smooth oscillation allows there to be expansion from one side to the other and with a smoothness, a cadence, and a controlled rhythm. It will always pass back through the center. Can that be true for you today? Thoughts may sway you wildly from side to side, but if they have to pass through your center, can you find that gentle cadence? Can you be okay with the pendulation? Can you find a safe, grounded space amidst the pulls and pushes of the world? Let’s stay here another moment.

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Let’s come back to the body, sitting in this centered, grounded space — alert but not rigid, relaxed and restful but focused. Allow that balance to a place you can return to when the ebb and flow, the push and pull, the swaying of the world gets to be too much. Allow this space of oscillation to carry you through any chaos or disruption today. Be well.

Mindful Mondays|Week 13: Mindful Moment

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Today is more of a classic meditation, so let’s settle into a seated position. A posture of restfulness but alertness. Before you close your eyes, take a moment to ground yourself in the room or space you are in. Gently gaze at the objects in front of you … to your left … to the right … and above you. Try to notice the dimensional space surrounding you and feel a sense of security in this area that you chose to meditate in today. Now let’s close the eyes and take a few centering breaths to settle into this moment.

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Right now, right here, in this mindful moment, there is nothing to do, nowhere to go. No productivity or creativity is needed, neither any special talents, or anything that needs thinking through. No worry is helpful here. All this is is a few minutes of following your breath, observing yourself breathe, staying in the moment trying to notice when thought sweeps you away, and then coming back to the breath once you realize. There is no judgment here. Your mind is thinking because that’s what the mind does. It’s doing what it knows how. What you are doing here for a few minutes is asking your brain to focus on one sole thing: the breath. This can be a hard task. The practice is in the noticing your mind when it drifts away into thought and then bringing it gently back. That’s what meditation is. Meditation does not mean you can stay with the breath the longest; it means you can catch the wandering and bring it back — over and over and over.

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Where is your mind now? Have you lost track of your breath? Just realize it. Note “thinking” to yourself and just come back to focusing only on your breath.

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We aren’t trying to change the breath or manipulate it in any way. We are just sitting in our seat of observance, watching ourselves breathe. Following the breath like a game of “follow the leader” — watching each inhale, the pause, and each exhale. Notice the length of the breath. Feel the soft moment of pause between breaths. Just create a moment of peace focusing on this breath and this breath and this one.

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If you’ve slid into thinking, that’s okay. Note to yourself “thinking” and gently recalibrate your mind back to the focal point of the breath.

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Today was a training practice — a more standard version of mindfulness. Allowing your brain to get lost in thought, noticing it, and bringing it back again and again — that is meditation. Mindfulness doesn’t have to be fancy or difficult. It’s just a few minutes of space to allow your mind a rest — a space to not have to worry, fuss, task, plan, fix, or calculate. It’s a mindful moment in a busy world in your busy day to just sit and remember you are a human who breathes. Come back to this meditation anytime you need a moment of mindfulness.

Mindful Mondays|Week 3: Calm, Cool, Collected

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Today’s meditation can be used as a regular practice or as an emergency timeout to calm during or after a trigger. 

I encourage to sit very comfortably – maybe in your favorite recliner or a sofa.  It’s even appropriate to lay on your back or the fetal position if you are using this in a stressful situation.  Invite your body to stay alert, but to relax down into whatever ground is supporting your weight.  Visualization is helpful in this practice today, so if you can sort through visions in your mind, I welcome you to close your eyes.  If you are activated and need help staying grounded, I welcome you to softly fix your gaze on something nearby you in the room that makes you feel at ease.  This could be a pretty wall color, a picture of someone you love, your pet laying beside you, or your reflection if a mirror is visible to you.  Let’s immediately ask our breath to aid us for the next few minutes by taking three deep breaths in a row.  You want to drink in from your nose as much air fills your belly, ribs, and lungs.  Hold it at the top for just a brief moment before letting it cascade slowly and controlled out from your mouth.  This may look like a count of 3 to inhale and 6 to exhale, with a brief pause in between. 

For those more experienced in breathwork, this could be a deep 6 count inhale, holding for 3-4 counts, followed by a slow 12-15 count decompression exhale. 

Whatever works for you – take three cleansing breaths when you’re ready.

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Now let’s all return to our natural breath and take a moment to focus on our heartbeat.  Can you hear it?  Can you feel it?  Is it beating fast and hard because you are still activated?  Is it finding a calm rhythm from the deep breathing?  If you need, pause this, and redo three more deep cleansing breaths. 

Focus on your belly and ribs expanding.  Focus on your chest rising.  Notice your heart settling into your chest, relaxing the way you settled down into your seat, sofa, bed, or the ground.  Eventually, you want your heart to calm to the point where you don’t actively feel it without touching your chest.  Keep listening.

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Now that you’ve self-soothed with some breaths, focus away from your heartbeat and breathing to allow your eyes to see the object you are gazing at or conjure a picture in your mind if your eyes are closed.  Whatever picture makes you feel calm.  A pretty color, a scene of nature, a pet.  Spend a moment focusing on this mind picture or whatever you are gazing at.  Notice it’s textures, patterns, colors, maybe a scent or a feeling that comes alongside the visual experience.

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Calm, cool, collected is always available to you.  You can calm yourself by grounding into the room that’s present around you or an object you create in your mind.  You can cool a hot temper or an activated nervous system with deep breaths and elongated exhales.  You can collect yourself by taking this time out to ask your thoughts to pause while you focused on deep breathing and then a focal gaze.  You are safe in your hunkered down relaxed pose. 

You can begin to relax your gaze off your focus point and come back fully into the room.  You can open your eyes if you feel ready. 

You have calmed your own racing heart, cooled your stormy insides, and collected your thought pattern.  Congratulate yourself for taking this time out, especially if you used this in a triggering situation. 

Release your attention back to the current space and allow yourself to slowly get up before acclimating back into whatever is next for your day.