Calming the Mind

Sensational Awareness – Guided Meditation

MME Album Art(meditation: 8:51 min)

Ever thought, “Uh! I wish I hadn’t said that!!”

Americans like to call this putting your foot in your mouth. Sometimes I put my whole leg in! Open mouth, insert leg. Yikes!

One of the beauties of meditation is that I don’t do this so often anymore. Meditation helps me be more aware of what I’m thinking and feeling… so that I have a moment to decide whether to say something before it pops out of my mouth.

Instead of being lost in my thoughts or overwhelmed by my feelings, I cultivate a perspective (called presence) that lets me see the difference between me and them. I stay aware that I am bigger than my thoughts. I am like a container for them. They are still very much here in me, they are just a PART of me versus taking over me.

This subtle and powerful change in perspective makes all the difference.

I do not get so overwhelmed because they do not fill my entire world. I do not get so lost in them because I see the whole map now.

Make sense? Probably not. If you are like most people this is at best a crazy sounding conceptual theory that doesn’t realate to your experience of reality. I clearly remember thinking this myself. “What the heck does that mean, ‘I am not my thoughts’?

So, how to go from wacky sounding theory to part of your reality?

Experience it yourself!

Below is a practice to help you experience this with sensation, the easiest of the three (thoughts, emotions, sensations). You will happily discover that you do this already (you are present quite often), quite naturally… And now you know how to cultivate it.

Note that if this is the first time you’ve experienced meditation, this isn’t the easiest place to start! I recommend starting with something simple to get the mechanics down first like 3 Breaths.

Happy sensing!

Mindfulness Practice: Sensational Awareness

  1. Start by becoming present to the location you are in: look around at what you can see right now.
  2. Close your eyes and gently shift your attention to your breathing. Notice your breath moving in and out of your body right now. Be curious about your breath. “How am I breathing right now?”
  3. Find a place in your body that has a strong sensation to focus on. Often it is easiest to feel a place that is painful or stiff, or chose a place that feels very fluid and nice. Anywhere is fine, as long as there is sensation that is easy to feel there.
    1. Shift your attention away from your breath and to the area you have chosen with the strong sensation.
    2. Remembering that you are the one feeling the sensation (“I am feeling/sensing.”), be curious about the qualities of the sensation. Notice as much as you can about how it feels. (You can notice qualities like: big/small, intense/soft, rough/smooth, sharp/dull, pulsing/constant, dense/open, etc.)
    3. As much as you can feel it and don’t go into the story about why you are sensing it. Cultivate being curious about feeling the sensations versus thinking about why you feel this way and what you can do to avoid (or repeat) it in the future.
  4. When you feel complete, shift your attention back to your breath. Notice your breath moving in and out of your body.
  5. When you’re ready, open your eyes to end the practice, noticing the space that you’re in right now.

When your mind wanders, as it inevitably will, gently bring it back first to presence by noticing your breath and the quiet between thoughts, and then re-focus on the heart of the practice.

 

To Download:

Click on the Download button below.

If it does not download automatically:

  1. A new window will open with an audio player (like the player above).
  2. Right click on the player and choose “Download File” or “Download Video”
  3. iPhone users will want to first copy the meditation into iTunes (on your computer) and then sync with your iPhone.

Note that you are welcome to download and share this files as many times as you like provided you do so in it’s entirety and it is used for personal or educational use only (no commercial uses).

 

Emotional Awareness

MME Album Art(5:55) I use this practice A LOT. It is one of the most powerful meditation tools that I have. Whenever something is screaming for my attention, whenever a sensation, emotion or thought is taking over (overwhelm!), I use this practice to help me embrace it. By turning my attention to it, becoming fully present to it, I can integrate it into myself – and the overwhelm subsides because it has my attention!

Sometimes it takes multiple sits to fully integrate if it is something big… so don’t be discouraged if it takes a few times. Most things integrate fairly quickly and some things I’ve been working with for years! :)

This practice works best if you have some experience with meditation, especially with being present or focusing your attention on something that is happening right now (like your breathing, your physical sensations, what you can hear or see, etc).

Mindfulness Practice: Emotional Awareness

  1. Notice that something is bothering you or wants your attention.
  2. Start to create awareness of yourself, presence, or space by (closing your eyes and) first focusing on your breathing. “How am I breathing right now?”
  3. Once you are aware of yourself breathing, once you are present, notice what you are feeling and feel it as fully as you are able. If you feel “nothing” notice that as fully as you are able.
  4. As much as you can, just feel what the feeling feels like. Feel with out naming the feeling or going into the stories around the feeling. Focus on feeling the feeling versus on understanding the feeling.
  5. As much as you can maintain your awareness that you are the one feeling the feeling. “I am feeling this right now.” Maintain your awareness that YOU are feeling a feeling. Maintain the perspective that you are feeling vs getting lost in the feelings (and forgetting the perspective of YOU doing the feeling).
  6. If you start to feel overwhelmed by the feeling, give yourself a break and shift your attention to your breath. You can either return to noticing the feeling or decide that you need help navigating this one. Get help if you want it from friends, coaches or therapists.
  7. When you are ready to end move your focus back to your breath for a few breaths and then open your eyes if they are closed. 

When your mind wanders, as it inevitably will, gently bring it back first to presence by noticing your breath and the quiet between thoughts, and then re-focus on the heart of the practice.

 

To Download:

Click on the Download button below.

If it does not download automatically:

  1. A new window will open with an audio player (like the player above).
  2. Right click on the player and choose “Download File” or “Download Video”
  3. iPhone users will want to first copy the meditation into iTunes (on your computer) and then sync with your iPhone.

Note that you are welcome to download and share this files as many times as you like provided you do so in it’s entirety and it is used for personal or educational uses only (no commercial uses).

 

#1 Mindfulness Myth Busted!

(5:16) Myth: When you meditate you should clear your mind of thoughts.

Myth busted: Ouch! This is not my experience at all. 11 years of practice later, I still think a lot when meditating!

If you’re alive, your heart will beat & your mind will think… Even when you’re meditating! Congratulations, you’re alive! This is great news! :)

So what does happen to our thoughts when we meditate?
We learn to have perspective on our thoughts. It’s called presence.

This perspective helps us stay grounded in reality vs getting lost in our thoughts.

How is that relaxing? When we have this perspective (vs getting lost in a single stream of thoughts) we have access to lots of ideas, information & input. We have options vs getting stuck in old thought patterns & outdated ideas. We have access to lots of ideas (& feelings & sensations, etc). We can see what makes the most sense vs just the first thing that popped in. We can be clear about what is actually going on, which makes for a much saner and calmer mind.

This is how the mind is ‘clear’. You’re not clear of thoughts, you’re clear in your thoughts.

Want help maintaining this clarity for yourself? Contact me for your private Skype sessions.

Two Great Ways to Fall Asleep Faster

Falling asleep can be tough if we’re not able to slow down our minds and bodies. We spend all day going at hyper speed, as fast as we can, “really busy” as the norm. Is it any wonder that we have a hard time turning all that drive off and slowing down at night?
Slowing down so that we can rest starts 1 to 2 hours before bedtime… Put down all your stimulants: your phone, computer, notepad; and turn off your tv. If this is too hard at first, try a shorter amount of time like 10 minutes before bed and build up to longer times once that is easy.

Keep all of these stimulants out of you bed room or sleeping area! Let your bed be for sleeping, not being busy, even for entertainment or education. If that stuff is important, do it before bedtime.

Third, once you are ready for bed, get in and do a Progressive Relaxation Body Scan. Essentially notice each area of the body & relax the muscles there. Start at the top and work your way down. More details are in the video. This will help your mind slow down by focusing on your body vs your day and will relax your body by relaxing your muscles.

Let me know how it goes!

Sweet dreams!,
Elena

Weaving Presence Into Your Practice

Sometimes we lose sight of the role of presence in our practice. Maybe we were never really clear about how our meditation practice helps us be more present. Here’s one way to consciously weave presence into our practice.

In those moments when we realize that we’ve been thinking and have stopped noticing our breath (either we were lost in thought or naming our thoughts), before coming back to the breath, take a moment to feel deeply into the present… And then return to the breath.

How to feel deeply into the present? Many ways. You can look around at what you can see in this moment, really noticing the colors and shapes around you in this moment. You could do the same with sounds or with your physical sensations. You can pick any one or two of these or all 3 as you feel it. Whatever helps you really notice what’s in and/or around you in the moment.

Enjoy!,
Elena

Is Mindfulness Helping You Think Too Much?

A colleague shared recently that she has to help her clients stop obsessing over their thoughts because they meditate on them so much they’re obsessed with them!

As someone who was addicted to thinking I totally understand!

I imagine this can happen when we lose sight of the point of meditating, which is to focus on the present, and instead use it as an excuse to focus on our thoughts. This could be easy to do, especially since most of us are addicted to thinking to begin with.

Building Trust: Measuring Your Practice

It’s important to trust your meditation practice.

In order to let yourself relax during practice, you need to be okay with whatever is happening. If your mind is in chaos, you need to be okay with the chaos. You need to trust that just sitting there and watching all the chaos really works.

Otherwise, you fall into the trap of trying to fix yourself while you practice. Which just creates more chaos!

Tricky.

To let go of monitoring your success during practice (“Am I relaxing? Am I doing this right? Is this helping me?”), you can measure your success by comparing how you are before and after you practice. Give yourself a number, 1-10, for how you are before practice, then practice, and then give yourself a number after you finish. See if the number gets better after, or not.

You can measure the success of anything you like from stress levels to mental chatter. Give yourself a 0 for no stress or chatter and a 10 for maximum stress or chatter.

Before you practice decide what level of stress, etc you’re at and give it a number, then just practice with out measuring or monitoring, and afterwards check in again and give yourself a number based on how you feel now.

During practice you let go of needing to monitor, and over time as you watch your numbers consistently improve you will build trust in your practice… Making the desire to monitor a thing of the past.

If your numbers aren’t improving, that’s helpful information as well. Check in and see if there’s something in your environment that’s effecting you like too much noise. Check inside, maybe it’s time for help from a meditation teacher, friend, book or video. Or it could be time to ask for help from a therapist if you feel like your issues are too big right now.

Try it out and I’m happy to hear how it goes for you. Happy (monitor free) practicing,
ElenaMariafoucher.com

2 Ways to Improve Depression & Anxiety

Many people suffer from depression or anxiety. Sometimes both.

Two ways to address these issues are physical exercise & mental practices.

By physical exercise I mean good old fashioned walking, running, swimming, tennis, volleyball, etc. Whatever you like to do is best.

By mental practices I mean things that focus your mind on creative, enjoyable or positive things. This could be anything from art to cooking if you love them. To be really sure that you’re focusing on positive things, it can be doubly helpful to engage in things that are designed to be theraputic, because they will have this bias built in. Art therapy, dance therapy, psychotherapy (depending on the therapist), etc.

Interestingly, meditation also helps for the mental focus aspect, because it has the natural outcome of letting your mind rest.

Why are these 2 things important? Because they change the chemical habits that you’ve gotten into. They offer natural a natural way for your mind & body to reset to happy versus sad.