Today more than ever, we need to be able to get to a neurological safe place quickly. With so much friction in the world - far and near - our nervous systems can easily slip into fight or flight mode.Mindfulness is a beautiful tool for quickly finding inner calm. A couple of breaths is often all it takes to regulate your breathing, relax any tension in the body, and calm yourself down. You can think of it as an anchor that you can quickly drop during a storm to help you find your grounding and keep you safe from the raging waves threatening to overturn your boat. We can't do anything about the storm - it is larger than any one of us. But you can do something about how you navigate your boat in stormy waters. And it is up to you to keep yourself calm, centered, and able to continue afloat - no one can do this for you. But we can help one another by offering reminders and sharing tools that can help. Find your safe harbor with mindfulness. The more you you practice it, the more it becomes second-nature.
Transcript
Hi friends it's Michele Mattix from Sedona Meditation Experiences with another episode of Sedona Meditation Adventures. Today I'm here in Sedona and we've had snow all day and it's just beautiful. It's the end of the day and the air is so clean and crisp and the snow is all over the place. I'm not up on any trail today but I'll show you a panorama you can kind of see some of the beautiful scenery with Sedona in the snow. Yes Sedona does get snow and the great thing about it is it doesn't last long. It just makes everything beautiful and then it melts and it's a beautiful memory.
I want to continue this week talking about mindfulness. I'm looking at mindfulness in my life and inviting you to do the same. Another thing that i love about mindfulness is that it's a great tool for quickly taking you to your inner world. And we need that today more than ever. Life is crazy and it just seems like it keeps getting crazier. There's a lot of trouble in the world, a lot of change happening, and sometimes it feels like it's more than we can keep up with - speaking for myself and I don't think I'm alone in saying that. Mindfulness - and of course meditation also - but mindfulness especially is a great tool for quickly getting into that inner space - that part of yourself where you can say, "all right everything's crazy out here and I don't want to associate with the craziness, right the chaos - I need to get into my space and make it okay."
It's just like a little hit of that energy where you connect with some part of yourself. For myself, when i do that, I kind of put a little bit of energy field around me just so i feel protected and kind of safe and supported in my own space so I'm not getting too entangled with all the crazy stuff that's going on out there. Mindfulness is that tool. it can literally just be a breath where you just notice like, "oh i need to let go," and sometimes it takes more than one breath. Maybe a couple of breaths - a few moments - but no more than a couple of minutes to just get into that inner space. I appreciate that about mindfulness. You can do it pretty much anywhere, unlike meditation, where you really shouldn't be driving your car and you can't always get into a deep meditative state in the middle of your day. With mindfulness you can keep your eyes open if you need to and again it's just turning that that inner awareness to what's going on inside connecting with that true part of yourself and softening, protecting, and going more peacefully forward.
Join me now. Let's practice it. Wherever you are you can go ahead and just take a moment close your eyes and take a nice deep breath...
exhaling away all of your worries and concerns for the day.
Let your intention be for these few moments that we spend together here to connect as deeply to your inner self as you can.
Using your breath to help take your attention away from the outer world.
Noticing what's happening inside your body- tension - emotion.
Not getting caught up in the story of those things but soothing.
This is where having a meditation practice is really helpful. It helps to smooth the friction out of your nervous system so that you can cut through that stress and get to that truest part of yourself even quicker and more deeply.
So just use your breath to help connecting to that inner part of yourself.
And mindfulness is how you do this just being mindful of everything that's kind of in the way...
not getting involved in the story of those things but just noticing.
And when you start to settle into that sweet spot sometimes it's helpful to say an affirmation something like, "all is well."
"I am safe i am supported."
We'll take a few breaths here.
And just noticing how taking these few moments of mindful attention helps to relax your body and put you back into your true self or at least closer to it.
I'm just going to ring my tingshas.
And that's all there is to it friends. It doesn't have to be elaborate or an over-the-top, magical mystery tour. It can be very simple - you connecting to the true part of yourself and from here the way ahead looks a little smoother, a little more balanced, with a little more protection and groundedness. Until the next thing comes along and threatens your peace and you do it all over again.
Thank you for joining me this week.
I hope you're planning to come to Sedona sometime soon. It's so nice to go out and meditate together, to meet new friends that share your interest in meditation, and to be guided through the meditation experience of a lifetime.
Sedona is such a healing, precious place and if you're feeling like you need to recharge and just get a little dose of that goodness then come on out here and let's get together. I'll take you out and we'll meditate and spend some time in nature together.
Until then this is Michele Mattix saying goodbye for now.