So you finally have a few precious moments to yourself and you think, I’m gonna reap the benefits of meditation. You sit down, close your eyes, and BAM!, you are blasted with your noisy monkey mind. Read this post, to get your mind calm and quiet in 10 minutes. Hello, I’m Carolyn and welcome to my blog! The space to be, all that you already are. It is my absolute delight to support you, with all things, mindfulness, meditation, and mindset, to help you get out of your head and into your heart. In this post, I’m going to guide you through a 10 minute meditation to help you quiet your monkey mind.

According to Buddhist wisdom, the monkey mind is that very unsettled, very busy mind, that’s always going when we’re not focused on a task. In neuroscience, this is called the default mode network, and it’s kind of humming along in the background, and we don’t even really notice it when we’re busy with what we’re doing, or we are distracted. But as soon as we get still, boom, there it is, and it is loud. And not only is it loud, it’s quite negative, quite critical, even a little bit nasty. This is why it can be so alarming and almost disturbing, when we do finally get still, because we can’t escape that constant chatter. But instead of trying to escape it, control it, even tame it, we need to befriend it. This is much more gentle, much more compassionate, and just expresses a willingness to understand, the way that we work as human beings.

So then, let’s get right into it. Get yourself into an upright position where you can remain awake and alert. And whenever you’re ready, gently closing your eyes. So just settling into your position now. And then once you’re there, bringing your awareness to your breathing, by breathing in deeply, and breathing out, nice and slow. You can open your mouth, making a soft sound, if that feels good to you. Doing that again, now breathing in through your nose, and exhale slowly, nice, and, deep and slow. Beautiful, doing that again now, inhaling deeply through your nose, and exhaling, following that rhythm, all the way in, and all the way out, just like a wave that rolls up onto the shore and then rolls back, out into the ocean, breathing in, breathing out. You can even get into a bit of a rocking back and forth, breathing in, breathing out. Feels so good, to just breathe, to just follow that rhythm, to just flow with your breath, to just be here, here in the present moment, following that rhythm, breathing in deeply, and breathing out slowly. Wonderful.

And now each time you exhale, just relax your body, even more softening the areas where you’re holding any tension. Those areas or any areas that you notice there’s some tension, with each exhalation you get to soften and relax that area even more. Yes, feels so good to be here, in this present moment. So just bask in that and bathe in that, with each inhale and each exhale. And inviting in some words now, saying them silently to yourself. Inhale, “I am here”, and exhale, “Here I am”. Inhaling, “I am here”, and exhaling, “Here I am”. With those words, remembering with each inhalation, each exhalation, that here is not just where you are, it’s who you are. Feeling that more now, you are here, you are this presence, you are this space, you are this love, that is here, right now in the present moment. So really feel that now. Meeting yourself your true self here, in the present moment.

And then you might notice your mind as good as this feels, it drifts off, but what about this or that? What about politics? What about the economy? Why did he say that? When will this end? Did I send that email? She shouldn’t have done that. Why did I do that? And off it goes. And this is no problem at all because this is just your mind doing what a mind does. It moves and it flows, thoughts come in thoughts, come out, just like your breath. And we can let the thoughts roll in, and roll out. No problem at all. And in fact, we can just watch them, we can observe them, looking up at them almost like looking up at the night sky, and noticing the millions and the trillions of stars, twinkling in the sky, just like your thoughts, twinkling and sparkling in your mind. Sparks of neural activity, sparks of thought, just sparks of information, that you can either use, or not use. It’s up to you.

You are standing here looking up, you are the observer, just watching. And then when do you notice a bright star, a nice bright thought, that feels really good and feels supportive, you can reach up and invite that star, that thought to come into, this present moment with you. And you can marry that thought whatever it is for you, “I am powerful”, “I am wise”, “I’m capable”. Everything is unfolding perfectly. Whatever sparks for you right now, let it be easy. And invite that thought in, and marry it with this rhythmic breathing you have. Marry it with this presence that you are. Taking a few moments to be, and be with that powerful, supportive thought or statement, remembering, that you are pure loving presence, and that you can partner, with this beautiful thing called a mind, and, be in right relationship with it, for your highest good. We will end this meditation from this place of choice, from this place of power, remembering that it is always available to you. And then, whenever you’re ready, gently opening your eyes, and bringing your hands to your heart, taking a deep bow of gratitude, Namaste.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I’m so curious. Did this 10 minute meditation help your mind, get calm and quiet? Please let me know, I would love to hear from you. And if you want to dive deeper, then I invite you to join me for my free, seven day meditation journey called Being Home, where I combine mindfulness and the wisdom of my horses, to support you with finding everything you need exactly where you are. You can click on the link below:

7dayjourney.carolyncreed.com.

See this meditation in my video here:
https://youtu.be/HgIdAb6HSvM

Thank you so much for reading.

Have a beautiful day!