Basic Mindfulness: A Self-Guided Day Retreat
Instructor: Filtod Walker
Instructor: Filtod Walker
Shoshin: A Definition
Before you begin, I encourage you to approach this Day Retreat with a Beginner's Mind.
But what is Beginner's Mind?
Shoshin (n.) – Shoshin is a great old Zen term that means Beginner’s Mind. And there is an often-told story about the university professor and the old Zen monk that really explains this concept better than just stating the definition.
There was an American professor of Buddhist studies and meditation who had put decades of study into his work but had never formally studied with a master of the craft. Since he already knew so much, he decided he could only study with the greatest of masters and was pleased when he was accepted to work with one.
He traveled across the globe to begin the work and on his first day, the master invited him to a tea ceremony. He sat down on the mats across from the Zen master and the teacher placed an empty cup in front of him. The master then began pouring the tea into the professor's cup.
The cup quickly filled but the teacher didn't stop. He kept right on pouring and the cup overflowed with the tea spreading everywhere. At this the university professor jumped up and with great anger and arrogance shouted, "What are doing?! Can't you see the cup is already full?! Stop!"
And the teacher did stop and just smiled. He had known the professor's arrogance before he had even sat down to tea. And it's from here the old monk spoke, "Go home. Your cup is already full of your own knowledge and ideas. There is no room left in your mind for you to receive anything I have to teach you. Come back when your cup is empty."
And with that, the old master got up and left the room. And, a rather confused and angry university professor packed his bags and went home.
Finding the Meaning
As the word mindfulness has become more and more used in our mainstream culture, students often show up to classes with a pre-existing idea of what they are about to learn. Sometimes what they have learned ahead of class is helpful and sometimes it actually stands in the way of them really being able to embrace the material when it differs from their preconceived ideas.
I encourage you, as you do the work of this course, that you come with a beginner’s mind. Empty your cup, remain open, and you will learn how a very traditional spiritual practice is being used and taught in the secular world.
If you are an existing mindfulness practitioner, this class brings a real opportunity to create a renewed awareness as you approach each basic area again as if it were the first time you heard the lessons. It gives you a chance to relearn those fundamental pieces in order to strengthen the foundation of your work.
Before you begin, I encourage you to approach this Day Retreat with a Beginner's Mind.
But what is Beginner's Mind?
Shoshin (n.) – Shoshin is a great old Zen term that means Beginner’s Mind. And there is an often-told story about the university professor and the old Zen monk that really explains this concept better than just stating the definition.
There was an American professor of Buddhist studies and meditation who had put decades of study into his work but had never formally studied with a master of the craft. Since he already knew so much, he decided he could only study with the greatest of masters and was pleased when he was accepted to work with one.
He traveled across the globe to begin the work and on his first day, the master invited him to a tea ceremony. He sat down on the mats across from the Zen master and the teacher placed an empty cup in front of him. The master then began pouring the tea into the professor's cup.
The cup quickly filled but the teacher didn't stop. He kept right on pouring and the cup overflowed with the tea spreading everywhere. At this the university professor jumped up and with great anger and arrogance shouted, "What are doing?! Can't you see the cup is already full?! Stop!"
And the teacher did stop and just smiled. He had known the professor's arrogance before he had even sat down to tea. And it's from here the old monk spoke, "Go home. Your cup is already full of your own knowledge and ideas. There is no room left in your mind for you to receive anything I have to teach you. Come back when your cup is empty."
And with that, the old master got up and left the room. And, a rather confused and angry university professor packed his bags and went home.
Finding the Meaning
As the word mindfulness has become more and more used in our mainstream culture, students often show up to classes with a pre-existing idea of what they are about to learn. Sometimes what they have learned ahead of class is helpful and sometimes it actually stands in the way of them really being able to embrace the material when it differs from their preconceived ideas.
I encourage you, as you do the work of this course, that you come with a beginner’s mind. Empty your cup, remain open, and you will learn how a very traditional spiritual practice is being used and taught in the secular world.
If you are an existing mindfulness practitioner, this class brings a real opportunity to create a renewed awareness as you approach each basic area again as if it were the first time you heard the lessons. It gives you a chance to relearn those fundamental pieces in order to strengthen the foundation of your work.
The Benefits of Mindfulness
What is Mindfulness?
At its basic level, mindfulness teaches a present awareness and deeper knowledge of your body, emotions, and mind. When you first learn mindfulness, instructors start off with focusing on the breath but it’s important to know that mindfulness is so much more than that.
Mindfulness is really HOW we are present in the moment. And it’s there that more is needed to understand what that means. Mindfulness as a skill deals with your ability:
- to be fully present without judgment
- to return to a stable place when situations or life attempts to push or pull you away from your center
- to be fully aware of, able to listen to, and even influence your body
- to identify and manage your emotions
- to identify and work with your thinking
- to consciously respond and not just go with your default reaction during life's more difficult moments
- to embrace (or sometimes just observe) what is present without clinging, grasping, or trying to control it (this is how we work with things like anxiety and anger in particular)
- to make friends with what is difficult inside you rather than running away or waging a war against it
- to accept personal responsibility for the problems you create in your own life
- to understand the difference between what is reality and what is simply your perception of reality
- to function in this world without doing damage to yourself or others by continuing the unhealthy patterns taught to you by others or learned on your own
- to move into awareness of your consciousness itself and work with the states related to that awareness
And it’s here where we notice that our culture has really embraced the word mindfulness without understanding the full expansion of what its training entails. Though, we won’t go into all of these areas in this class, it’s important to understand the greater context of what you are learning.
Thanks to psychology and the medical profession’s interest in the practice, we now have lots of studies that show mindfulness can benefit you in terms of increased empathy, stress reduction, better emotional control, lowered blood pressure, reduced anxiety, and that it can even give you a boost in your working memory. All of these advantages, though, are only side benefits. They aren’t the ultimate goal of the practice. Mindfulness, at its core, is really about building greater awareness.
But what does building greater awareness – particularly self-awareness – mean in a culture that actively encourages us to remain largely inauthentic, to hide who we really are behind a socially acceptable mask, and to see ourselves as always needing to be something more than who we naturally are in order to be accepted or even seen as having value?
Leaning to Connect with Your Emotions and Not Deny What You Feel
Every so often, I have students who sit on the cushion to focus on their breath for the first time and they just start to cry. When I ask if they are in touch with why they are crying, many of them will say they don’t know. A lot of times when I ask further, it becomes clear where the tears are coming from. For some people, it’s just the build up of stress finally being allowed enough space to release from their bodies. Just giving the body and mind extended moments of stillness can open someone up enough for this to happen.
Because of where I work and the neighborhood I do classes in, I have found that for many of my students, the tears speak to how our culture has trained a lot of people to suppress, hide, and deny their emotions. People are taught to put a smile on the outside to hide what is really happening on the inside. This is often done not just for personal relationships but also to meet the "display rules" at their jobs.
The Problem with Display Rules
If you haven’t heard of display rules, display rules are all about saying that a certain image or emotion must be presented to a client or customer at all times. Many professions are expected to be smiling, happy, friendly, and outgoing when they interact with people. Bartenders and waiters who don’t meet their display rule expectations pay for it in lower tips. Teachers, receptionists, sales people, and consultants also have some pretty strict display rules. Again, if you don’t meet those mood and demeanor expectations, it can mean lower student review scores and even lower sales numbers.
The research says pretty clearly about what happens when your outside face doesn’t match your inside face for long periods of time. Having the two out of sync means a marked increase in your risk for depression, fatigue, and bodily aches and pains. Making yourself project an emotional state you just aren’t feeling inside can take its toll on your physical and mental health.
As people become more connected to their real emotions during the meditation practice or simply just by momentarily no longer giving their energy to keeping up that wall, the separation between their outside façade and their inside realness comes down. It’s then that the emotions they have been denying the light of day are finally able to emerge and express themselves. And that build up and release can frequently come in the form of tears.
Often times, when we are confronted with physical or emotional pain, boredom, or even just discomfort of any kind, our minds want to shove it down, suppress it, or run away from it. This is part of the reason so many people are constantly looking at their phones. It's a form of running away from the simple boredom of most any given moment. Training the mind to stay present - even when it is difficult - can be a hard skill to learn.
Bringing True Freedom to Your Thinking and Choices
When I trained to do this work in the correctional system, my instructors emphasized one of the main reasons to do a mindfulness practice is simply the freedom it brings. Freedom to decide your thoughts. Freedom to see yourself clearly. Freedom to actually make conscious decisions about who you want to be. And the freedom to understand how your thoughts, your beliefs about who you are, and your interpretation of the world actually creates the life you are living. So many of our self-labels and personal definitions about who we are get in the way of our own growth and real ability to make positive changes in our lives.
One of Carl Jung’s most famous quotes is that “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” And this is really a lot of the work of mindfulness. The more you do this practice, the more you will slowly peel back the layers of the onion to make the unconscious conscious. Your ability to understand what you feel and why you are feeling it becomes greater and greater the more you sit. Your ability to see your thinking for what it is and to be able to consciously choose what and how you think begins opening up to you.
Though it's true that some parts of your personality actually come set with a genetic "default" value, every personality trait or habitual way of behaving you have remains, grows, or alters based on what is fed and what is ignored. In other words, just because you were born predisposed to being more neurotic does not mean that you are “destined” to be quite so neurotic your entire life. Life and what is rewarded or ignored in you both by yourself and the people around you has a tremendous impact. Even how you interpret events in helpful or unhelpful, healthy or unhealthy ways can alter your personality.
What You Water is What Will Grow
The more you do this practice, the more you will see the connection between where your focus is placed, who you define yourself to be, and the choices you ultimately decide to make. As you do the thought work in particular, you will discover all the same seeds of the things you don't like or find problematic in others also living inside of you. The other person may have a full blown tree of dysfunction in a certain area and you may only have a seedling but you will no longer be able to deny that the same root exists within you -- that you share those traits, just to a different degree. And, its then, that the difference between which seeds you watered and which seeds you didn't in your past may feel more like good fortune than any conscious decision on your part – particularly when you think how little self-awareness you had as a child compared to the you that is now an adult. The potential for both healthy and unhealthy ways of being exists in all of us.
Mindfulness allows you to see how who you have become is actually a direct product of your thinking and your response to the meaningful and not-so-meaningful events in your life.
And the more you do the practice, the more you begin to see that you don’t have to engage every thought just because it comes up. You can begin to pick and choose which thoughts you water and which you let just dry up.
The more you are able to choose what you focus on and what you don’t, the more you gain the freedom to move from “I am what I think” into a different awareness of “I realize I am not my thoughts.” That may seem contradictory but it’s a wisdom that says you see how all the thoughts you’ve watered in the past have led to the present but also how there is a you that exists outside of and can actually watch your thinking without becoming caught up in it.
Once you begin seeing your thoughts are possessions just like cars or clothes – and not part of who you are – that is one of the strongest first indications that the practice is opening up for you.
Learning to Respond and Not React During Life’s More Difficult Moments
Even at the basic level, mindfulness teaches you how to simply observe without having to engage all of your thoughts and emotions just because they are there. This ability to pull back and not attach to what is going on is why mindfulness is often used to help people dealing with anxiety and the related issues. Making the conscious choice to not engage a line of thinking when in the past you may have just run with it all the way through becomes more and more possible as you invest in the work over time.
When you are able to pull back and not just go with your default reaction it opens up the possibility to consciously choose a response rather than go with that first reaction. Mindfulness is about increasing your awareness enough to choose a response that actually considers the consequences in both the short and long term. It creates enough of a pause for you to consider the results of your actions before you act.
Untrained, you will often find yourself only able to react when triggered -- meaning you aren't fully in charge of what you are doing or saying at the time. It can feel really like you aren't able to stop yourself -- just knowing you shouldn't do or say or behave in some way doesn't make a difference. You watch yourself doing it anyway. Mindfulness is one of the ways we can train you to respond rather than just react when you experience that flight, fight, or freeze response. And it's not an instantaneous switch out from reacting to responding. It takes time. Nothing about this is an instant fix. It takes a lot of work to learn to respond rather than just react.
Mindfulness makes you a witness to your thinking rather than a forced enacter of everything that shows up. With time and training, you learn to simply observe and let things go off in their own direction without you needing to follow after them or engage them in any way.
Learning to Cultivate Non-Judgement
Throughout this ability to pull back and simply observe, you also learn the principle of true non-judgement. This ability is first learned around your emotions and thoughts but also has a broader application to yourself and even your own progress doing this work.
Non-judgement is really about getting past the tendency of telling yourself what you should or shouldn't be feeling or thinking. It's getting past the labels good and bad, in general, and learning to see things along a greater spectrum of skillful to unskillful, healthy to unhealthy, or even helpful to unhelpful based on the situation at hand. And, even as I say those alternative words, some of you will still want to add a layer of also making them either good or bad when those meanings aren't there.
The more you do this work, you will see how often your thinking wants to add more meaning to situations and words than really exists. Our culture trains you to add a layer of judgement to most things and teaches quite strongly that everything must be evaluated and placed in buckets of good, bad, or neutral. If this is a strong tendency for you, this work will be hugely helpful.
Getting Past Binary (Black or White) Thinking
Also notice that I used the word spectrum before. This process really helps you let go of binary, sometimes called black or white, thinking. As you begin to see things along a line of possibilities and not just as either/or options, your tendency and need to judge will lessen. Judgement -- and seeing the world and your decisions in it as being either/or propositions -- is one of the ways you may find yourself stuck during periods of your life. You know something needs to change but have blinders that only allow you to see a limited set of possibilities for how to make it happen.
Cultivating non-judgement is also about letting go of thinking you are either a good or bad person based on your emotions or thinking. When doing this or any type of other self-development work, it's important to remember the first rule is always to turn off your self-judgement. Or in the words of Louise Hay, the first step is to "end all self-criticism." You really gain nothing by heaping judgement on yourself and making yourself wrong.
In fact, growth and change truly don't happen that way. If you are learning mindfulness as a way to really see yourself and choose better ways of being, it is important to start with a sense that you are, in fact, basically good. That in the same way you may extend grace to others when you perceive their faults and foibles that you also give that grace to yourself.
Too often, people can use self-help materials -- not as a way to learn better ways of being in the world -- but as a way to really condemn and judge themselves. In a culture that is constantly saying, "You are not enough!" this can be a strong tendency. During the work of this course, you will understand that you are truly enough and you've always been enough. You will experience more personal change and growth by loving yourself and praising the good in you than you ever will by condemning your shortcomings.
Mindfulness teaches true non-judgement throughout this process. As you do this work, allow yourself your humanity and turn off the self-judgement as best you can. Make a point of working to end all self-criticism when doing this and any other type of personal growth work.
Now that you have some idea for why you would want to do a mindfulness practice, you are ready to begin the work of the retreat.
Two Options for LearningYou can do this course in one of two ways:
1. Find a Day When You Can Do a Full Self-Study Retreat
If you choose this option, make sure you have devoted the full day to your personal self-guided retreat. Many in-person retreats are done in silence and students don't interact or speak to each other throughout the time together. Though, some retreat formats are more open to socializing and electronics during the break periods, traditionally no socializing, cell phones, or electronic distractions are allowed at retreats.
I encourage you to spend your self-study retreat in silence and to not use your cell phone for it's normal use until the day after your retreat. You do need your computer, laptop, or cell phone to do the retreat but do your best to not surf the web, check your email, turn on the TV, text, or message people on your chosen day. Give yourself the gift of a true day off -- and that includes social media.
Really take this time for silence, meditation, and self-contemplation.
2. Divide Each Part Up To Be Its Own Day or Week
The second option is to take each part of the retreat and do it as it's own day or week. If you don't have time to do the material all the way through in one day, this second way of learning the material may be for you. For example, do part one for a whole week until you get the practice down solid, then move onto part two the next week. When we teach the material in a normal class format rather than a retreat, we often divide the material up this way. Many people embrace the material spread out over a longer period of time and it can be really beneficial to learn the information more in-depth over a greater period of time.
Whichever method you choose, the day retreat or the spread-out learning options, welcome! I hope you enjoy the process and really learn a lot as you engage, practice, and learn more about mindfulness as a meditation practice.
1. Find a Day When You Can Do a Full Self-Study Retreat
If you choose this option, make sure you have devoted the full day to your personal self-guided retreat. Many in-person retreats are done in silence and students don't interact or speak to each other throughout the time together. Though, some retreat formats are more open to socializing and electronics during the break periods, traditionally no socializing, cell phones, or electronic distractions are allowed at retreats.
I encourage you to spend your self-study retreat in silence and to not use your cell phone for it's normal use until the day after your retreat. You do need your computer, laptop, or cell phone to do the retreat but do your best to not surf the web, check your email, turn on the TV, text, or message people on your chosen day. Give yourself the gift of a true day off -- and that includes social media.
Really take this time for silence, meditation, and self-contemplation.
2. Divide Each Part Up To Be Its Own Day or Week
The second option is to take each part of the retreat and do it as it's own day or week. If you don't have time to do the material all the way through in one day, this second way of learning the material may be for you. For example, do part one for a whole week until you get the practice down solid, then move onto part two the next week. When we teach the material in a normal class format rather than a retreat, we often divide the material up this way. Many people embrace the material spread out over a longer period of time and it can be really beneficial to learn the information more in-depth over a greater period of time.
Whichever method you choose, the day retreat or the spread-out learning options, welcome! I hope you enjoy the process and really learn a lot as you engage, practice, and learn more about mindfulness as a meditation practice.
What to Expect During this Self-Guided Day Retreat
The class is split into six parts to focus on each of the skills to be learned:
Part One. Using Your Breath as Home
Part Two. Body Awareness
Part Three. Emotional Awareness
Part Four. Identifying Your Thoughts / Seeing Your Mind
Part Five. Contemplation and Extended Practice
Part Six. Deepening Your Practice
As you cover each section, take your time to really learn each fundamental skill. The full basic mindfulness practice is really a juggle between breath, body, emotions, and mind.
Let's begin!
The class is split into six parts to focus on each of the skills to be learned:
Part One. Using Your Breath as Home
Part Two. Body Awareness
Part Three. Emotional Awareness
Part Four. Identifying Your Thoughts / Seeing Your Mind
Part Five. Contemplation and Extended Practice
Part Six. Deepening Your Practice
As you cover each section, take your time to really learn each fundamental skill. The full basic mindfulness practice is really a juggle between breath, body, emotions, and mind.
Let's begin!
Postures and Using the Breath as Home
Some Postures to Start
If you are new to meditation, it's important to start with the proper posture. For non-movement based meditations, you can sit cross-legged on the floor, upright in a chair, on a cushion, laying down, or even standing. The Buddha himself had a notoriously bad back and did most of his meditating laying down. If laying down works for you and you aren't prone to fall asleep in that position, it can be an equally effective posture as the others. If it’s good enough for the Buddha, I think you’ll be okay.
If you’re sitting or standing, make sure your spine stays relatively straight yet relaxed. If you are sitting in a chair, don't use the back of the chair. Sit more forward in the seat so you can adopt a more alert posture. To get the proper placement of your shoulders and back, you can lock your fingers together and then flip your hands around so your palms are facing away from your body. Then stretch your arms above your head, pressing your palms up toward the ceiling. Now, relax your arms while keeping them above your head. Without changing your back and shoulder positions, lower your arms down so your hands are sitting on your lap. This spine erect and more shoulders centered posture works well for meditation.
For your hands, you can interlock them in your lap, place them on your thighs, flip your palms up while resting them on your knees, or use any other position you may have been trained in. The main thing to remember about your hands is that they shouldn't be placed in any position where you pull your back out of the upright posture.
For head, eyes, and chin, tuck your chin just slightly so you are looking down at roughly a 45 degree angle. Your eyes can be open or closed depending on which you prefer. Different meditation traditions encourage the eyes to be open or closed. You can experiment and try out both to see which works best for you. If you have the tendency to nod off during meditation, eyes open may be a better choice. If you do keep your eyes open, pick a spot on the floor that corresponds to that 45 degree angle and just hold a soft gaze. You aren’t focusing on a physical object for mindfulness meditation.
Two Types of Meditation
Different types of meditation are often split into focus-based or insight-based practices. Mindfulness is ultimately an insight-based practice though it has components that are indeed focus-based. When training a basic mindfulness practice, we teach you to do a juggle with your breath, body, emotions, and thoughts.
Using Your Breath as Home
That juggle begins with learning to use your breath as "home." Home, in the meditation world, is used to mean your “place of return” or "focus." If you get lost or distracted at any time during meditation, you just pause, breath, and return to that meditation’s home. One of the main things you learn with most any meditation is this ability to notice when you’ve strayed or become distracted and to be able to then bring yourself back to a meditation's home.
As we first do this practice, your “home” is going to be your breath. As you learn more about meditation and try out different techniques – even within mindfulness meditation – you may have a different home that you return to when you stray from the present moment and need to re-center. Some meditations have other “homes” such as your hearing, your heart center, or even a word or phrase may be used as a home but, since we are just beginning, we’re going to keep it simple and use the breath as home.
Some Postures to Start
If you are new to meditation, it's important to start with the proper posture. For non-movement based meditations, you can sit cross-legged on the floor, upright in a chair, on a cushion, laying down, or even standing. The Buddha himself had a notoriously bad back and did most of his meditating laying down. If laying down works for you and you aren't prone to fall asleep in that position, it can be an equally effective posture as the others. If it’s good enough for the Buddha, I think you’ll be okay.
If you’re sitting or standing, make sure your spine stays relatively straight yet relaxed. If you are sitting in a chair, don't use the back of the chair. Sit more forward in the seat so you can adopt a more alert posture. To get the proper placement of your shoulders and back, you can lock your fingers together and then flip your hands around so your palms are facing away from your body. Then stretch your arms above your head, pressing your palms up toward the ceiling. Now, relax your arms while keeping them above your head. Without changing your back and shoulder positions, lower your arms down so your hands are sitting on your lap. This spine erect and more shoulders centered posture works well for meditation.
For your hands, you can interlock them in your lap, place them on your thighs, flip your palms up while resting them on your knees, or use any other position you may have been trained in. The main thing to remember about your hands is that they shouldn't be placed in any position where you pull your back out of the upright posture.
For head, eyes, and chin, tuck your chin just slightly so you are looking down at roughly a 45 degree angle. Your eyes can be open or closed depending on which you prefer. Different meditation traditions encourage the eyes to be open or closed. You can experiment and try out both to see which works best for you. If you have the tendency to nod off during meditation, eyes open may be a better choice. If you do keep your eyes open, pick a spot on the floor that corresponds to that 45 degree angle and just hold a soft gaze. You aren’t focusing on a physical object for mindfulness meditation.
Two Types of Meditation
Different types of meditation are often split into focus-based or insight-based practices. Mindfulness is ultimately an insight-based practice though it has components that are indeed focus-based. When training a basic mindfulness practice, we teach you to do a juggle with your breath, body, emotions, and thoughts.
Using Your Breath as Home
That juggle begins with learning to use your breath as "home." Home, in the meditation world, is used to mean your “place of return” or "focus." If you get lost or distracted at any time during meditation, you just pause, breath, and return to that meditation’s home. One of the main things you learn with most any meditation is this ability to notice when you’ve strayed or become distracted and to be able to then bring yourself back to a meditation's home.
As we first do this practice, your “home” is going to be your breath. As you learn more about meditation and try out different techniques – even within mindfulness meditation – you may have a different home that you return to when you stray from the present moment and need to re-center. Some meditations have other “homes” such as your hearing, your heart center, or even a word or phrase may be used as a home but, since we are just beginning, we’re going to keep it simple and use the breath as home.
Breath Counting Instructions
To train this idea of using your breath as home, I often like to first start with teaching breath counting. Breath counting is really useful if you are new to meditation. It's a way to train the loose focus needed during meditation and it also helps train this idea of “returning to home” when you got lost in thought or become distracted.
For breath counting, you simply count from 1 to 10. You count "1" on your inhale and think "And" on your exhale. You count "2" on your next inhale and think "And" on the exhale. You count "3" ... Once you count up to 10, you return back to 1 and begin again.
If you get distracted, lost in thought, or even just lose where you are at in the numbering, you just return back to "1" and start again. You are training your mind to return to "1" and the breath when you've mentally wandered off. By doing this, you are learning to return to your breath as home. This ability to pause, breathe, and return will become key when you start adding in your body, emotions, and thoughts later.
Your First Mindfulness Label
And speaking of later on, we need to start you working with some labels to help with this process. So, as you are doing the counting and you notice that you have become distracted by your thoughts, just say to yourself "thinking thinking," let them go, return back to “1” and start again. Thoughts can be words as well as pictures – you will be letting both go to return back to your home.
We are only counting to ten and not further because there is a tendency for many people in the west to see meditation as just another form of achievement or something new to excel at. They think to themselves that if they are going to learn it, they want to learn it bigger, better, and faster than anyone else. To be clear, meditation is not just one more way to achieve. That’s not what this is about.
This is about building greater awareness and this is why you are only counting to 10 and then going back and restarting at 1. There is no prize for making it to 100 or 1000. That’s not the purpose of breath counting. Our purpose is simply to learn the core techniques of noticing when you are distracted and being able to return to the present moment and begin again.
The Myth About Clearing The Mind
One of the larger myths about meditation often shows up here right away depending on someone's past exposure to the practice. Many people often interpret the letting go of thoughts to mean that the focus of meditation is to keep their mind empty as long as possible. Though, thoughts lessening naturally happens the more you meditate, what you are training at this initial stage is your ability to stay present with the object of your focus and to return back to that focus when you become lost or distracted.
You aren't letting go to clear the mind. You are letting go to re-focus the mind. This distinction will become more and more important as you learn about the practice or move into the higher level teachings. Your focus during the practice matters.
For this practice period, when you notice your mind has wandered off with its thinking, just notice the thoughts, label them “thinking thinking,” pause, breathe, and return to “1.” For many, the label of “thinking thinking” is enough for their thoughts to go on their way. For others, it can be really helpful to use a visualization to help with the letting go and return.
A Few Visualizations to Help Not Follow Your Thoughts
One of the more traditional visualizations is to imagine you are sitting by a gently flowing stream while meditating and that as each thought arises, you reach up and pull it out like a translucent feather and place it down into the stream before you. You then watch the stream gently carry the feather thought away. I have had several students modify this traditional version to a more modern Harry Potter version by using the idea of pulling thoughts out with a wand and placing them in a pensieve – just like the Harry Potter books. It’s rather creative and it still works for the purpose needed.
People laying down often visualize themselves laying at the bottom of a lake and, as a thought arises, they watch it emerge from their minds like a giant bubble that floats away up to the surface of the water and disappears.
Others visualize their thoughts emerging as puffs of smoke and drifting away. Still others picture themselves laying outdoors in the grass and their thoughts becoming clouds that just gently float by and out of view. Others use their natural out breath to audibly exhale or blow out the thought through puckered lips. Try out a few different techniques throughout your training to see which works best for you.
If you don't need a visualization, there is no requirement to use one. Do whatever works best for you. Just make sure that what you select isn't needlessly complicated and that it doesn't add any form of judgment into the process.
Make Sure Your Process Doesn't Add Judgment
For example, I had a student wanting to modernize her visualization and started doing it like one of those phone based dating apps where you swipe right or left depending on whether you are interested in the person. This one actually doesn’t work as a visualization because it introduces judgment into the process. If you are swiping right on some thoughts and left on others, you are saying some thoughts are good or bad or more or less desirable than other thoughts. And what we want is just noticing without added judgment.
What you are cultivating with this labeling, release, and return process is a detached non-judgmental simply noticing of your thoughts that we will build on later. When you notice your thoughts have emerged to distract you from your focus, give them the label “thinking thinking,” let them wander on without you in whatever way works best, and then return back to the present moment.
Let’s sit and try this initial skill.
To train this idea of using your breath as home, I often like to first start with teaching breath counting. Breath counting is really useful if you are new to meditation. It's a way to train the loose focus needed during meditation and it also helps train this idea of “returning to home” when you got lost in thought or become distracted.
For breath counting, you simply count from 1 to 10. You count "1" on your inhale and think "And" on your exhale. You count "2" on your next inhale and think "And" on the exhale. You count "3" ... Once you count up to 10, you return back to 1 and begin again.
If you get distracted, lost in thought, or even just lose where you are at in the numbering, you just return back to "1" and start again. You are training your mind to return to "1" and the breath when you've mentally wandered off. By doing this, you are learning to return to your breath as home. This ability to pause, breathe, and return will become key when you start adding in your body, emotions, and thoughts later.
Your First Mindfulness Label
And speaking of later on, we need to start you working with some labels to help with this process. So, as you are doing the counting and you notice that you have become distracted by your thoughts, just say to yourself "thinking thinking," let them go, return back to “1” and start again. Thoughts can be words as well as pictures – you will be letting both go to return back to your home.
We are only counting to ten and not further because there is a tendency for many people in the west to see meditation as just another form of achievement or something new to excel at. They think to themselves that if they are going to learn it, they want to learn it bigger, better, and faster than anyone else. To be clear, meditation is not just one more way to achieve. That’s not what this is about.
This is about building greater awareness and this is why you are only counting to 10 and then going back and restarting at 1. There is no prize for making it to 100 or 1000. That’s not the purpose of breath counting. Our purpose is simply to learn the core techniques of noticing when you are distracted and being able to return to the present moment and begin again.
The Myth About Clearing The Mind
One of the larger myths about meditation often shows up here right away depending on someone's past exposure to the practice. Many people often interpret the letting go of thoughts to mean that the focus of meditation is to keep their mind empty as long as possible. Though, thoughts lessening naturally happens the more you meditate, what you are training at this initial stage is your ability to stay present with the object of your focus and to return back to that focus when you become lost or distracted.
You aren't letting go to clear the mind. You are letting go to re-focus the mind. This distinction will become more and more important as you learn about the practice or move into the higher level teachings. Your focus during the practice matters.
For this practice period, when you notice your mind has wandered off with its thinking, just notice the thoughts, label them “thinking thinking,” pause, breathe, and return to “1.” For many, the label of “thinking thinking” is enough for their thoughts to go on their way. For others, it can be really helpful to use a visualization to help with the letting go and return.
A Few Visualizations to Help Not Follow Your Thoughts
One of the more traditional visualizations is to imagine you are sitting by a gently flowing stream while meditating and that as each thought arises, you reach up and pull it out like a translucent feather and place it down into the stream before you. You then watch the stream gently carry the feather thought away. I have had several students modify this traditional version to a more modern Harry Potter version by using the idea of pulling thoughts out with a wand and placing them in a pensieve – just like the Harry Potter books. It’s rather creative and it still works for the purpose needed.
People laying down often visualize themselves laying at the bottom of a lake and, as a thought arises, they watch it emerge from their minds like a giant bubble that floats away up to the surface of the water and disappears.
Others visualize their thoughts emerging as puffs of smoke and drifting away. Still others picture themselves laying outdoors in the grass and their thoughts becoming clouds that just gently float by and out of view. Others use their natural out breath to audibly exhale or blow out the thought through puckered lips. Try out a few different techniques throughout your training to see which works best for you.
If you don't need a visualization, there is no requirement to use one. Do whatever works best for you. Just make sure that what you select isn't needlessly complicated and that it doesn't add any form of judgment into the process.
Make Sure Your Process Doesn't Add Judgment
For example, I had a student wanting to modernize her visualization and started doing it like one of those phone based dating apps where you swipe right or left depending on whether you are interested in the person. This one actually doesn’t work as a visualization because it introduces judgment into the process. If you are swiping right on some thoughts and left on others, you are saying some thoughts are good or bad or more or less desirable than other thoughts. And what we want is just noticing without added judgment.
What you are cultivating with this labeling, release, and return process is a detached non-judgmental simply noticing of your thoughts that we will build on later. When you notice your thoughts have emerged to distract you from your focus, give them the label “thinking thinking,” let them wander on without you in whatever way works best, and then return back to the present moment.
Let’s sit and try this initial skill.
Body Breath Instructions
Breath counting is great for the very beginning meditator to help learn the “notice when distracted and return” that is common to all types of meditations. After a while of practice, though, you will naturally not need the counting to help maintain the focus.
Next, we are going to drop the counting and maintain the focus using just the physical sensations in the body.
In some forms of meditation, you are asked to deepen or modify your breath but in mindfulness we teach people to just be present with what is naturally there. We don’t create an artificial breath – we work with how you just normally breathe.
Let’s sit and try this skill of staying present with the physical sensation of breathing without using the numbering.
Breath counting is great for the very beginning meditator to help learn the “notice when distracted and return” that is common to all types of meditations. After a while of practice, though, you will naturally not need the counting to help maintain the focus.
Next, we are going to drop the counting and maintain the focus using just the physical sensations in the body.
In some forms of meditation, you are asked to deepen or modify your breath but in mindfulness we teach people to just be present with what is naturally there. We don’t create an artificial breath – we work with how you just normally breathe.
Let’s sit and try this skill of staying present with the physical sensation of breathing without using the numbering.
Working with the Body
Embracing Your Body / Embodiment
The next step or layer to add on top of Using Your Breath as Home or learning to center on your breath is to begin to work with the sensations of – or in – your body.
You may spend so much time up in your head or focused on the TV, computer, or phone screen that there may be days when you forget you even have a body. It's in your body, though, where a lot of your intuition and greater wisdom can be heard. And it’s also where a lot of fears, worries, and anxieties are felt. There is a lot to work with when you turn your attention to really noticing what is going on physically within you.
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Pain Management
Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), is one of the people largely responsible for ensuring mindfulness has grown in popularity in our culture. As a physician, his take on mindfulness has been on teaching its use for pain management as well as stress reduction. MBSR teaches people to bring their focus into the painful areas of their body – rather than avoiding those areas - as a way to manage chronic pain. By using the loose observation of the pain found in mindfulness, many people have actually experienced pain relief. When you do "pain mapping" in today's guided meditation, you will have the opportunity to see how mindfulness addresses pain in the most basic form.
The more you work with your body, you will also find that you become more aware of those first moments when a fight, flight, or freeze response has been triggered within you. When you can catch a trigger right at its inception, it is then you are better able to formulate a reasoned response rather than getting caught up in your default reaction. You can use your mindfulness practice to learn how to head off your default reactions at the pass. There are other pieces to working with triggers beyond the bodily awareness but it’s here where this knowledge of “responding rather than reacting” first begins.
Let’s dive in directly by learning the body scan first to see the benefit of bringing that grounding awareness into your body.
Embracing Your Body / Embodiment
The next step or layer to add on top of Using Your Breath as Home or learning to center on your breath is to begin to work with the sensations of – or in – your body.
You may spend so much time up in your head or focused on the TV, computer, or phone screen that there may be days when you forget you even have a body. It's in your body, though, where a lot of your intuition and greater wisdom can be heard. And it’s also where a lot of fears, worries, and anxieties are felt. There is a lot to work with when you turn your attention to really noticing what is going on physically within you.
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Pain Management
Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), is one of the people largely responsible for ensuring mindfulness has grown in popularity in our culture. As a physician, his take on mindfulness has been on teaching its use for pain management as well as stress reduction. MBSR teaches people to bring their focus into the painful areas of their body – rather than avoiding those areas - as a way to manage chronic pain. By using the loose observation of the pain found in mindfulness, many people have actually experienced pain relief. When you do "pain mapping" in today's guided meditation, you will have the opportunity to see how mindfulness addresses pain in the most basic form.
The more you work with your body, you will also find that you become more aware of those first moments when a fight, flight, or freeze response has been triggered within you. When you can catch a trigger right at its inception, it is then you are better able to formulate a reasoned response rather than getting caught up in your default reaction. You can use your mindfulness practice to learn how to head off your default reactions at the pass. There are other pieces to working with triggers beyond the bodily awareness but it’s here where this knowledge of “responding rather than reacting” first begins.
Let’s dive in directly by learning the body scan first to see the benefit of bringing that grounding awareness into your body.
Body Scan Instructions
As you learn to become more aware of your body in a conscious way, it can initially be easier to do a focused body scan starting at the top of your head and working all the way down to your toes or starting from your toes and working all the way to the top of your head. A body scan is a process to give every part of you a chance to be focused on in a meaningful way.
Many people when they do a body scan for the first time will often say they didn’t realize they had so many aches and pains. Our minds will often deliberately avoid the areas in our bodies that are uncomfortable or hurting in some way. The tension in people’s shoulders, pains in the lower back, and even a realization that someone is just randomly stopping and holding their breath are quite common discoveries for a lot people.
Where is the You that is You?
If you ask someone from the U.S. culture, “Where is the you that is you? Where is your consciousness inside your body?” they will often point to the spot just behind their eyes. Our culture here often sees consciousness and our decisions, in particular, as coming from our head. If you ask this question in other cultures, you will find that seeing thinking as occurring just behind the eyes is not a universal belief. In many places, people will point to their chests or heart center and say they see their consciousness as residing there. Other places see the “you that is you” as being more centered just below their navel – more in the area we would say is their gut or deeper intuition center.
It’s this level of awareness that you bring to each area of your body. You are moving that sense of your consciousness itself – that you that is you – to each area of your body and bringing that level of focus there. You may even think of this as breathing from each area of your body if that metaphor is more helpful.
Not Running From Our Pain and Not Battling It Either
As you begin this practice, you will just notice the tension, aches, pains, tightness, or anything else that is being held in the focus area and then stay with it. As you hold your focus there, you may find that whatever has caused you to pause – the discomfort, irritation, itching, a strong emotion -- goes away as the focus is held. You may also find that the feelings there intensify in some way. Sometimes the feeling moves or jumps to another area of the body.
Just hold your focus as you notice these things. The goal is to simply notice. Just be with whatever is there and use it to bring yourself into the present moment.
With pain, in particular, there is often a mental need to run away from it or avoid paying attention to it. Some meditation teachers refer to bodily aches and pains as a gift – because they give you something to focus on and to become more fully present with. As you bring your consciousness to the area giving you pain, just notice it and breathe with it.
Pain Mapping
As you notice pain, notice where it starts and stops in your body as well. If the pain is in your knee for example, you will notice that it’s not your whole knee feeling the pain but only a well-defined area of your knee. If you draw mental boundaries or borders of where the pain lives and doesn’t live, it would look almost like a map of a country drawn on your body. This is why this technique is called "pain mapping."
When you experience pain or discomfort, try drawing the map and once the borders are drawn fill in the area created with a color – whatever color you associate with the sensation being felt. Focus on the area you filled in and breathe with it. Notice any tendency to hold your breath or hesitation to move fully into the sensation.
As you breathe with what you are feeling, also give it a label --- similar to how you have been labeling your thinking with “thinking thinking” to this point. Pain gets a label of “pain pain.” Discomfort gets a label of “discomfort discomfort.” You may find yourself labeling “itching itching,” “heat heat,” “cold cold,” and so on. Just give the sensation the best label you can.
Listen to Your Body
As you do this, it’s important to know the difference between the pain you naturally have in your body and any pain that may be coming from your meditation sitting style or posture. If the way you are sitting creates new pain in your knees or lower back, that may be your body's way of saying it needs to shift, lay down, stand up, or adjust in some way. Your meditation posture should be comfortable and not creating pain in and of itself.
Many practitioners over the years have done some real damage to their bodies sitting with pain that came from how they were sitting or doing the practice.
One of the reasons you are becoming more aware of your body is so you can listen to it with greater clarity.
If your body is in pain and saying to shift, listen to it and shift your posture as needed. Use some discernment in what pain is naturally part of your body and what pain may be coming from a posture that needs adjusting.
Now let’s try it.
As you learn to become more aware of your body in a conscious way, it can initially be easier to do a focused body scan starting at the top of your head and working all the way down to your toes or starting from your toes and working all the way to the top of your head. A body scan is a process to give every part of you a chance to be focused on in a meaningful way.
Many people when they do a body scan for the first time will often say they didn’t realize they had so many aches and pains. Our minds will often deliberately avoid the areas in our bodies that are uncomfortable or hurting in some way. The tension in people’s shoulders, pains in the lower back, and even a realization that someone is just randomly stopping and holding their breath are quite common discoveries for a lot people.
Where is the You that is You?
If you ask someone from the U.S. culture, “Where is the you that is you? Where is your consciousness inside your body?” they will often point to the spot just behind their eyes. Our culture here often sees consciousness and our decisions, in particular, as coming from our head. If you ask this question in other cultures, you will find that seeing thinking as occurring just behind the eyes is not a universal belief. In many places, people will point to their chests or heart center and say they see their consciousness as residing there. Other places see the “you that is you” as being more centered just below their navel – more in the area we would say is their gut or deeper intuition center.
It’s this level of awareness that you bring to each area of your body. You are moving that sense of your consciousness itself – that you that is you – to each area of your body and bringing that level of focus there. You may even think of this as breathing from each area of your body if that metaphor is more helpful.
Not Running From Our Pain and Not Battling It Either
As you begin this practice, you will just notice the tension, aches, pains, tightness, or anything else that is being held in the focus area and then stay with it. As you hold your focus there, you may find that whatever has caused you to pause – the discomfort, irritation, itching, a strong emotion -- goes away as the focus is held. You may also find that the feelings there intensify in some way. Sometimes the feeling moves or jumps to another area of the body.
Just hold your focus as you notice these things. The goal is to simply notice. Just be with whatever is there and use it to bring yourself into the present moment.
With pain, in particular, there is often a mental need to run away from it or avoid paying attention to it. Some meditation teachers refer to bodily aches and pains as a gift – because they give you something to focus on and to become more fully present with. As you bring your consciousness to the area giving you pain, just notice it and breathe with it.
Pain Mapping
As you notice pain, notice where it starts and stops in your body as well. If the pain is in your knee for example, you will notice that it’s not your whole knee feeling the pain but only a well-defined area of your knee. If you draw mental boundaries or borders of where the pain lives and doesn’t live, it would look almost like a map of a country drawn on your body. This is why this technique is called "pain mapping."
When you experience pain or discomfort, try drawing the map and once the borders are drawn fill in the area created with a color – whatever color you associate with the sensation being felt. Focus on the area you filled in and breathe with it. Notice any tendency to hold your breath or hesitation to move fully into the sensation.
As you breathe with what you are feeling, also give it a label --- similar to how you have been labeling your thinking with “thinking thinking” to this point. Pain gets a label of “pain pain.” Discomfort gets a label of “discomfort discomfort.” You may find yourself labeling “itching itching,” “heat heat,” “cold cold,” and so on. Just give the sensation the best label you can.
Listen to Your Body
As you do this, it’s important to know the difference between the pain you naturally have in your body and any pain that may be coming from your meditation sitting style or posture. If the way you are sitting creates new pain in your knees or lower back, that may be your body's way of saying it needs to shift, lay down, stand up, or adjust in some way. Your meditation posture should be comfortable and not creating pain in and of itself.
Many practitioners over the years have done some real damage to their bodies sitting with pain that came from how they were sitting or doing the practice.
One of the reasons you are becoming more aware of your body is so you can listen to it with greater clarity.
If your body is in pain and saying to shift, listen to it and shift your posture as needed. Use some discernment in what pain is naturally part of your body and what pain may be coming from a posture that needs adjusting.
Now let’s try it.
Physical Sensations Instructions
The body scan is a great way to help you become more aware of the sensations in your body. Traditionally, however, body awareness has been taught through just allowing your focus to move to the different sensations occurring with your body as they naturally arise.
It's allowing yourself to notice what parts of your body are saying "pay attention to me" in both overt and subtle ways.
It may be a very striking pain or just the lightest of sensations that calls attention to itself. Part of this practice is just sitting in awareness and noticing all of your bodily experiences no matter how light or heavy their impact.
The next practice period works with the idea that awareness of the body is really just listening to the body in a clearer way.
The body scan is a great way to help you become more aware of the sensations in your body. Traditionally, however, body awareness has been taught through just allowing your focus to move to the different sensations occurring with your body as they naturally arise.
It's allowing yourself to notice what parts of your body are saying "pay attention to me" in both overt and subtle ways.
It may be a very striking pain or just the lightest of sensations that calls attention to itself. Part of this practice is just sitting in awareness and noticing all of your bodily experiences no matter how light or heavy their impact.
The next practice period works with the idea that awareness of the body is really just listening to the body in a clearer way.
Other Ways to Work with the Body
Different Ways to Work With Embodiment
You can also use this idea of incorporating meditation in your movement-based activities by looking at the different physical tasks you do each day. When you are in the shower, really pay attention and feel the water. Feel the base of the tub with the soles of your feet. What does the metal of the faucet feel like when you touch it? What are the sounds of the water or even your breathing? What does the soap feel like or smell like? How does the temperature of the water feel? How does the openness of the space itself feel to you?
Many people bring this level of focus when doing things like folding the laundry, doing the dishes in the soap-filled sink, and through focusing slowly on every taste sensation when eating.
Take ten minutes and slowly eat a piece of chocolate or drink a cup of tea.
If you select to do these activities using mindfulness, don't rush. Take these as opportunities to really focus your attention on the smells, tastes, sounds, and touch sensations of what you are doing.
Traditionally, many people do sweeping as a mindfulness practice to engage the principles of this technique. This bringing of a structured awareness into a physical everyday activity is about really taking a moment that would normally be part of an unconscious routine and making it into a conscious act. It’s turning off the auto-pilot and turning on your full awareness.
As you eat lunch or dinner today, try bringing the mindfulness work you are doing into those activities as well.
Next, we will begin addressing how to work with your emotions before moving onto working with your thoughts and the mind.
Different Ways to Work With Embodiment
You can also use this idea of incorporating meditation in your movement-based activities by looking at the different physical tasks you do each day. When you are in the shower, really pay attention and feel the water. Feel the base of the tub with the soles of your feet. What does the metal of the faucet feel like when you touch it? What are the sounds of the water or even your breathing? What does the soap feel like or smell like? How does the temperature of the water feel? How does the openness of the space itself feel to you?
Many people bring this level of focus when doing things like folding the laundry, doing the dishes in the soap-filled sink, and through focusing slowly on every taste sensation when eating.
Take ten minutes and slowly eat a piece of chocolate or drink a cup of tea.
If you select to do these activities using mindfulness, don't rush. Take these as opportunities to really focus your attention on the smells, tastes, sounds, and touch sensations of what you are doing.
Traditionally, many people do sweeping as a mindfulness practice to engage the principles of this technique. This bringing of a structured awareness into a physical everyday activity is about really taking a moment that would normally be part of an unconscious routine and making it into a conscious act. It’s turning off the auto-pilot and turning on your full awareness.
As you eat lunch or dinner today, try bringing the mindfulness work you are doing into those activities as well.
Next, we will begin addressing how to work with your emotions before moving onto working with your thoughts and the mind.
Working with Your Emotions
Working with Your Emotions
Part of emotional intelligence is being aware of your own and other’s emotions, being able to regulate those emotions, knowing how and when to express what you feel in effective ways, and also understanding when no response may indeed be your best response to the situation at hand. The practice skill for this next section will help you learn to identify and become more aware of your emotions. This is a base level skill that can be expanded on in the future but, for now, we are working on building a solid base that more advanced material can be added to later.
Identifying Your Emotions
The research says that women are better than men at identifying their emotions at the start of learning a mindfulness practice. And that is largely based on the difference between how women and men are raised in our culture. Women are indeed encouraged to be more in touch with what they feel and are given a greater license to express a broader range of emotions than men are. And I often see this difference in class.Though, clearly, there are lots of women who are not in touch with their emotions at all and there are lots of men who are definitely much more in touch with how they feel than many women are.
You may initially be really good at identifying your emotions, not good at all, or somewhere in between and that is okay. Remember that non-judgment is a big part of what you are learning with this practice. If this is difficult, just note that it is difficult and do your best to not add any additional self-judgment as you learn the skills.
We also know, because of the research, that most of the decisions you make are based on your emotions first and the facts second. In fact, most of the time your mind will go with the emotional decision and then filter out just the facts that validate what your emotions have already decided. And, if any of the facts out there contradict your initial feeling, those facts tend to be ignored, minimized, or rationalized away. That is unless you are aware of your natural bias and take some steps to ensure your emotions don’t negatively impact or mislead you during your decision making process.
Learning to be aware of what you feel while you are feeling it and how it influences your choices is really critical in being able to have real freedom of choice in your life. And it’s an important reason to engage a mindfulness practice.
The Emotional Mirror
Another important reason to really dive into the emotions piece of this practice is a concept called the Emotional Mirror.
When you smile at a baby, the baby smiles back. When you scowl at a baby, the baby scowls back. The emotional mirroring system in the baby's brain is what creates this effect. We naturally feel another person's pain and unconsciously reflect back another's facial expression or mood. We naturally mirror what is presented to us. This ability to easily transfer the emotional state from one person to another when it is needed has been an important part of human survival throughout time. The ability for another person’s fear or anxiousness to transfer without much effort to another could actually save someone’s life depending on what type of situation is occurring.
We also know through emotional contagion studies that the strongest emotion within a group often has the power to sway the entirety of the group to that same emotion. Bad moods and good moods can actually be "contagious" because of this mirroring effect.
The intensely negative person can often bring out the negativity in those around them – even affecting people who aren’t normally negative. The intensely upbeat or optimistic person can also have this ability on others when their emotion is the strongest in the group. The moods of the people around you can directly impact you and even change your own emotional state if you aren’t aware of what is happening.
Researchers have also successfully shown that being able to consciously hold a positive or calm state when confronted with a negative or agitated one can keep the emotion from transferring to you. And there is good research showing that you being able to hold your calm when someone else is highly agitated can actually sway that highly agitated person to your level of stillness. This is actually a large part of de-escalation training for many professionals.
Mindfulness helps you be able to stay centered and not be swayed by the moods of the people around you. And it can even help sway the emotions of others if you have the done work of learning how to hold a more positive mental state.
Working with Your Emotions
Part of emotional intelligence is being aware of your own and other’s emotions, being able to regulate those emotions, knowing how and when to express what you feel in effective ways, and also understanding when no response may indeed be your best response to the situation at hand. The practice skill for this next section will help you learn to identify and become more aware of your emotions. This is a base level skill that can be expanded on in the future but, for now, we are working on building a solid base that more advanced material can be added to later.
Identifying Your Emotions
The research says that women are better than men at identifying their emotions at the start of learning a mindfulness practice. And that is largely based on the difference between how women and men are raised in our culture. Women are indeed encouraged to be more in touch with what they feel and are given a greater license to express a broader range of emotions than men are. And I often see this difference in class.Though, clearly, there are lots of women who are not in touch with their emotions at all and there are lots of men who are definitely much more in touch with how they feel than many women are.
You may initially be really good at identifying your emotions, not good at all, or somewhere in between and that is okay. Remember that non-judgment is a big part of what you are learning with this practice. If this is difficult, just note that it is difficult and do your best to not add any additional self-judgment as you learn the skills.
We also know, because of the research, that most of the decisions you make are based on your emotions first and the facts second. In fact, most of the time your mind will go with the emotional decision and then filter out just the facts that validate what your emotions have already decided. And, if any of the facts out there contradict your initial feeling, those facts tend to be ignored, minimized, or rationalized away. That is unless you are aware of your natural bias and take some steps to ensure your emotions don’t negatively impact or mislead you during your decision making process.
Learning to be aware of what you feel while you are feeling it and how it influences your choices is really critical in being able to have real freedom of choice in your life. And it’s an important reason to engage a mindfulness practice.
The Emotional Mirror
Another important reason to really dive into the emotions piece of this practice is a concept called the Emotional Mirror.
When you smile at a baby, the baby smiles back. When you scowl at a baby, the baby scowls back. The emotional mirroring system in the baby's brain is what creates this effect. We naturally feel another person's pain and unconsciously reflect back another's facial expression or mood. We naturally mirror what is presented to us. This ability to easily transfer the emotional state from one person to another when it is needed has been an important part of human survival throughout time. The ability for another person’s fear or anxiousness to transfer without much effort to another could actually save someone’s life depending on what type of situation is occurring.
We also know through emotional contagion studies that the strongest emotion within a group often has the power to sway the entirety of the group to that same emotion. Bad moods and good moods can actually be "contagious" because of this mirroring effect.
The intensely negative person can often bring out the negativity in those around them – even affecting people who aren’t normally negative. The intensely upbeat or optimistic person can also have this ability on others when their emotion is the strongest in the group. The moods of the people around you can directly impact you and even change your own emotional state if you aren’t aware of what is happening.
Researchers have also successfully shown that being able to consciously hold a positive or calm state when confronted with a negative or agitated one can keep the emotion from transferring to you. And there is good research showing that you being able to hold your calm when someone else is highly agitated can actually sway that highly agitated person to your level of stillness. This is actually a large part of de-escalation training for many professionals.
Mindfulness helps you be able to stay centered and not be swayed by the moods of the people around you. And it can even help sway the emotions of others if you have the done work of learning how to hold a more positive mental state.
Emotional Call and Response Instructions
The Call and Response Technique
As you become more aware of your body, you will also become more aware of the emotions that reside in it. We cover the body first for this reason – because the more you become aware of your physical embodiment the more it helps provide the underlying skills to really become more aware of your emotional state as well.
Or, put in much simpler terms, the more you connect with your body, the easier it will be to connect to your emotions
.
To begin working with and identifying emotions, we often start with a basic call and response technique to identity what emotions you are currently feeling. When you are centered and ready to do the practice, you ask yourself internally, “What am I feeling?” and then listen for your body to respond. Don’t force anything. It’s entirely possible that as you first start doing this piece of the practice that your internal response will be, “I don’t think I’m really feeling anything.” It may take a while to identify what you are feeling. As you become more in touch with your emotions, this call and response will become easier.
When an emotion returns to your internal question, feel where it exists in your body, move your focus there, really explore it, and give it a label. This should feel really similar to how you worked with the other sensations in your body. So, for example, if you are feeling compassion, explore the area of your body the feeling is centered in, move your focus there and explore how it feels, then label it “Compassion Compassion." If you are feeling rejected, explore the area of your body the feeling is centered in, move your focus there, and label it “Rejected Rejected."
How long you stay focused on each area of feeling is up to you. You may find that as you focus on the emotion that, just like when you focus on the other things happening in your body, it intensifies for a while, that the focus actually makes it dissipate, or it that the focus causes a new emotion to emerge. When you are ready or you feel you've sat long enough with the focus on one particular emotion or group of emotions, take another breath or two, and then return to your question, “What am I feeling?” Sit with your breath and wait again for a response. Just breathe as normal as you wait for your body to respond.
The same emotion may still be dominant and return again as the answer. Noticing and labeling the same emotion again is perfectly acceptable. The focus is on learning to be present with what is – not on feeling something new or different each time.
Picking the Most Accurate Emotional Label
As you work with this call and response technique, try to be as detailed as possible with your emotional labels. You may be feeling “Love” but that is a very high level emotion. What type of love? Desire, passion, sympathy, attraction, sentimentality, or another more specific word? You may be feeling “Sadness” but that is also a very high level word. What type of sadness? Is it guilt, remorse, grief, loneliness, or another much more specific word?
Be as detailed as you can. Part of this practice is also to build up your emotional vocabulary. There is a List of Emotions in this section as well to help with that vocabulary building. Many students will sit with that list in front of them as they are first learning to do this work.
If you are more adept at identifying your emotions, you will be keenly aware that you have more than just one emotion occurring at the same time. The more you get used to the process of defining what you feel and you increase your emotional vocabulary, it does get easier and the knowledge that emotions can fuse together to create something new will begin to emerge.
What is an Emotional Fusion?
When emotions combine to form a new, separate-feeling emotion, it can be difficult to recognize or give that emotion its proper label. It will also become apparent that what you are labeling as one emotion is actually, in fact, not one pure emotion at all but is rather a combination of emotions that came together to create the feeling you are trying to identify.
In some ways, working with identifying how groups of emotions come together is actually quite similar to working with a color palate. The same way red and blue make purple, resentment and anger create bitterness. Hurt and anger create spite. Desire and arousal create lust. Tenderness and love create caring. Often there aren't full words to describe the effect when two or more emotions combine to create a unique feeling. Our language can fall short in providing good descriptions when some emotions fuse.
When people have a good emotional vocabulary but can't quite put their finger on what it is they are feeling, it's often because the emotion they are experiencing is a fusion of two or more emotions and the experience they are feeling is unique. Probably the most common fusion of emotions is happy-sad. Yes, a lot of people feel happy and sad at the exact same time and the emotions don’t cancel each other out – they just co-exist. And that emotional experience is unique from when either emotion is present on its own.
Understanding that emotions can combine to create other emotions is one of the keys to being able to label what you are feeling while you are feeling it.
As you work with this basic practice, once you more readily receive a response to the question, "What am I feeling?" you can drop the call and response technique during the meditation period itself. Over time, this technique trains you to notice your emotions as they naturally arise and you won't need the verbal prompt to get the emotional labels to return as much.
Now let’s actually sit and do this practice together.
The Call and Response Technique
As you become more aware of your body, you will also become more aware of the emotions that reside in it. We cover the body first for this reason – because the more you become aware of your physical embodiment the more it helps provide the underlying skills to really become more aware of your emotional state as well.
Or, put in much simpler terms, the more you connect with your body, the easier it will be to connect to your emotions
.
To begin working with and identifying emotions, we often start with a basic call and response technique to identity what emotions you are currently feeling. When you are centered and ready to do the practice, you ask yourself internally, “What am I feeling?” and then listen for your body to respond. Don’t force anything. It’s entirely possible that as you first start doing this piece of the practice that your internal response will be, “I don’t think I’m really feeling anything.” It may take a while to identify what you are feeling. As you become more in touch with your emotions, this call and response will become easier.
When an emotion returns to your internal question, feel where it exists in your body, move your focus there, really explore it, and give it a label. This should feel really similar to how you worked with the other sensations in your body. So, for example, if you are feeling compassion, explore the area of your body the feeling is centered in, move your focus there and explore how it feels, then label it “Compassion Compassion." If you are feeling rejected, explore the area of your body the feeling is centered in, move your focus there, and label it “Rejected Rejected."
How long you stay focused on each area of feeling is up to you. You may find that as you focus on the emotion that, just like when you focus on the other things happening in your body, it intensifies for a while, that the focus actually makes it dissipate, or it that the focus causes a new emotion to emerge. When you are ready or you feel you've sat long enough with the focus on one particular emotion or group of emotions, take another breath or two, and then return to your question, “What am I feeling?” Sit with your breath and wait again for a response. Just breathe as normal as you wait for your body to respond.
The same emotion may still be dominant and return again as the answer. Noticing and labeling the same emotion again is perfectly acceptable. The focus is on learning to be present with what is – not on feeling something new or different each time.
Picking the Most Accurate Emotional Label
As you work with this call and response technique, try to be as detailed as possible with your emotional labels. You may be feeling “Love” but that is a very high level emotion. What type of love? Desire, passion, sympathy, attraction, sentimentality, or another more specific word? You may be feeling “Sadness” but that is also a very high level word. What type of sadness? Is it guilt, remorse, grief, loneliness, or another much more specific word?
Be as detailed as you can. Part of this practice is also to build up your emotional vocabulary. There is a List of Emotions in this section as well to help with that vocabulary building. Many students will sit with that list in front of them as they are first learning to do this work.
If you are more adept at identifying your emotions, you will be keenly aware that you have more than just one emotion occurring at the same time. The more you get used to the process of defining what you feel and you increase your emotional vocabulary, it does get easier and the knowledge that emotions can fuse together to create something new will begin to emerge.
What is an Emotional Fusion?
When emotions combine to form a new, separate-feeling emotion, it can be difficult to recognize or give that emotion its proper label. It will also become apparent that what you are labeling as one emotion is actually, in fact, not one pure emotion at all but is rather a combination of emotions that came together to create the feeling you are trying to identify.
In some ways, working with identifying how groups of emotions come together is actually quite similar to working with a color palate. The same way red and blue make purple, resentment and anger create bitterness. Hurt and anger create spite. Desire and arousal create lust. Tenderness and love create caring. Often there aren't full words to describe the effect when two or more emotions combine to create a unique feeling. Our language can fall short in providing good descriptions when some emotions fuse.
When people have a good emotional vocabulary but can't quite put their finger on what it is they are feeling, it's often because the emotion they are experiencing is a fusion of two or more emotions and the experience they are feeling is unique. Probably the most common fusion of emotions is happy-sad. Yes, a lot of people feel happy and sad at the exact same time and the emotions don’t cancel each other out – they just co-exist. And that emotional experience is unique from when either emotion is present on its own.
Understanding that emotions can combine to create other emotions is one of the keys to being able to label what you are feeling while you are feeling it.
As you work with this basic practice, once you more readily receive a response to the question, "What am I feeling?" you can drop the call and response technique during the meditation period itself. Over time, this technique trains you to notice your emotions as they naturally arise and you won't need the verbal prompt to get the emotional labels to return as much.
Now let’s actually sit and do this practice together.
List of Emotions
The chart below is from a branch diagram of 135 emotion names found in the Emotional Knowledge: Further Exploration of a Prototype Approach Emotions section in Social Psychology: Essential Readings (Shaver et al, 2001):
-- LOVE --
Affection. Adoration, affection, love, fondness, liking, attraction, caring, tenderness, compassion, sentimentality
Lust. Arousal, desire, lust, passion, infatuation
Longing
-- JOY --
Cheerfulness. Amusement, bliss, cheerfulness, gaiety, glee, jolliness, joviality, joy, delight, enjoyment, gladness, happiness, jubilation, elation, satisfaction, ecstasy, euphoria
Zest. Enthusiasm, zeal, zest, excitement, thrill, exhilaration
Contentment. Contentment, pleasure
Pride. Pride, triumph
Enthrallment. Enthrallment, rapture
Relief
Optimism. Eagerness, hope, optimism
-- SURPRISE --
Amazement, surprise, astonishment
-- ANGER --
Irritation. Aggravation, irritation, agitation, annoyance, grouchiness, grumpiness
Rage. Anger, rage, outrage, fury, wrath, hostility, ferocity, bitterness, hate, loathing, scorn, spite, vengefulness, dislike, resentment
Exasperation. Exasperation, frustration
Disgust. Disgust, revulsion, contempt
Envy. Envy, jealousy
Torment
-- SADNESS --
Suffering. Agony, suffering, hurt, anguish
Sadness. Depression, despair, hopelessness, gloom, glumness, sadness, unhappiness, grief, sorrow, woe, misery, melancholy
Disappointment. Dismay, disappointment, displeasure
Neglect. Alienation, isolation, neglect, loneliness, rejection, homesickness, defeat, dejection, insecurity, embarrassment, humiliation, insult
Shame. Guilt, shame, regret, remorse
Sympathy. Pity, sympathy
-- FEAR --
Horror. Alarm, shock, fear, fright, horror, terror, panic, hysteria, mortification
Nervousness. Anxiety, nervousness, tenseness, uneasiness, apprehension, worry, distress, dread
Using this list of emotions can make labeling and identifying your emotions easier and also help to expand your emotional vocabulary.
The chart below is from a branch diagram of 135 emotion names found in the Emotional Knowledge: Further Exploration of a Prototype Approach Emotions section in Social Psychology: Essential Readings (Shaver et al, 2001):
-- LOVE --
Affection. Adoration, affection, love, fondness, liking, attraction, caring, tenderness, compassion, sentimentality
Lust. Arousal, desire, lust, passion, infatuation
Longing
-- JOY --
Cheerfulness. Amusement, bliss, cheerfulness, gaiety, glee, jolliness, joviality, joy, delight, enjoyment, gladness, happiness, jubilation, elation, satisfaction, ecstasy, euphoria
Zest. Enthusiasm, zeal, zest, excitement, thrill, exhilaration
Contentment. Contentment, pleasure
Pride. Pride, triumph
Enthrallment. Enthrallment, rapture
Relief
Optimism. Eagerness, hope, optimism
-- SURPRISE --
Amazement, surprise, astonishment
-- ANGER --
Irritation. Aggravation, irritation, agitation, annoyance, grouchiness, grumpiness
Rage. Anger, rage, outrage, fury, wrath, hostility, ferocity, bitterness, hate, loathing, scorn, spite, vengefulness, dislike, resentment
Exasperation. Exasperation, frustration
Disgust. Disgust, revulsion, contempt
Envy. Envy, jealousy
Torment
-- SADNESS --
Suffering. Agony, suffering, hurt, anguish
Sadness. Depression, despair, hopelessness, gloom, glumness, sadness, unhappiness, grief, sorrow, woe, misery, melancholy
Disappointment. Dismay, disappointment, displeasure
Neglect. Alienation, isolation, neglect, loneliness, rejection, homesickness, defeat, dejection, insecurity, embarrassment, humiliation, insult
Shame. Guilt, shame, regret, remorse
Sympathy. Pity, sympathy
-- FEAR --
Horror. Alarm, shock, fear, fright, horror, terror, panic, hysteria, mortification
Nervousness. Anxiety, nervousness, tenseness, uneasiness, apprehension, worry, distress, dread
Using this list of emotions can make labeling and identifying your emotions easier and also help to expand your emotional vocabulary.
More About Working with Emotions
Labeling Your Emotions
This emotional labeling practice can also be particularly hard if you are someone who has historically been told, “No. You don’t feel that,” or, “Are you sure that’s what you feel?” If you are someone who has had your emotional experience discounted, invalidated, or minimized by others, this practice can really be quite freeing. You feel what you feel.
"If You Name It, You Can Tame It." - Marc Brackett
The more you work with this emotional awareness practice, the more you will begin to see the emotions that arise within you as tools. Tools that show up automatically based on your history to help you deal with what is happening in the current moment or in the over-arching narrative of your life.
Conscious Emotional Selection
And this awareness of emotions as tools is important because it introduces this idea of emotional choice. You may have been handed a hammer by default but what if you look at the situation and know you need a screwdriver instead? You may have been handed jealousy and insecurity as valid emotions but what if you know that feeling compassion would be healthier and more helpful to resolving the situation in front of you instead? Can you make that choice? Using mindfulness, you can.
When we cover the topic of loving-kindness later, we dig into this idea of conscious emotional selection. You can indeed choose how you feel – with some exceptions of course.
What about Depression?
If we look at things like depression, for example, many people really do need a clinical intervention if it's gone on long enough. They need support to help gain better skills or may need medication. Depression has a tipping point where talk therapy is no longer as effective and medication is necessary to bring someone forward enough for other interventions and strategies to help.
It's important to say that depression is not a spiritual issue -- it's a medical one -- and there is no reason to feel ashamed about seeking help. It's doubly important to not shame others who need clinical help dealing with their issues. It takes real strength and courage to seek help when needed. Don't be afraid to seek help from a therapist or medical professional if ongoing depression is an issue for you.
It's important to know that some emotions can be consciously selected or even changed ... and some cannot.
When there isn't an underlying mental health issue going on, it really is possible to select an emotion to use in a given moment – just like pulling a tool from a toolbox. And, this knowledge and being able to use this as a skill is an important part of your work in moving what you learn in this course out into your everyday life.
Seeing Emotions as Tools
What about emotions often labeled negative like anger?
One of the biggest concepts to understand was said earlier in that emotions are tools -- meaning the emotions themselves are neither positive or negative. It's what we do with our emotions -- how we express our emotions -- that can be either positive or negative. Many of the emotions many people would label as negative are actually "warning signal" emotions.
This is particularly true of anger. In the mindfulness world, anger is always seen as a second tier emotion -- meaning that it never shows up on it's own but rather arises from other emotional states. Anger is simply a warning bell that something is wrong. It is in how we express or use our anger that we can then decide if our words or actions using it are healthy or unhealthy, helpful or unhelpful to the situation at hand. And, quite often, how we express and use anger as a tool is largely learned by what we witnessed growing up.
Many, many of us were shown hugely destructive ways of channeling anger. Others were shown how to channel it to create truly positive outcomes and changes. A larger part of mindfulness training for many people is learning how to use their anger to create something better in the areas that spark their upset rather than adding fuel to the fire and burning things further or all the way to the ground.
Anger, insecurity, fear, and similar emotions are your canaries in the coal mine. As you do more of this work, you will begin learning healthier ways to use them if your current methods aren't helpful to the situations at hand.
Labeling Your Emotions
This emotional labeling practice can also be particularly hard if you are someone who has historically been told, “No. You don’t feel that,” or, “Are you sure that’s what you feel?” If you are someone who has had your emotional experience discounted, invalidated, or minimized by others, this practice can really be quite freeing. You feel what you feel.
"If You Name It, You Can Tame It." - Marc Brackett
The more you work with this emotional awareness practice, the more you will begin to see the emotions that arise within you as tools. Tools that show up automatically based on your history to help you deal with what is happening in the current moment or in the over-arching narrative of your life.
Conscious Emotional Selection
And this awareness of emotions as tools is important because it introduces this idea of emotional choice. You may have been handed a hammer by default but what if you look at the situation and know you need a screwdriver instead? You may have been handed jealousy and insecurity as valid emotions but what if you know that feeling compassion would be healthier and more helpful to resolving the situation in front of you instead? Can you make that choice? Using mindfulness, you can.
When we cover the topic of loving-kindness later, we dig into this idea of conscious emotional selection. You can indeed choose how you feel – with some exceptions of course.
What about Depression?
If we look at things like depression, for example, many people really do need a clinical intervention if it's gone on long enough. They need support to help gain better skills or may need medication. Depression has a tipping point where talk therapy is no longer as effective and medication is necessary to bring someone forward enough for other interventions and strategies to help.
It's important to say that depression is not a spiritual issue -- it's a medical one -- and there is no reason to feel ashamed about seeking help. It's doubly important to not shame others who need clinical help dealing with their issues. It takes real strength and courage to seek help when needed. Don't be afraid to seek help from a therapist or medical professional if ongoing depression is an issue for you.
It's important to know that some emotions can be consciously selected or even changed ... and some cannot.
When there isn't an underlying mental health issue going on, it really is possible to select an emotion to use in a given moment – just like pulling a tool from a toolbox. And, this knowledge and being able to use this as a skill is an important part of your work in moving what you learn in this course out into your everyday life.
Seeing Emotions as Tools
What about emotions often labeled negative like anger?
One of the biggest concepts to understand was said earlier in that emotions are tools -- meaning the emotions themselves are neither positive or negative. It's what we do with our emotions -- how we express our emotions -- that can be either positive or negative. Many of the emotions many people would label as negative are actually "warning signal" emotions.
This is particularly true of anger. In the mindfulness world, anger is always seen as a second tier emotion -- meaning that it never shows up on it's own but rather arises from other emotional states. Anger is simply a warning bell that something is wrong. It is in how we express or use our anger that we can then decide if our words or actions using it are healthy or unhealthy, helpful or unhelpful to the situation at hand. And, quite often, how we express and use anger as a tool is largely learned by what we witnessed growing up.
Many, many of us were shown hugely destructive ways of channeling anger. Others were shown how to channel it to create truly positive outcomes and changes. A larger part of mindfulness training for many people is learning how to use their anger to create something better in the areas that spark their upset rather than adding fuel to the fire and burning things further or all the way to the ground.
Anger, insecurity, fear, and similar emotions are your canaries in the coal mine. As you do more of this work, you will begin learning healthier ways to use them if your current methods aren't helpful to the situations at hand.
Working with Your Thoughts
Working with Your Thoughts
The last piece we are adding into the basic mindfulness juggling act is working with your thoughts and your mind. So far you have learned to use your breath as home, bring awareness into your body, and to begin working with your emotions. All of these things layer on top of each other as you work toward greater self-awareness.
As you have done the body awareness and emotional identification work so far you have been pulling back to give everything a label with what it is. "Pain pain" when working with the body or "Contentment Contentment" when working with the emotions for example. It’s now time to give that piece of you doing that labeling a name. The part of you that is pulling back or above to do the noticing and to give what is happening a label while it is happening is called your Observer Self.
Your Observer Self
Your observer self is the you that watches you. It is the you that is free to see things clearly from a higher perspective. Your observer self works to create a distance between the you that is you and your thoughts. The realization here is that you are not the thoughts you think. The fact you can create a separate part of you to watch those thoughts is proof of this.
A large part of the initial piece of your mindfulness practice is spent really cultivating this observer self because it’s from this place that you can first start to experience true freedom in your thinking, decision making, and, ultimately, choices in life. Your observer self has limitations on what it can do or even see but it's a great start in learning to pull back and realize that just because you are thinking it, does not mean you need to believe it or even engage it past just watching it float past and out of view.
Stilling the Waters
Think of your mind as a large lake. Without training on how to be still, that lake is often full of choppy water. All of your thoughts, your past choices, and the things that are happening to you in your present environment are like different size rocks getting thrown into that water and it can create for some turbulent waves. With so much going on, it can be difficult to see which rock started which wave. It's all just crashing waves and water water everywhere.
Some of those waves were created by healthy thoughts and actions while other waves came from unhealthy thoughts and actions. Some waves came from more neutral experiences.
As all of these waves crash around, they often cancel each other out or one type wins over the other for short periods of time and it can be mental chaos.
Over time, meditation is a tool that calms those waters down. And, as your lake becomes less choppy and its surface becomes stiller, your observer self starts to see which waves were created by which actions. You become better able to see the links.
Being able to see the links between which thoughts, internal decisions, or external events create which waves is the first step. As the lake calms over time, you become more able to create your own positive-leaning waves that lead to better outcomes because they aren't competing with or being cancelled out by the more destructive ones.
I like this lake analogy because it shows the three stages the beginning practitioner goes through in working with their thoughts:
Stage 1: Seeing Clearly and Calming the Waters.
As you cultivate your observer self, you become better at seeing your thoughts and the waters of your mind naturally begin to calm. You become able to label your thoughts with greater and greater accuracy and meaning. If you are spending a lot of time planning your day or upcoming events, you see those planning thoughts, give them a label, and know what they are. If you are spending a lot of time rehashing past hurts, you see those thoughts, give them a label, and know what they are. You are becoming clearer about what thoughts are present and what your mind normally dwells on or thinks about throughout a given day.
Stage 2: Ability to Stop Destructive Thoughts.
After you are able to see your thoughts with greater clarity and the water is less choppy, you become able to shut down or redirect the thoughts you see as damaging you in some way. When people get to this point, they can see very clearly which destructive thoughts lead to which negative actions or experiences. Meditators who have put the time in become better able to stop their destructive trains of thought right as they see them forming. They can stop the waves before they even start radiating out to create their destruction. They keep the waves from reaching the shore.
Stage 3: Ability to Create Your Own Healthier Thoughts.
As you learn to stop destructive thinking and ward off the resulting negative results, the waters become calmer and calmer. Often, while still working on the previous stage, people begin to work with this next step.
Once the surface is calm, you are then much more able to choose positive thoughts and create the resulting positive waves. Without so many negative thoughts competing or fighting against the positive ones, you start to really see one of the most positive benefits of meditation. This greater self-awareness means you have the ability to consciously choose your thoughts and to set positive events into motion without the negative pieces of yourself wiping out your efforts. This is about cultivating the freedom to truly choose the direction of your life.
Thoughts as Waves - Seeing Your Free Will
As you examine how this works, it’s important to realize what this says about your own free will and ability to consciously choose the direction of your life up to this point.
When you were born, you were taught how to think by the people around you. And, since you started thinking, it’s highly likely that you’ve never actually stopped thinking. If we stay with the wave analogy that means that your first thoughts created the next thoughts and those thoughts created the thoughts after that. And as your environment, friends, family, education, and life experiences came into that picture they only added their momentum to your already established waves of thinking.
Knowing this, you can see how unless you’ve really learned how to stop the waves or pull up and observe those waves with some real objectivity that it's likely that the patterns of thinking started in your childhood could carry all the way through until the day you die -- without there really being any real choice about anything you’ve ever done.
This is why so many people stay stuck. When things don't go well, they decide to make a change. But with no new information or new ways of observing, the choice they will select will still be drawn from their existing thought system -- the system that isn't working.
It's like deciding that you want to live in a new house but rather than buying new materials or getting outside help, you simply keep dismantling the old house and reworking all those same old materials into something "new." But how can it be truly new when all the materials you've used are the same old ones you had before? The new house will never be that much larger than the old house and by using the old system to create the new system, you can stay trapped forever -- not realizing how much you are bound and held back by the limitations of your existing thinking.
It can be hard to see your own limitations or to understand often that what you think is a "new" choice is actually just a reworking of your old knowledge in new ways.
When your new thinking is just a response to your old thinking, it is still bound by it in many ways. You can keep changing how things are put together but you will never get anything genuinely new. Many people do this their entire lives without ever fully understanding that is why they are still stuck. The things they most need to work on just never get better or they never get the solution they need to really improve because what is needed is a new way of thinking rather than just a new response.
One of the things that really stood out doing the correctional system work for me was how often our culture just sends people away or locks them up and says they expect them to be a new person when they emerge. But how can they emerge as a new person without some type of training or intervention while they are there? Without additional knowledge, the person sent away will just rework their thinking using the same limited knowledge they had going in.
Mindfulness let's you get outside of your existing system of thought and make choices that are not dependent on past thinking. To stay with the analogy, the practice lets you get enough perspective that you can legitimately scrap as much of your current house as you need and also find new materials to bring in when they are needed.
Much of your thinking feels like free will, but it isn’t. It’s really just a long line of choices and thoughts that have been rolling since your childhood – each too heavily influenced by the thoughts that came before it to allow for any real escape. This is why working with your thoughts is such an important part of doing the work.
Mindfulness is about awareness and the freedom that comes from that awareness.
Working with Your Thoughts
The last piece we are adding into the basic mindfulness juggling act is working with your thoughts and your mind. So far you have learned to use your breath as home, bring awareness into your body, and to begin working with your emotions. All of these things layer on top of each other as you work toward greater self-awareness.
As you have done the body awareness and emotional identification work so far you have been pulling back to give everything a label with what it is. "Pain pain" when working with the body or "Contentment Contentment" when working with the emotions for example. It’s now time to give that piece of you doing that labeling a name. The part of you that is pulling back or above to do the noticing and to give what is happening a label while it is happening is called your Observer Self.
Your Observer Self
Your observer self is the you that watches you. It is the you that is free to see things clearly from a higher perspective. Your observer self works to create a distance between the you that is you and your thoughts. The realization here is that you are not the thoughts you think. The fact you can create a separate part of you to watch those thoughts is proof of this.
A large part of the initial piece of your mindfulness practice is spent really cultivating this observer self because it’s from this place that you can first start to experience true freedom in your thinking, decision making, and, ultimately, choices in life. Your observer self has limitations on what it can do or even see but it's a great start in learning to pull back and realize that just because you are thinking it, does not mean you need to believe it or even engage it past just watching it float past and out of view.
Stilling the Waters
Think of your mind as a large lake. Without training on how to be still, that lake is often full of choppy water. All of your thoughts, your past choices, and the things that are happening to you in your present environment are like different size rocks getting thrown into that water and it can create for some turbulent waves. With so much going on, it can be difficult to see which rock started which wave. It's all just crashing waves and water water everywhere.
Some of those waves were created by healthy thoughts and actions while other waves came from unhealthy thoughts and actions. Some waves came from more neutral experiences.
As all of these waves crash around, they often cancel each other out or one type wins over the other for short periods of time and it can be mental chaos.
Over time, meditation is a tool that calms those waters down. And, as your lake becomes less choppy and its surface becomes stiller, your observer self starts to see which waves were created by which actions. You become better able to see the links.
Being able to see the links between which thoughts, internal decisions, or external events create which waves is the first step. As the lake calms over time, you become more able to create your own positive-leaning waves that lead to better outcomes because they aren't competing with or being cancelled out by the more destructive ones.
I like this lake analogy because it shows the three stages the beginning practitioner goes through in working with their thoughts:
Stage 1: Seeing Clearly and Calming the Waters.
As you cultivate your observer self, you become better at seeing your thoughts and the waters of your mind naturally begin to calm. You become able to label your thoughts with greater and greater accuracy and meaning. If you are spending a lot of time planning your day or upcoming events, you see those planning thoughts, give them a label, and know what they are. If you are spending a lot of time rehashing past hurts, you see those thoughts, give them a label, and know what they are. You are becoming clearer about what thoughts are present and what your mind normally dwells on or thinks about throughout a given day.
Stage 2: Ability to Stop Destructive Thoughts.
After you are able to see your thoughts with greater clarity and the water is less choppy, you become able to shut down or redirect the thoughts you see as damaging you in some way. When people get to this point, they can see very clearly which destructive thoughts lead to which negative actions or experiences. Meditators who have put the time in become better able to stop their destructive trains of thought right as they see them forming. They can stop the waves before they even start radiating out to create their destruction. They keep the waves from reaching the shore.
Stage 3: Ability to Create Your Own Healthier Thoughts.
As you learn to stop destructive thinking and ward off the resulting negative results, the waters become calmer and calmer. Often, while still working on the previous stage, people begin to work with this next step.
Once the surface is calm, you are then much more able to choose positive thoughts and create the resulting positive waves. Without so many negative thoughts competing or fighting against the positive ones, you start to really see one of the most positive benefits of meditation. This greater self-awareness means you have the ability to consciously choose your thoughts and to set positive events into motion without the negative pieces of yourself wiping out your efforts. This is about cultivating the freedom to truly choose the direction of your life.
Thoughts as Waves - Seeing Your Free Will
As you examine how this works, it’s important to realize what this says about your own free will and ability to consciously choose the direction of your life up to this point.
When you were born, you were taught how to think by the people around you. And, since you started thinking, it’s highly likely that you’ve never actually stopped thinking. If we stay with the wave analogy that means that your first thoughts created the next thoughts and those thoughts created the thoughts after that. And as your environment, friends, family, education, and life experiences came into that picture they only added their momentum to your already established waves of thinking.
Knowing this, you can see how unless you’ve really learned how to stop the waves or pull up and observe those waves with some real objectivity that it's likely that the patterns of thinking started in your childhood could carry all the way through until the day you die -- without there really being any real choice about anything you’ve ever done.
This is why so many people stay stuck. When things don't go well, they decide to make a change. But with no new information or new ways of observing, the choice they will select will still be drawn from their existing thought system -- the system that isn't working.
It's like deciding that you want to live in a new house but rather than buying new materials or getting outside help, you simply keep dismantling the old house and reworking all those same old materials into something "new." But how can it be truly new when all the materials you've used are the same old ones you had before? The new house will never be that much larger than the old house and by using the old system to create the new system, you can stay trapped forever -- not realizing how much you are bound and held back by the limitations of your existing thinking.
It can be hard to see your own limitations or to understand often that what you think is a "new" choice is actually just a reworking of your old knowledge in new ways.
When your new thinking is just a response to your old thinking, it is still bound by it in many ways. You can keep changing how things are put together but you will never get anything genuinely new. Many people do this their entire lives without ever fully understanding that is why they are still stuck. The things they most need to work on just never get better or they never get the solution they need to really improve because what is needed is a new way of thinking rather than just a new response.
One of the things that really stood out doing the correctional system work for me was how often our culture just sends people away or locks them up and says they expect them to be a new person when they emerge. But how can they emerge as a new person without some type of training or intervention while they are there? Without additional knowledge, the person sent away will just rework their thinking using the same limited knowledge they had going in.
Mindfulness let's you get outside of your existing system of thought and make choices that are not dependent on past thinking. To stay with the analogy, the practice lets you get enough perspective that you can legitimately scrap as much of your current house as you need and also find new materials to bring in when they are needed.
Much of your thinking feels like free will, but it isn’t. It’s really just a long line of choices and thoughts that have been rolling since your childhood – each too heavily influenced by the thoughts that came before it to allow for any real escape. This is why working with your thoughts is such an important part of doing the work.
Mindfulness is about awareness and the freedom that comes from that awareness.
Thought Labeling Instructions
Up until now, you have been labeling your thoughts, "Thinking Thinking," letting them go, and returning to the breath. The time has come to switch from "Thinking Thinking" to a more specific label. We are going to learn the first steps of thought examination.
As you are doing your sitting and a thought arises, you will now start giving it a meaningful label before you let it go in order to return to the breath. For example, if your mind wanders off to review the list of everything you need to do once you are done meditating like making lunch or putting a load of laundry in, that is called planning and you would label that as, "Planning Planning," let it go, and then return to the breath. If what shows up is you rehashing the bad things someone said about you and why those things are wrong, you could label that as, “Defending Defending,” let it go, and then return to the breath. You are learning to identify what kind of thought is present as a way of really noticing how you spend your mental energy and what seeds you are watering in your thinking.
A List of Common Labels
When people are first starting, it can be difficult to find the best label so it’s good to have some more examples of how you can label your thoughts. Some other very common label examples are:
Accepting Accepting. Internal dialogue where you are reminding yourself to not run from what is present but are rather acknowledging the current truth of the matter is called accepting.
Affirming Affirming. Thoughts where you are praising yourself or another are affirming thoughts. Thoughts like, “You got this,” “I know I can do it,” or any time you are reminding yourself of your own or someone else’s value that is Affirming Affirming.
Blaming Blaming. Internal dialogue where you are reviewing problems and making them the fault of someone else while denying your own responsibility in their creation is called blaming. There is much more to say about this one but, for now, just know it as a label.
Controlling Controlling. Thoughts where you are trying to find ways to coerce others – or even just life itself -- to your viewpoint or to do things they aren’t inclined to do is called controlling or manipulating. When you’ve asked, received a no, and are still trying to work the situation to get what you want in unhealthy or unhelpful ways, pay attention to this as a label.
Criticizing Criticizing. Any form of negative internal talk where you are attacking or making judgments about your own or another’s character is called criticizing. Phrases like, “I’m so stupid,” or “He’s just a jerk,” fall under this category. Any time you are internally attacking yourself or another based on shortcomings or things not being done “properly” it’s likely in this category.
Ego Ego. When the thinking is related to promoting or affirming an image of yourself over the current reality of the situation, that is ego ego. More on this one coming up.
Fantasy Fantasy. If your thoughts are a daydream or a form of wish fulfillment, they are fantasies. A lot of sexual thoughts definitely fall into this category.
Insecurity Insecurity. When your thoughts are coming from a place of insecurity, your mind will often do lots of mental gymnastics to find a sense of ground and this type of thinking can be difficult to identify for beginners to the practice. However, the accompanying emotions of anxiety or worry that this form of thinking creates are often the telltale signs that your thoughts may be coming from a place of insecurity. This may also be your label if your thinking is coming from a place where you have lots of self-doubt or feelings of not being good enough.
Judgment Judgment. It’s important that as you do this practice that you aren’t judging yourself. When you know the thought is not a healthy one, there is a tendency to add an additional layer of judgment. “Oh, I shouldn’t be thinking these things,” “I’m horrible at doing this practice,” or even “I’m a bad person for thinking these things,” are all common thoughts. It’s important that as you do this practice that you turn off this self-criticism. Your thoughts are what they are. What you are learning is how to see a thought and then actively decide which thoughts to engage and which thoughts to just let float past like a cloud.
Justifying Justifying. Justification thoughts are all about defending your ego. Thinking about past events and reworking them into ways where you are right -- and the other person is not -- is called justifying. This form of thinking is all about winning and keeping your own sense of rightness intact.
Negativity Negativity. This works as a general label if your thoughts are more focused on negative events or experiences. When labeling any thought with this label, remember it’s an objective label and not a way to judge yourself.
Planning Planning. This is when you are busily planning upcoming activities or events. It's one of the most common labels.
Positivity Positivity. This works as a general label if your thoughts are focused on positive events or experiences. Some people, use a more specific label of Gratitude Gratitude if what they are thinking about are things that are bringing joy into their life.
Processing Processing. Internal dialogue where you are reviewing problems, owning your part of the responsibility in creating them, and potentially even working on the solution is called processing. Processing is also a good catch-all label for any type of thinking where you are really looking at facts, forming an opinion, or just working to get your thoughts into a usable form for your speaking or writing.
Reminiscing Reminiscing. Replaying memories from your past that are more positive in nature are considered a form of reminiscing. You may also do an additional internal check with this type of thinking to see why it’s in this moment that you are pulling up this particular memory.
Ruminating Ruminating. Obsessively reviewing your problems in your mind is called ruminating. Often times, ruminating is like a negative tape replaying and replaying a dialogue or version of events in a way that actually makes you feel worse about what has happened. This is an intense focus on rehashing what hasn’t worked or isn’t working.
Shoulding Shoulding. This particular type of thinking is often called, “Shoulding all over yourself.” When you are reviewing or saying how things should have been done in the past, could have been better had only you [fill in the blank], you are making yourself or another person wrong. Shoulding is an over-focus on past mistakes and carries with it an additional judgment that often has the opposite effect and keeps the positive changes from occurring.
This is hardly a comprehensive list of all the possible thoughts but I am listing these to help you get started and see how in depth you can really go in how to you label what you’re thinking.
If you get stuck or just can't find a good label, you can still use "Thinking Thinking," for now. You will get better at labeling your thoughts over time. As you really begin seeing your thinking, your thought patterns will become like old friends. As you sit and the same ways of thinking return, it can often be like, "Oh, hello, planning thoughts. It's good to see you. How have you been?"
You will naturally get better at this over time. If this is difficult, be kind to yourself. You don't have to do everything perfectly or "get it right" right away. This is called a "practice" for a reason.
Up until now, you have been labeling your thoughts, "Thinking Thinking," letting them go, and returning to the breath. The time has come to switch from "Thinking Thinking" to a more specific label. We are going to learn the first steps of thought examination.
As you are doing your sitting and a thought arises, you will now start giving it a meaningful label before you let it go in order to return to the breath. For example, if your mind wanders off to review the list of everything you need to do once you are done meditating like making lunch or putting a load of laundry in, that is called planning and you would label that as, "Planning Planning," let it go, and then return to the breath. If what shows up is you rehashing the bad things someone said about you and why those things are wrong, you could label that as, “Defending Defending,” let it go, and then return to the breath. You are learning to identify what kind of thought is present as a way of really noticing how you spend your mental energy and what seeds you are watering in your thinking.
A List of Common Labels
When people are first starting, it can be difficult to find the best label so it’s good to have some more examples of how you can label your thoughts. Some other very common label examples are:
Accepting Accepting. Internal dialogue where you are reminding yourself to not run from what is present but are rather acknowledging the current truth of the matter is called accepting.
Affirming Affirming. Thoughts where you are praising yourself or another are affirming thoughts. Thoughts like, “You got this,” “I know I can do it,” or any time you are reminding yourself of your own or someone else’s value that is Affirming Affirming.
Blaming Blaming. Internal dialogue where you are reviewing problems and making them the fault of someone else while denying your own responsibility in their creation is called blaming. There is much more to say about this one but, for now, just know it as a label.
Controlling Controlling. Thoughts where you are trying to find ways to coerce others – or even just life itself -- to your viewpoint or to do things they aren’t inclined to do is called controlling or manipulating. When you’ve asked, received a no, and are still trying to work the situation to get what you want in unhealthy or unhelpful ways, pay attention to this as a label.
Criticizing Criticizing. Any form of negative internal talk where you are attacking or making judgments about your own or another’s character is called criticizing. Phrases like, “I’m so stupid,” or “He’s just a jerk,” fall under this category. Any time you are internally attacking yourself or another based on shortcomings or things not being done “properly” it’s likely in this category.
Ego Ego. When the thinking is related to promoting or affirming an image of yourself over the current reality of the situation, that is ego ego. More on this one coming up.
Fantasy Fantasy. If your thoughts are a daydream or a form of wish fulfillment, they are fantasies. A lot of sexual thoughts definitely fall into this category.
Insecurity Insecurity. When your thoughts are coming from a place of insecurity, your mind will often do lots of mental gymnastics to find a sense of ground and this type of thinking can be difficult to identify for beginners to the practice. However, the accompanying emotions of anxiety or worry that this form of thinking creates are often the telltale signs that your thoughts may be coming from a place of insecurity. This may also be your label if your thinking is coming from a place where you have lots of self-doubt or feelings of not being good enough.
Judgment Judgment. It’s important that as you do this practice that you aren’t judging yourself. When you know the thought is not a healthy one, there is a tendency to add an additional layer of judgment. “Oh, I shouldn’t be thinking these things,” “I’m horrible at doing this practice,” or even “I’m a bad person for thinking these things,” are all common thoughts. It’s important that as you do this practice that you turn off this self-criticism. Your thoughts are what they are. What you are learning is how to see a thought and then actively decide which thoughts to engage and which thoughts to just let float past like a cloud.
Justifying Justifying. Justification thoughts are all about defending your ego. Thinking about past events and reworking them into ways where you are right -- and the other person is not -- is called justifying. This form of thinking is all about winning and keeping your own sense of rightness intact.
Negativity Negativity. This works as a general label if your thoughts are more focused on negative events or experiences. When labeling any thought with this label, remember it’s an objective label and not a way to judge yourself.
Planning Planning. This is when you are busily planning upcoming activities or events. It's one of the most common labels.
Positivity Positivity. This works as a general label if your thoughts are focused on positive events or experiences. Some people, use a more specific label of Gratitude Gratitude if what they are thinking about are things that are bringing joy into their life.
Processing Processing. Internal dialogue where you are reviewing problems, owning your part of the responsibility in creating them, and potentially even working on the solution is called processing. Processing is also a good catch-all label for any type of thinking where you are really looking at facts, forming an opinion, or just working to get your thoughts into a usable form for your speaking or writing.
Reminiscing Reminiscing. Replaying memories from your past that are more positive in nature are considered a form of reminiscing. You may also do an additional internal check with this type of thinking to see why it’s in this moment that you are pulling up this particular memory.
Ruminating Ruminating. Obsessively reviewing your problems in your mind is called ruminating. Often times, ruminating is like a negative tape replaying and replaying a dialogue or version of events in a way that actually makes you feel worse about what has happened. This is an intense focus on rehashing what hasn’t worked or isn’t working.
Shoulding Shoulding. This particular type of thinking is often called, “Shoulding all over yourself.” When you are reviewing or saying how things should have been done in the past, could have been better had only you [fill in the blank], you are making yourself or another person wrong. Shoulding is an over-focus on past mistakes and carries with it an additional judgment that often has the opposite effect and keeps the positive changes from occurring.
This is hardly a comprehensive list of all the possible thoughts but I am listing these to help you get started and see how in depth you can really go in how to you label what you’re thinking.
If you get stuck or just can't find a good label, you can still use "Thinking Thinking," for now. You will get better at labeling your thoughts over time. As you really begin seeing your thinking, your thought patterns will become like old friends. As you sit and the same ways of thinking return, it can often be like, "Oh, hello, planning thoughts. It's good to see you. How have you been?"
You will naturally get better at this over time. If this is difficult, be kind to yourself. You don't have to do everything perfectly or "get it right" right away. This is called a "practice" for a reason.
A Bit More About the Ego
If It Makes You Feel Superior, It's Not the Right Path
The two most powerful labels I introduce to students are Ego and Insecurity. These forms of thinking can also be the most difficult to see without some additional training or just additional time getting used to this process.
When I talk about Ego, I’m not talking about the over-inflated sense of self-importance many people use with this term. I am actually talking about the greater psychological definition where the Ego is seen as a barrier or shield inside you -- or the mask you wear to hide your true self. I am talking about the image your mind has created to protect itself in order to be seen in a certain way by the outside world or even to yourself. In the mindfulness world, your Ego is the mask you wear in the world that hides the real, more vulnerable you underneath.
And this is why your ego can often be your falsest friend. It functions as your own internal "yes man." And the voice of the ego can often be one of the loudest voices in your mind.
Many People Who Think They Are Praying to God, Are Actually Praying Only to Their Own Ego
Often, when people say they are praying about something and the answer that comes back is to do what they had already decided to do, that isn’t God replying – it’s the person’s ego. If the answer to your prayer doesn’t challenge you. Or if, when you pray, it seems like your point of view always matches God’s point of view, then it’s your ego you are listening to and not God.
Your Ego is notorious for saying everything you want to hear and it will support you in all your bad decisions. It validates all your choices – whether they are good or bad. It doesn't care if it's speaking the truth or a lie -- it just wants to protect you. It just wants you to be okay and feel good about who you are -- even if what you are doing is actively destroying your life.
Your Ego is the friend who supports your bad choices and helps you make excuses for why you are right and other people wrong. It very rarely encourages you to take responsibility for creating many of your own problems. It may encourage you to sometimes take minimal blame but it makes sure that you are validated in knowing that – even then – that the other person is still mostly to blame.
Your Ego Defenses
Your ego has a lot of defenses to keep reality from getting through its mask to reach the real you hiding behind it. It just wants to protect you -- even at the expense of your own growth. And, in truth, if your ego were suddenly ripped back and you got the full force of the reality of your life and the world, your mind would snap. Reality is harsh. Your ego means well and it thinks it has your best interests at heart, but it would keep you a child your whole life if it could. It would keep you sheltered.
It’s important to remember that this work is not designed to help you battle your ego. What you push against, you only make stronger. Much of the work of mindfulness is to befriend -- rather than battle -- your ego. And this distinction is not small. In this work, you are making friends with all the different parts of who you are. You are making peace with yourself – not waging war against it. Your ego is there to serve a purpose after all. There is a reason it exists.
And slowly, over time, the practice of mindfulness will help you see the real you hiding behind the mask of your ego and it will also slowly let in the light of reality. When reality is gradually let in, you can slowly adjust to it and actually survive.
When I see this process occur with students, it can be a mixture of things. As people see the good they've done and the horrible things they've done, as people see their real selves and not the mask, it's a life changing experience. And there is a reason it has to be done gradually.
The Instant Ego Rejection is Your Mind's Fast Response to Keep Out Anything that Might Lead You to Change
Right from the start of this work, your ego will start engaging its tactics to keep you from examining anything too deeply that would force you to make real changes in your life. It does this through what is called the Instant Ego Rejection and it's one of the most common ego defenses. When you are presented with any information in which you would be wrong about your conclusions or have to make any type of change in how you are living your life, your ego pipes up very quickly with, “I disagree!” and then launches the defense.
It doesn’t give the outside voice or influence any internal air time because, it knows if it does, that you will be made wrong, have to change, and also have to deal with the negative internal feelings of being made wrong by another person or even just by having to admit internally that you have been wrong up until this point. It's very important to your ego that you are always right. Cleverly, it even has ways of being right even while acknowledging that you are wrong. "I may be wrong BUT .... [insert all the ways I am right]."
New knowledge often arrives like an air-blown seed drifting toward the soil of your mind. And, before it can even land -- much less take root -- your ego wants to send it quickly away. It wants to make sure that whatever has been said doesn’t even fully register before the rejection hits. And, this is something, you will readily see in your thinking once you know to look for it and the more you sit in meditation.
The next time someone is sharing with you and your mind goes right to, “I disagree!” hang out with what it being said past your initial rejection and see what is there. Do you really disagree or is your ego defending itself and trying to keep you from seeing a potentially difficult truth?
Becoming acquainted with all of your ego’s defenses may be a lot of the work you do on your cushion over the years. Remember, this process is about being able to pull back, get some perspective, and see the reality of your thinking. The more you work with this practice, the more in depth you will be able to able to go.
If It Makes You Feel Superior, It's Not the Right Path
The two most powerful labels I introduce to students are Ego and Insecurity. These forms of thinking can also be the most difficult to see without some additional training or just additional time getting used to this process.
When I talk about Ego, I’m not talking about the over-inflated sense of self-importance many people use with this term. I am actually talking about the greater psychological definition where the Ego is seen as a barrier or shield inside you -- or the mask you wear to hide your true self. I am talking about the image your mind has created to protect itself in order to be seen in a certain way by the outside world or even to yourself. In the mindfulness world, your Ego is the mask you wear in the world that hides the real, more vulnerable you underneath.
And this is why your ego can often be your falsest friend. It functions as your own internal "yes man." And the voice of the ego can often be one of the loudest voices in your mind.
Many People Who Think They Are Praying to God, Are Actually Praying Only to Their Own Ego
Often, when people say they are praying about something and the answer that comes back is to do what they had already decided to do, that isn’t God replying – it’s the person’s ego. If the answer to your prayer doesn’t challenge you. Or if, when you pray, it seems like your point of view always matches God’s point of view, then it’s your ego you are listening to and not God.
Your Ego is notorious for saying everything you want to hear and it will support you in all your bad decisions. It validates all your choices – whether they are good or bad. It doesn't care if it's speaking the truth or a lie -- it just wants to protect you. It just wants you to be okay and feel good about who you are -- even if what you are doing is actively destroying your life.
Your Ego is the friend who supports your bad choices and helps you make excuses for why you are right and other people wrong. It very rarely encourages you to take responsibility for creating many of your own problems. It may encourage you to sometimes take minimal blame but it makes sure that you are validated in knowing that – even then – that the other person is still mostly to blame.
Your Ego Defenses
Your ego has a lot of defenses to keep reality from getting through its mask to reach the real you hiding behind it. It just wants to protect you -- even at the expense of your own growth. And, in truth, if your ego were suddenly ripped back and you got the full force of the reality of your life and the world, your mind would snap. Reality is harsh. Your ego means well and it thinks it has your best interests at heart, but it would keep you a child your whole life if it could. It would keep you sheltered.
It’s important to remember that this work is not designed to help you battle your ego. What you push against, you only make stronger. Much of the work of mindfulness is to befriend -- rather than battle -- your ego. And this distinction is not small. In this work, you are making friends with all the different parts of who you are. You are making peace with yourself – not waging war against it. Your ego is there to serve a purpose after all. There is a reason it exists.
And slowly, over time, the practice of mindfulness will help you see the real you hiding behind the mask of your ego and it will also slowly let in the light of reality. When reality is gradually let in, you can slowly adjust to it and actually survive.
When I see this process occur with students, it can be a mixture of things. As people see the good they've done and the horrible things they've done, as people see their real selves and not the mask, it's a life changing experience. And there is a reason it has to be done gradually.
The Instant Ego Rejection is Your Mind's Fast Response to Keep Out Anything that Might Lead You to Change
Right from the start of this work, your ego will start engaging its tactics to keep you from examining anything too deeply that would force you to make real changes in your life. It does this through what is called the Instant Ego Rejection and it's one of the most common ego defenses. When you are presented with any information in which you would be wrong about your conclusions or have to make any type of change in how you are living your life, your ego pipes up very quickly with, “I disagree!” and then launches the defense.
It doesn’t give the outside voice or influence any internal air time because, it knows if it does, that you will be made wrong, have to change, and also have to deal with the negative internal feelings of being made wrong by another person or even just by having to admit internally that you have been wrong up until this point. It's very important to your ego that you are always right. Cleverly, it even has ways of being right even while acknowledging that you are wrong. "I may be wrong BUT .... [insert all the ways I am right]."
New knowledge often arrives like an air-blown seed drifting toward the soil of your mind. And, before it can even land -- much less take root -- your ego wants to send it quickly away. It wants to make sure that whatever has been said doesn’t even fully register before the rejection hits. And, this is something, you will readily see in your thinking once you know to look for it and the more you sit in meditation.
The next time someone is sharing with you and your mind goes right to, “I disagree!” hang out with what it being said past your initial rejection and see what is there. Do you really disagree or is your ego defending itself and trying to keep you from seeing a potentially difficult truth?
Becoming acquainted with all of your ego’s defenses may be a lot of the work you do on your cushion over the years. Remember, this process is about being able to pull back, get some perspective, and see the reality of your thinking. The more you work with this practice, the more in depth you will be able to able to go.
Full Basic Practice Introduction
You are now ready to take on the full juggle that is the basic practice. Use the next video to begin your work using all the base-level component parts: breath, body, emotions, and thoughts.
Remember, you are doing your best. This is a new skill and it's one that takes many years to really master.
You are now ready to take on the full juggle that is the basic practice. Use the next video to begin your work using all the base-level component parts: breath, body, emotions, and thoughts.
Remember, you are doing your best. This is a new skill and it's one that takes many years to really master.
Mindfulness of Attack Thoughts
Labeling Attack Thoughts
In the mindfulness world, we teach that what you think about you create emotionally within you. Focusing on what you are grateful for creates positive emotions and a happier mental state. Focusing on everything that's wrong revives and waters those emotions and creates a much less than happy mental state.
It shouldn't surprise you that reviewing situations that made you angry in the past will make you angry again in the present for example.
Knowing this, it's important to pay attention to what are called "attack thoughts." These are thoughts where you
* review how others have attacked, hurt, or mistreated you
* or you become focused on mentally wishing and imagining ways the other person will get their comeuppance
* or you imagine scenarios where you are in the position of power and you get to decide how the other person is treated.
Attack thoughts are the real and imagined arguments in your head where you find ways to win against another's strike against you or you think about ways you would "get even" with another if the proper situation were to arise.
What happens when the attack thoughts get watered is that they bring with with them all those destructive emotions that were there when the situation first occurred and those emotions change your mental state. It's like repeatedly putting your hand in the fire even when you learned what the effects were the first time.
If you spend a lot of time really focusing on your hate for another person, your heart will become full of hate. And you will become what you spend most of your attention on. If you plant a crop of hate in your garden, come harvest time you will get exactly what you've been planting. But it won't be the other person who will be eating that crop, it will be you.
When we talk about the need to let go of what someone has done to you, it's for this reason. When attack thoughts get watered it's really allowing someone that you probably don't even like to have control over your mental and emotional state -- on top of what they have already done to you in your history.
When we say to "let go" of what another person has done it's really a shorter version of "I let go of this because I don't want what you have done in one moment to continue to hurt me," "I let go of this because I refuse to allow what you have done to change my heart," or "I let go of this because I will not give you one minute more of my life or mental energy."
Notice, I did not use the word forgive. You may never forgive what someone has done to you. But, for your own mental health, you do need to let go of any tendency to return to or dwell on it. Work through what you need to work through for sure, but reviewing and re-reviewing past hurts will only damage you. And the last thing you probably want is to allow anyone who has hurt you in the past to have continued access to control your life, emotions, or heart.
It is from here that we move into the contemplation portion of the retreat and the work around forgiveness and letting go.
Labeling Attack Thoughts
In the mindfulness world, we teach that what you think about you create emotionally within you. Focusing on what you are grateful for creates positive emotions and a happier mental state. Focusing on everything that's wrong revives and waters those emotions and creates a much less than happy mental state.
It shouldn't surprise you that reviewing situations that made you angry in the past will make you angry again in the present for example.
Knowing this, it's important to pay attention to what are called "attack thoughts." These are thoughts where you
* review how others have attacked, hurt, or mistreated you
* or you become focused on mentally wishing and imagining ways the other person will get their comeuppance
* or you imagine scenarios where you are in the position of power and you get to decide how the other person is treated.
Attack thoughts are the real and imagined arguments in your head where you find ways to win against another's strike against you or you think about ways you would "get even" with another if the proper situation were to arise.
What happens when the attack thoughts get watered is that they bring with with them all those destructive emotions that were there when the situation first occurred and those emotions change your mental state. It's like repeatedly putting your hand in the fire even when you learned what the effects were the first time.
If you spend a lot of time really focusing on your hate for another person, your heart will become full of hate. And you will become what you spend most of your attention on. If you plant a crop of hate in your garden, come harvest time you will get exactly what you've been planting. But it won't be the other person who will be eating that crop, it will be you.
When we talk about the need to let go of what someone has done to you, it's for this reason. When attack thoughts get watered it's really allowing someone that you probably don't even like to have control over your mental and emotional state -- on top of what they have already done to you in your history.
When we say to "let go" of what another person has done it's really a shorter version of "I let go of this because I don't want what you have done in one moment to continue to hurt me," "I let go of this because I refuse to allow what you have done to change my heart," or "I let go of this because I will not give you one minute more of my life or mental energy."
Notice, I did not use the word forgive. You may never forgive what someone has done to you. But, for your own mental health, you do need to let go of any tendency to return to or dwell on it. Work through what you need to work through for sure, but reviewing and re-reviewing past hurts will only damage you. And the last thing you probably want is to allow anyone who has hurt you in the past to have continued access to control your life, emotions, or heart.
It is from here that we move into the contemplation portion of the retreat and the work around forgiveness and letting go.
What to Expect When You First Start Practicing
Some Expectations About What It Is Ahead
We have covered a lot in a very short period of time. Remember, to stick with this practice and to do it every day if you can. If you’re new to meditation, even five minutes a day can make a big difference. As you progress, you may want to work up to 20 minutes a day depending on your schedule. More advanced meditators do go longer than that but, remember, it’s really okay to start small and build. You don’t have to dive into the deep end overnight.
The main thing with this practice is to do it consistently. If all you have is five minutes on a given day, do five minutes. Training is training. Remember, this practice takes some work and some time to see the deeper benefits. And, remember, meditation is not just one more way to achieve. It’s really about taking the time to become more and more aware.
To help you be prepared for what may happen once you get your practicing going on a more regular basis, it’s important to point out that many new meditators frequently experience some very similar things. It's good to have a little bit of an expectation so you know what “normal” looks like during this experience. After a few weeks or months, students often report:
1. Your Compassion Renews. One of the first things many students notice is that they become re-sensitized to the world around them. It’s like emotional descaling. Watching the news is no longer a benign passive experience for many new students. A greater empathy for others and being more sensitive to the good and bad of the world around you will natural occur.
2. Your Worry and Anxiety Lessen. Many students report they feel more centered or more in control of their emotions. Quieting your mind and becoming more in tune with your body, emotions, and thought-processes creates a less shakeable internal state. As a result your default internal stress level is much lower and that means you may be more able to handle negative events when they happen. Meditation can often increase someone’s tolerance for the stressful events around them.
3. Sometimes Meditators Experience Illusions and Altered States. These are all those great trippy experiences you may have already heard about when the mainstream media talks about meditation as a practice. Sitting with your eyes shut and feeling like you are suddenly taking up the whole room, feeling like you are physically falling from a great height, or feeling your mind and mood shift into a completely "blissed out" state are all common altered states that can occur for people who are newer to meditation. These more illusory states typically happen when someone has their eyes shut and disappear once the eyes are opened again.
These altered states and temporary illusions are not uncommon. However, when they happen, there is a temptation to focus on them instead of doing the actual practice. They are hints about what can be achieved in time but they can actually halt your progress if you start focusing your meditation time on recreating them. Keep your focus on the core of the practice.
4. Your Emotional Shrapnel Starts Surfacing. When negative events happen or we experience difficult emotions they can be dealt with or shoved down beneath the surface. If they are shoved down, your mental clutter can keep those undealt with issues successfully out of your view for quite some time. When you suppress negative experiences it becomes a lot like getting shot with buckshot. All that shrapnel goes into your body and then slowly works its way back out over time.
When you give your mind space and it calms down, that sends a signal that you must be in a place in life where you can start dealing with all your undealt with issues and they slowly start working their way to the surface so you can deal with them. This emotional shrapnel piece is why mindfulness teachers don’t often teach just this one form of meditation.
In order to give people tools to work with these things as they come up, we quite often teach two additional meditations to help with those difficult pieces as they arise. Those meditations are Loving-kindness, which is the next meditation to be covered, and Forgiveness Meditation, which you worked with in the previous section.
Proceed on to the next section to learn the last meditation you are covering in this retreat: Loving-kindness meditation.
Some Expectations About What It Is Ahead
We have covered a lot in a very short period of time. Remember, to stick with this practice and to do it every day if you can. If you’re new to meditation, even five minutes a day can make a big difference. As you progress, you may want to work up to 20 minutes a day depending on your schedule. More advanced meditators do go longer than that but, remember, it’s really okay to start small and build. You don’t have to dive into the deep end overnight.
The main thing with this practice is to do it consistently. If all you have is five minutes on a given day, do five minutes. Training is training. Remember, this practice takes some work and some time to see the deeper benefits. And, remember, meditation is not just one more way to achieve. It’s really about taking the time to become more and more aware.
To help you be prepared for what may happen once you get your practicing going on a more regular basis, it’s important to point out that many new meditators frequently experience some very similar things. It's good to have a little bit of an expectation so you know what “normal” looks like during this experience. After a few weeks or months, students often report:
1. Your Compassion Renews. One of the first things many students notice is that they become re-sensitized to the world around them. It’s like emotional descaling. Watching the news is no longer a benign passive experience for many new students. A greater empathy for others and being more sensitive to the good and bad of the world around you will natural occur.
2. Your Worry and Anxiety Lessen. Many students report they feel more centered or more in control of their emotions. Quieting your mind and becoming more in tune with your body, emotions, and thought-processes creates a less shakeable internal state. As a result your default internal stress level is much lower and that means you may be more able to handle negative events when they happen. Meditation can often increase someone’s tolerance for the stressful events around them.
3. Sometimes Meditators Experience Illusions and Altered States. These are all those great trippy experiences you may have already heard about when the mainstream media talks about meditation as a practice. Sitting with your eyes shut and feeling like you are suddenly taking up the whole room, feeling like you are physically falling from a great height, or feeling your mind and mood shift into a completely "blissed out" state are all common altered states that can occur for people who are newer to meditation. These more illusory states typically happen when someone has their eyes shut and disappear once the eyes are opened again.
These altered states and temporary illusions are not uncommon. However, when they happen, there is a temptation to focus on them instead of doing the actual practice. They are hints about what can be achieved in time but they can actually halt your progress if you start focusing your meditation time on recreating them. Keep your focus on the core of the practice.
4. Your Emotional Shrapnel Starts Surfacing. When negative events happen or we experience difficult emotions they can be dealt with or shoved down beneath the surface. If they are shoved down, your mental clutter can keep those undealt with issues successfully out of your view for quite some time. When you suppress negative experiences it becomes a lot like getting shot with buckshot. All that shrapnel goes into your body and then slowly works its way back out over time.
When you give your mind space and it calms down, that sends a signal that you must be in a place in life where you can start dealing with all your undealt with issues and they slowly start working their way to the surface so you can deal with them. This emotional shrapnel piece is why mindfulness teachers don’t often teach just this one form of meditation.
In order to give people tools to work with these things as they come up, we quite often teach two additional meditations to help with those difficult pieces as they arise. Those meditations are Loving-kindness, which is the next meditation to be covered, and Forgiveness Meditation, which you worked with in the previous section.
Proceed on to the next section to learn the last meditation you are covering in this retreat: Loving-kindness meditation.
Loving-Kindness Meditation Overview
Loving-kindness meditation, otherwise known as Metta meditation, was originally created by the Buddha for the monks who would walk the forests at night as an anti-dote to their fear. The forests the monks would pass through held real dangers and had many wild animals that were a legitimate threat to their physical safety. It was a very real fear they were working with and the Buddha taught love and compassion to counter that threat.
At its core, loving-kindness meditation cultivates feelings of love and kindness for ourselves, the people we are close to, strangers, the people we have strong difficulties with, for the communities we are part of, and the world as a whole. It's a key part in a lot of people’s meditation practice and it's one people don't often realize they need until they see the benefits of working with it.
So, what are its benefits?
1. Loving Ourselves and Others. Many of my students struggle with loving themselves. We are living in a culture that seems designed to teach us, "I am not enough." And we are often mistakenly taught we have to do something to "deserve" to be loved. And, though, we may need to deserve respect – that just isn’t true of love. In reality, we are already enough and we don't need to do anything to deserve love. Love is always a gift. Many students can readily bring up feelings of love for someone they are close to but often really struggle with having feelings of love for themselves. This practice provides the pathway for learning to love yourself.
2. Conscious Emotional Selection. As you learn to hold compassion for yourself and, particularly, for the people you don't respect, dislike, or even hate, you are learning that emotions don’t have to just be reactions to what is happening but, instead, that they can become consciously made decisions. This practice creates the ability to pull up feelings of compassion for another person even during difficult moments – even when you may be feeling the exact opposite. With this practice, you are learning to consciously create and choose your emotions.
3. Clearing Difficult Experiences. As you learn to calm your mind, past difficulties and suppressed emotions will often begin rising to the surface. The stillness you've created through meditation is the signal to your mind that it’s ready to begin healing itself. So as you sit, it's not uncommon that past suppressed and not fully dealt with difficult emotions and trauma will begin bubbling to the surface. As these difficult events and feelings emerge, you need a technique to help them clear and for you to heal. Loving-kindness meditation, along with forgiveness meditation, are ways to work through those difficulties when they arise so they can be dealt with or released.
For lovingkindness meditation, the meditation's "home" is not your breath - is it your heart center. You are cultivating the feelings of compassion, love, and kindness that you feel in your chest. You are staying present with this physical area of your body, using it as your center, and your place of return.
After you take a few moments to just relax and feel centered, you can begin this meditation. You start with yourself, move on to people you are close to, then on to strangers, include people you have difficulty with, increase to groups or the world, and then return the feelings you’ve cultivated back to yourself. You are working to extend your feelings of love and understanding further and further out and then bringing them back home.
First, you picture yourself clearly and recite the phrases back as they are spoken. In groups, the recitation is done internally but if you are by yourself, you can say the phrases out loud. I’ve actually found this meditation to be much more powerful if you are able to speak the phrases out loud. Some people will even do the self-portion of this meditation when looking into their own eyes in a mirror. It really is an affirmation-based practice.
The basic phrases, you will work with are:
May I know peace.
May I know love.
May I know kindness, and compassion, and understanding.
May I love myself.
You really work to feel and extend these well wishes to yourself. You are cultivating a feeling in your heart center. For many, this feels very similar to prayer
If you are experienced with meditation, you may have learned this meditation with different words. Since, many of my students are working on loving themselves, I modified the words and phrases based on those students' primary needs. And, just like Walking Meditation, you will find different teachers use different phrases. As you work with this practice more and more, you may find that you will also naturally modify the phrases to better fit what works best for you as an individual.
As you recite the words, really focus on breathing from your heart center. Cultivate and really feel that peace, love, kindness, compassion, and understanding for yourself. This may come easily or this may take some time. It just depends on where you are at on your path of really learning to love yourself.
If you are really struggling with being able to wish these phases for yourself, it can often be helpful to picture yourself as a small child – like at 3 or 4 years old. If you struggle with loving the current version of you, it can be helpful to use this alternative visualization during this meditation. Your relationship with the current you may be complicated but it can be much harder to not love the younger version of you before the world took its toll.
You may also find using an image of yourself as a child is problematic just like the current image of you is problematic. If this is the case, find some place in your history where you held love and compassion for yourself and use that image. Work with what is best for you. Explore this practice a bit until you find the right image that will work for you.
Repeat the phrases as long as you need to really feel the emotion. In class we have time limits, so I usually repeat this group of phrases five times before proceeding.
From here, you expand the circle out.
From yourself, you move on to picturing someone you have strong feelings of love for. For this step, don't pick someone you are having a disagreement or difficulty with. If you are having a disagreement with someone who would normally be in this position, you can still pick that person but you will use them in the "difficult person" position instead. You will see why when we get there.
As you recite the phrases, you breathe in and expand your feelings of caring out from yourself to the person you feel love for. Picture them firmly in your mind. Really see them be happy and well. Feel your love grow to include them in its circle. The phrases modify slightly for others and are:
May you know peace
May you know love
May you know kindness, and compassion, and understanding
May you love yourself.
You can cycle through a few different people that you are close to if you find this helpful. Really feel these well wishes for them as you expand your circle out. Depending on where you are at personally, you may actually find it easier to feel love for this person rather than yourself and that’s okay. You are starting where you are at.
Next, you move on to the stranger. Select someone you see in your daily life that you don't really interact with or know at all. Often people select someone they see on the bus but don't talk with or a coworker they see in the halls but don't even know the name of. Pick a person you have no strong positive or negative feelings toward.
Repeat the phrases for this next person and feel your circle of compassion and kindness expand out to include this stranger as well. People often find this easier than they initially think it would be.
After the stranger, you extend the circle out to include the difficult people or the people you are currently having conflict with in your life. As you bring the difficult person to mind, notice how your heart feels. If it really shuts down, it can be helpful to use the same technique we reviewed as when it happens with yourself.
Picture your difficult person, first, as a child – well ahead of when they were even capable of being the difficult person they are today. Once you are able to feel the circle of love and kindness inside you expand to include that child, then switch your visual image to the person they are today. Repeat the phrases and expand the love you felt for them as a child to include who they have become. This takes work and it's difficult for everyone who does it. Stick with it.
The next circle out means bringing to mind groups you belong to or out to the world as a whole. Picture the groups you are part of: the congregations, book clubs, classes, schools, neighborhoods, cities, countries, and on out to include the totality of the world. Go with your intuition about what groups to use during this portion in the meditation. And, again, don’t force anything.
After this group, return the love and kindness you have cultivated back to yourself. This creates a whole cycle from yourself, further and further out, and then back again.
As you you do this practice today, take the time to feel the emotion expand out. Don't rush this. You are working to love yourself and others, be able to consciously choose this emotion when it’s needed, and also to heal some of your more difficult feelings that emerge during your regular meditation time.
May you know peace. May you know love. May you know kindness, and compassion, and understanding. May you love yourself.
Now let’s try this meditation out in its full form.
Loving-kindness meditation, otherwise known as Metta meditation, was originally created by the Buddha for the monks who would walk the forests at night as an anti-dote to their fear. The forests the monks would pass through held real dangers and had many wild animals that were a legitimate threat to their physical safety. It was a very real fear they were working with and the Buddha taught love and compassion to counter that threat.
At its core, loving-kindness meditation cultivates feelings of love and kindness for ourselves, the people we are close to, strangers, the people we have strong difficulties with, for the communities we are part of, and the world as a whole. It's a key part in a lot of people’s meditation practice and it's one people don't often realize they need until they see the benefits of working with it.
So, what are its benefits?
1. Loving Ourselves and Others. Many of my students struggle with loving themselves. We are living in a culture that seems designed to teach us, "I am not enough." And we are often mistakenly taught we have to do something to "deserve" to be loved. And, though, we may need to deserve respect – that just isn’t true of love. In reality, we are already enough and we don't need to do anything to deserve love. Love is always a gift. Many students can readily bring up feelings of love for someone they are close to but often really struggle with having feelings of love for themselves. This practice provides the pathway for learning to love yourself.
2. Conscious Emotional Selection. As you learn to hold compassion for yourself and, particularly, for the people you don't respect, dislike, or even hate, you are learning that emotions don’t have to just be reactions to what is happening but, instead, that they can become consciously made decisions. This practice creates the ability to pull up feelings of compassion for another person even during difficult moments – even when you may be feeling the exact opposite. With this practice, you are learning to consciously create and choose your emotions.
3. Clearing Difficult Experiences. As you learn to calm your mind, past difficulties and suppressed emotions will often begin rising to the surface. The stillness you've created through meditation is the signal to your mind that it’s ready to begin healing itself. So as you sit, it's not uncommon that past suppressed and not fully dealt with difficult emotions and trauma will begin bubbling to the surface. As these difficult events and feelings emerge, you need a technique to help them clear and for you to heal. Loving-kindness meditation, along with forgiveness meditation, are ways to work through those difficulties when they arise so they can be dealt with or released.
For lovingkindness meditation, the meditation's "home" is not your breath - is it your heart center. You are cultivating the feelings of compassion, love, and kindness that you feel in your chest. You are staying present with this physical area of your body, using it as your center, and your place of return.
After you take a few moments to just relax and feel centered, you can begin this meditation. You start with yourself, move on to people you are close to, then on to strangers, include people you have difficulty with, increase to groups or the world, and then return the feelings you’ve cultivated back to yourself. You are working to extend your feelings of love and understanding further and further out and then bringing them back home.
First, you picture yourself clearly and recite the phrases back as they are spoken. In groups, the recitation is done internally but if you are by yourself, you can say the phrases out loud. I’ve actually found this meditation to be much more powerful if you are able to speak the phrases out loud. Some people will even do the self-portion of this meditation when looking into their own eyes in a mirror. It really is an affirmation-based practice.
The basic phrases, you will work with are:
May I know peace.
May I know love.
May I know kindness, and compassion, and understanding.
May I love myself.
You really work to feel and extend these well wishes to yourself. You are cultivating a feeling in your heart center. For many, this feels very similar to prayer
If you are experienced with meditation, you may have learned this meditation with different words. Since, many of my students are working on loving themselves, I modified the words and phrases based on those students' primary needs. And, just like Walking Meditation, you will find different teachers use different phrases. As you work with this practice more and more, you may find that you will also naturally modify the phrases to better fit what works best for you as an individual.
As you recite the words, really focus on breathing from your heart center. Cultivate and really feel that peace, love, kindness, compassion, and understanding for yourself. This may come easily or this may take some time. It just depends on where you are at on your path of really learning to love yourself.
If you are really struggling with being able to wish these phases for yourself, it can often be helpful to picture yourself as a small child – like at 3 or 4 years old. If you struggle with loving the current version of you, it can be helpful to use this alternative visualization during this meditation. Your relationship with the current you may be complicated but it can be much harder to not love the younger version of you before the world took its toll.
You may also find using an image of yourself as a child is problematic just like the current image of you is problematic. If this is the case, find some place in your history where you held love and compassion for yourself and use that image. Work with what is best for you. Explore this practice a bit until you find the right image that will work for you.
Repeat the phrases as long as you need to really feel the emotion. In class we have time limits, so I usually repeat this group of phrases five times before proceeding.
From here, you expand the circle out.
From yourself, you move on to picturing someone you have strong feelings of love for. For this step, don't pick someone you are having a disagreement or difficulty with. If you are having a disagreement with someone who would normally be in this position, you can still pick that person but you will use them in the "difficult person" position instead. You will see why when we get there.
As you recite the phrases, you breathe in and expand your feelings of caring out from yourself to the person you feel love for. Picture them firmly in your mind. Really see them be happy and well. Feel your love grow to include them in its circle. The phrases modify slightly for others and are:
May you know peace
May you know love
May you know kindness, and compassion, and understanding
May you love yourself.
You can cycle through a few different people that you are close to if you find this helpful. Really feel these well wishes for them as you expand your circle out. Depending on where you are at personally, you may actually find it easier to feel love for this person rather than yourself and that’s okay. You are starting where you are at.
Next, you move on to the stranger. Select someone you see in your daily life that you don't really interact with or know at all. Often people select someone they see on the bus but don't talk with or a coworker they see in the halls but don't even know the name of. Pick a person you have no strong positive or negative feelings toward.
Repeat the phrases for this next person and feel your circle of compassion and kindness expand out to include this stranger as well. People often find this easier than they initially think it would be.
After the stranger, you extend the circle out to include the difficult people or the people you are currently having conflict with in your life. As you bring the difficult person to mind, notice how your heart feels. If it really shuts down, it can be helpful to use the same technique we reviewed as when it happens with yourself.
Picture your difficult person, first, as a child – well ahead of when they were even capable of being the difficult person they are today. Once you are able to feel the circle of love and kindness inside you expand to include that child, then switch your visual image to the person they are today. Repeat the phrases and expand the love you felt for them as a child to include who they have become. This takes work and it's difficult for everyone who does it. Stick with it.
The next circle out means bringing to mind groups you belong to or out to the world as a whole. Picture the groups you are part of: the congregations, book clubs, classes, schools, neighborhoods, cities, countries, and on out to include the totality of the world. Go with your intuition about what groups to use during this portion in the meditation. And, again, don’t force anything.
After this group, return the love and kindness you have cultivated back to yourself. This creates a whole cycle from yourself, further and further out, and then back again.
As you you do this practice today, take the time to feel the emotion expand out. Don't rush this. You are working to love yourself and others, be able to consciously choose this emotion when it’s needed, and also to heal some of your more difficult feelings that emerge during your regular meditation time.
May you know peace. May you know love. May you know kindness, and compassion, and understanding. May you love yourself.
Now let’s try this meditation out in its full form.
Selecting Your Reminder Prompts
Finding Reminders to Come Back to the Present in Your Environment
As you begin using what you have learned in this course and build your practice over time, it can be good to start consciously finding ways to bring the awareness you are building on the cushion more into your every day life. To do this, many new mindfulness practitioners use reminder prompts to bring them back to awareness in the present moment. Reminder prompts are like a quiet alarm going off that simply says, "Return."
Even without additional training, you will naturally start bringing the mindfulness learned on the cushion off the cushion over time. As you are first starting, though, using reminder prompts can be a very deliberate way to start that transition.
Examples of reminder prompts students have selected include:
1. Walking through doorways
2. Taking a shower
3. Every time you drink tea
4. Any time a bell or chime is heard
5. Anytime you see the color ______ (insert any uncommon color that you don't see that often)
6. Every time you hear the train
7. Passing the same building on your commute
8. Escalators and elevators
9. Every time you cross a bridge
10. Every time you stand up, sit down, or lay down
Some students even use their phone to chime at the same time or at regular intervals throughout the day. Take a moment to think about what reminder prompts would make sense for you to use in order to turn off life's autopilot and move back into conscious action and awareness in a given moment or throughout the day.
Bringing what you learn on the cushion into every aspect of your life over time is your natural next step as you work more with this practice.
Finding Reminders to Come Back to the Present in Your Environment
As you begin using what you have learned in this course and build your practice over time, it can be good to start consciously finding ways to bring the awareness you are building on the cushion more into your every day life. To do this, many new mindfulness practitioners use reminder prompts to bring them back to awareness in the present moment. Reminder prompts are like a quiet alarm going off that simply says, "Return."
Even without additional training, you will naturally start bringing the mindfulness learned on the cushion off the cushion over time. As you are first starting, though, using reminder prompts can be a very deliberate way to start that transition.
Examples of reminder prompts students have selected include:
1. Walking through doorways
2. Taking a shower
3. Every time you drink tea
4. Any time a bell or chime is heard
5. Anytime you see the color ______ (insert any uncommon color that you don't see that often)
6. Every time you hear the train
7. Passing the same building on your commute
8. Escalators and elevators
9. Every time you cross a bridge
10. Every time you stand up, sit down, or lay down
Some students even use their phone to chime at the same time or at regular intervals throughout the day. Take a moment to think about what reminder prompts would make sense for you to use in order to turn off life's autopilot and move back into conscious action and awareness in a given moment or throughout the day.
Bringing what you learn on the cushion into every aspect of your life over time is your natural next step as you work more with this practice.
A Closing Word
Congratulations! You have completed your first very intensive day long self-guided mindfulness retreat. You dove into a lot of deeper work around awareness of your breath, body, emotions, and thoughts and learned more about using forgiveness and loving-kindness meditations.
Before re-engaging the world around you, take a few moments of self-care or even take the rest of the day just for you before heading back online or meeting friends or family. You've done some major work today and you may need time alone to process the work you completed.
Thank you again and I am personally happy you decided to learn more about mindfulness and the basics of the practice.
Please feel free to share your experiences doing this day retreat by visiting me at www.filtod.com.
Cheers!
Filtod Walker
Mindfulness Instructor
Congratulations! You have completed your first very intensive day long self-guided mindfulness retreat. You dove into a lot of deeper work around awareness of your breath, body, emotions, and thoughts and learned more about using forgiveness and loving-kindness meditations.
Before re-engaging the world around you, take a few moments of self-care or even take the rest of the day just for you before heading back online or meeting friends or family. You've done some major work today and you may need time alone to process the work you completed.
Thank you again and I am personally happy you decided to learn more about mindfulness and the basics of the practice.
Please feel free to share your experiences doing this day retreat by visiting me at www.filtod.com.
Cheers!
Filtod Walker
Mindfulness Instructor