Welcoming Distraction During Meditation

Speaker 1 · 0:00Welcome to the Mindfulness Exercises podcast. May this be a source of inspiration and motivation in your mindfulness practice and teachings.

Speaker 2 · 0:13We can welcome distractions and notice them, not judge them as much as we can, and then just come back. Whether it's a distraction of sound, sight, thought, emotion, you know, we can welcome them, tend to them, befriend them, notice judgments, but then come back. But if the distractions are very strong, then we can just use the distraction as the object of awareness.

Speaker 3 · 0:51We can use that as our focal point.

Speaker 2 · 0:57And just notice what it's like from moment to moment to moment to moment. So if it's a sound, we can notice the sound waves entering the ears and staying open to new sounds, changing sounds, or silence, or just noticing sounds as sounds without judgment. If it's an emotion, we can notice the emotion and welcome that and tend to that, open to it. So with mindfulness, it's not about getting rid of distractions or judging distractions, but it's really just about being present for whatever's here. Whether we like it or not, whether we planned it or not, it's part of the moment. And it's one of the ways that makes mindfulness a little bit different from most other kinds of meditation style practices. You know, a lot of meditations, they tend to be around focusing on something, repeating something, visualizing something at the expense of like excluding other things, which can be great. There's definitely a place for that. With mindfulness, we're building this muscle of being mindful of whatever's here in our present moment as we can sense them. So distractions are actually kind of a way that we can build that muscle of opening to whatever's here. It can still be body-based in the sense that if it's a distraction of sound, we can kind of stay with the ears and notice the sounds in the ears rather than sort of going outside ourselves. Can we stay centered? Can we stay grounded and receive the sounds and notice what that's like? If it's a sight, same thing. Can we receive the visuals and the eyeballs? And like instead of going out there to go like watch something, can we receive and stay embodied? We can dance a little bit between sort of the emotional reactivity in the body and then the stimuli itself. So we can notice the stimuli and then notice okay, well, what's happening in my body as sort of a reaction or response? What's the visceral response going on to the stimuli? And so we can kind of use our own intuition on what may be useful to notice, maybe finding a balance all the while noticing whether there's judgment. So it's not just the you know visceral response or the stimuli, but it's like, is there an overlay of judging it to be good or bad, right or wrong? So just noticing, opening, welcoming. If it's not too intense, if it's too intense, then back out, you know, take care of yourself. But if it feels within your window of tolerance, then we can explore those different facets. So maybe uh, you know, one of these days I'll lead a meditation and I'll bang some pots in the background or say something unexpected just to test you guys.

Speaker 1 · 4:47May each of us continue to find courage in our own way by sharing mindfulness with a deep sense of faith, knowing that seeds we plant will certainly, someday, bloom. To learn more about Sean's Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program and the wisdom, support, and community that's available there, visit teach.mindfulness exercises.com.