In this lesson we're going to do something different now we've been doing kind of the same meditation, just extending the time. But now we're going to get into a different some different things during the meditation. So let's start by doing the meditation and then we're going to talk about it afterwards. Okay, so you did some different things in that meditation than we've done before. And let's talk about that a little bit. So one of the things you did was you changed your focus.

You know, we before this, we were focusing on the breathing and when you had thoughts, you would come back to the breathing Well, this time, we thought Focus on different things, we focused on different parts of the body, we focused on sound, we focused on thoughts. And so this is an important part of mindfulness meditation because what we're doing is training our brain to consider that everything that's going on, whether it's something, we hear something, we see something, we think about something we feel in our body, whatever is going on, is an observable event. And we can observe it, and be with it, and just accept that it's happening. And then we can let it go and go back to the present moment. And that is such an important lesson. And this is what really, this is when we really get to the point where we can transfer the training that we're doing with our brain during the meditation session, and that can become the way we are in the world outside of the meditation session.

Because really, what is life accept a series of observable events, you know whether you're watching some what somebody else is doing or watching what's happening or hearing something or being concerned because you're not feeling well, or whatever it is. Life is a series of observable events. And what we're doing is teaching ourselves to just observe the event and let it go and come back to the present moment. The other thing that I think is really interesting in the meditation that this 30 minute meditation that you just did, is that there there's this idea that there's a moment between when you feel something for instance, feel something in your body or hear something. There's the the event and the obscene you know, the awareness of the event and then a split Second later, there's a judgment, this is what we usually do. So we feel something.

Like let's say we're sitting and we're meditating and, you know, our shoulder starts to hurt. And we become we become aware of that our shoulders hurting, that's real. But then usually what we do is we instantly judge it and start evaluating. See, I knew that my shoulder is always bothering me, I just can't get rid of that. I don't know what my shoulder is, I'm going to have to go to the physical therapist. We just kind of like start this whole thing, right, evaluating it, it's bad and so on.

But there's that split second in between, where you have the choice, really in some ways of just observing it and letting it go and not getting into the value judgment. This is that that idea of instead of reacting to everything, by judging it and deciding whether whether the thing, an ache in our body, a sound we heard the thing someone said To us, instead of reacting to it, we can just observe it, and then let it go and come back to the present. Such such an important thing to train your brain to do and very possible to train your brain to do. So. Some really important lessons in this meditation that we just did. Now, a few other things I want to say about meditating when you were meditating on your own, either with a recording or without a recording.

If you're like me, and most other people I know you're quite constantly looking at the clock or your watch or your phone to see how much time is left. Yeah, like I decided I'm going to do a 20 minute meditation and I'm like, peeking, you know, God, really, that was only like seven minutes. I gotta go all the way to 20 minutes, and so on. So the thing to do so that you're not constantly distracted by how much time has gone by is facetted Alarm right with your phone or your watch or timer, whatever. And this if you decide I'm going to meditate for 20 minutes, you just set the alarm for 20 minutes. And then when you get that urge to look and see how much time there is, instead of perhaps indulging in the urge, you can just observe that you're getting the urge, and know that you have the alarm set and then just go back to focusing on your breath or sound or your body or your thought or whatever it is you're focusing on.

So that's a really good thing to do is to just set a timer. Now, one other thing I wanted to say about the kind of meditation that we just did in this lesson, when you got to the part where you were focusing on your thoughts, this is such an interesting thing, you know, because before this lesson, there was kind of the implication that when you have a thought, you know, that's a distraction, and you should just bring your son when you become aware You've gone away on a thought you should bring yourself back to the present moment by, for instance, focusing on your breathing. But in the meditation we did today, thoughts become not a distraction. They're just an observable of that, just like anything else. They're like a sound. They're like a kink in your back.

They're just an observable event. So you don't have to push thoughts away. Thoughts are not bad things that are distracting you from meditating. They are just an observable event and you can have the thought and observe it and let it go, and then come back. So I think that's also an interesting distinction. So for homework, I would like you to do, you can either do this recording again, the 30 minute recording or you can just get it on your own, or you can meditate with one of the other recordings we've done so far, don't do the body scan one yet, we're gonna do that next time.

And, and just realize that, you know whether you do the 30 minute recording and you know, do the thing we just did, where you focus on the sound and so on. Even if you're just meditating on your own for 10 minutes or 20 minutes, or whatever it is, with or without a recording. Now you can realize that anything that comes up during that session sounds, your body thoughts, you can just treat them all as observable events. Let them go and come back. So for your homework, do a meditation session, any lights you want with it without the recording, and then we'll see you back here next time for the next lesson where we're going to do something even different