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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
Benefits of Mindfulness: Mindful Living Can Change Your Life
Mindfulness 101: A Beginner's Guide
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In this talk and meditation, we'll explore why attunement is one of the most important parenting skills.
Hey, welcome.
In this meditation, we're going
to explore the importance and
practice of attunement in parenting.
You can think of attunement in a
similar way that a musician might
think of tuning their instrument.
Each day when a musician takes out
their instrument to practice, they first
have to listen to where it is today.
It changes overnight based on the
temperature, the air pressure.
And so it requires showing up with
curiosity and beginner's mind and
making subtle adjustments based
on how the instrument is today.
As a parent, this is even more
fundamental because a child is not
an instrument and they're changing
even more on a day to day basis.
And if we just show up with our ideas
about who they are today, we're actually
missing the day to day shifts, even the
moment to moment shifts that require a
different way of showing up, then meeting
this small human being where they are now.
And we're learning more and
more in psychology, just
how important attunement is.
And this is primarily because a child's
capacity to attune to themselves and
regulate, manage their own emotions,
meet their own needs and feel worthy of
meeting their own needs that is first
modeled and developed through you.
Your nervous system meeting
they're nervous system.
Helping to console, demonstrate presence,
offering compassion, all of the things
that we try to develop as adults, we
get many of these resources first in
our younger years of life, through the
relationships with the adults around
us, especially our primary caregivers.
So this is a powerful opportunity
to really develop and strengthen
that capacity of attunement
for your child or children.
And don't worry, none of
us get this 100%, right.
We're all human, but it is
something that we can refine.
And that begins with an attunement
to our own internal experience.
If we're not able to be aware of
our own thoughts, our own emotions,
our own sensory experience, it's
going to be very difficult to offer
that attunement to another person.
So in this meditation, we'll explore
developing that attunement here in our
own mind, in our own body, and then how
we might bring that into our parenting.
So if you haven't already done
so, find a comfortable posture.
It could be seated, lying down,
something that allows you to
feel comfortable but awake.
And if it feels okay to do
so, you can close your eyes.
But even here is an opportunity to attune.
Closing your eyes is a generic
instruction in meditation, but
it might not feel right to you.
So notice if there's an overriding of
your own intuition around what you need in
order to do it right or follow the rules.
So just take a moment to
check in with yourself.
What would feel best right now?
Eyes open?
Eyes closed?
It might just be a 1% difference
of one feeling slightly more
comfortable and safe, but see if
you can feel what's truly here.
And what you're listening to here
is not the thoughts in your mind,
but the felt sense in your body.
Felt sense of, oh, I'm actually
drawn to this right now.
Or when I close my eyes, I feel
a little more safe and grounded.
Or when I close my eyes, I actually
feel slightly uncomfortable, a
little more scared or disconnected.
That is the musician tuning
into their instrument.
What's here now in this moment?
And so wherever you end up is fine.
Let's just take a deep breath
to settle ourselves in.
Breathing in through the nose.
And slowly out through the mouth.
And take a moment to feel into your body.
Noticing if there's any area of your
body that you're holding tension.
Maybe out of pattern, subconsciously.
Sensing the muscles in the face.
The eyes, the cheeks, the jaw.
And just listening through awareness
for where there might be some
gripping or tension in the face.
And if you feel inspired to, you
can invite it to soften and relax.
Maybe noticing the shoulders.
What's it like to feel the shoulders
without putting your hand there,
but just sensing this part of your
body and asking what does this need?
Does it want to relax a little bit?
Even just the acknowledgement of
there being tension is a quality
of tuning in and holding space.
And just checking in with
any other areas of the body.
Scanning through your instrument.
Seeing how it feels in this moment.
This same awareness, we can
bring to any sensory experience.
But let's explore bringing it to sound.
Noticing anything that
you can hear right now.
There's the more obvious sound of my
voice, which you can really tune into.
Noticing the subtleties there and the
different inflections in my voice.
Maybe even trying to sense how I'm
feeling in this moment based on what
you're picking up through my voice.
But there's also the more subtle
sounds when I'm not speaking.
And all you're doing is just
listening deeply for what's
arising without judgment.
Just curiosity.
What do I notice now?
The mind wanders, we just bring it back.
What am I noticing right now?
What am I hearing right now,
even if that includes silence?
And let's bring that same awareness
now to the rhythm of our breathing.
This actually very subtle experience
in our awareness, the softness of the
breath moving into the body, filling
up the lungs, expanding the belly.
And then that ease as you take an exhale.
This is the aliveness of your
being, and there are all of these
subtleties to the experience.
So what would it be like to pay
attention to attune to the breath as
if you were attuning to your child?
Really just trying to understand
what is the subtle moment to moment
changing nature of what is here
without judgment, just curiosity
and an openness to see more clearly.
And lastly, before we close
this meditation, I invite you to
ask yourself the question, what
is it like to be me right now?
What is it like to be me right now?
And just see what arises there.
Very open, honest exchange with yourself.
What do you need to tune into to really
sense the answer to that question?
What is it like to be me right now?
So let's take one more
deep breath together.
In through the nose.
Slowly out through the mouth.
And when you're ready, you
can let your eyes open.
All right.
So thanks for being open to this practice.
As you become more aware of and attuned
to the complexity of your own humanness
and how often it's changing and the
different needs that are arising and
the better you get at meeting that
honestly and giving yourself permission
to have that experience and to meet
those needs and to put up boundaries
that will organically facilitate your
ability to offer that to another person,
including your child or children.
And as you're doing your own practice
in this way with yourself, you can
more consciously bring this into your
parenting, maybe even saying: Oh, what
is it like to be them in this moment?
What is my sense of what it's
like to be my child right now?
Just that openness to understand more
clearly will allow you to meet the
truth of their experience without
prematurely stepping in with your
own ideas of who they are, what
they're intending, what they need.
Remember at the heart of this, you
are helping to model for them what
it looks like to pay attention
with curiosity and openness and
compassion to their own experience.
And that is a gift they will take
with them for the rest of their life.
They don't need all the answers right now.
They don't need to know the exact
right thing to do in this moment.
You're developing a certain emotional
intelligence, certain self-compassion
and a certain self attunement that
they will take with them through
all the different scenarios and
permutations of what life can bring them.
So that is something you can trust.
I hope this feels supportive
in your parenting journey.
Thank you for your practice.
Thanks for doing the work.
It's important for our next
generation and we're here to
support in whatever way we can.
Talk to you soon.
And until next time, take care.
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