The Company We Keep

A Seven Session Meditation Atelier

Put simply the aim of these ateliers is to be more aware, more often with kindness towards what we find. Through this awareness we can transform our experiences, deepen our relationships and experience greater levels of joy in the simple and ordinary. We begin to practice stepping out of the habitual doing mode by paying attention, intentionally, mindfully, compassionately, to sensations of the body and to aspects of everyday experiences. Weaving home practice and the teachings into your daily life offers an opportunity to knowing yourself and accepting what you find with kindness, opening up to the potential healing that this can bring us.

Each week you will build on the practices and committing to a weekly session allows you to maximise the benefits of the techniques, and allows for consistency.

The atelier follows the following format:

  • Meditation

  • Poem

  • Tea meditation

  • Sharing space (opportunity to pause, reflect or journal about your direct experience of the practice)

  • A closing Meditation and invitation for home pratice

What do I need to prepare?

Each practice will be either a sitting, movement or lying down, for meditation hints and tips have a look at this handout HERE. Ideally in advance of the session you’ll need:

  • Use a chair, cushions or a stool

  • Enough space for an exercise mat on the floor

  • Enough space to move your arms around your body from standing

  • Any props for comfort and warmth (see the handout mentioned)

  • A glass of water or warm drink for the tea meditation.

Atelier One

The company we keep - Our bodies.

We begin this meditation series exploring our bodies. We spend all day, everyday with ourselves, paying very little attention these homes that house our souls, our stories, our experiences and the potentials of our futures and the choices we can make to take care of our health and wellbeing. You’ll be guided through a mindful compassion based body scan where we step out of our habitual tendencies to seek pleasure and avoid discomfort. Moving towards acceptance and reverence of the mundane and ordinary in all it’s extraordinariness.

Pause - three times a day.

Your home practice for the week ahead is to stop and check in with yourself three times a day. It can be helpful to set an alarm for yourself. Quickly scan from you head to your toes and ask yourself ‘What are my bodies unmet needs?’ (rest, nourishment, water, comfort). Do you need to change your socks, unclench your jaw? or perhaps take the time to have a glass of water, a stretch, to sit quietly for 5 minutes? Attending to these basic needs can change the trajectory of our days, and in turn our lives and those around us.

Atelier two

The company we keep - our nervous system

Before starting this weeks session you are invited to have a look at the biology behind the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system, here & here, a video on each of two minutes. When we learn about the systems of our bodies and how they work for us we have an opportunity to observe our experiences from its perspective, to step out of the stories and recognise when our body is working to keep us safe and the moments where we move into allowing it to heal and restore. Just how incredible we are, and how our thoughts and experiences can feed into how it reacts, that there is no need to change anything, but simply noticing can be helpful and healing in itself.

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Atelier Three

Mindful Movement

Observing the company we keep within our bodies. Within this meditation we integrate mindful movement and somatic based massage techniques. the tightening, tension and bracing we unconsciously hold, encouraging us to notice, release and transform our experiences.

Face massage

Your home practice for the week ahead is to massage your face once a day to release any tension you notice here.

Atelier Four

The company we keep - Time

We'll explore our use of the time we've had today, what nourishes, depletes and what is neutral. Learning to listen to our body, pay attention and use it as a guide towards taking care of ourselves. Leading into a home practice of taking 5 minutes everyday to write a list of the activities you have done that day, then writing next to it whether the activity was nourishing, depleting or neutral. you’re being an impartial witness to yourself, this is not intended as an opportunity to judge yourself or change anything. Just notice with kindly attention . You will find the tool HERE if you'd like a guide.

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Atelier Five

Our Values

In this weeks class we explore out values, stepping into our prefrontal cortex and then expanding into the experience of the body. We explore the objects, places, people and our time. Remember to be kind to yourself and take care of your wellbeing, this is the key to our learning. The body and breath are always there to anchor you in the present moment, to connect to your direct experience. Your thoughts are not facts and you are not your thoughts, they're mental events that we are having a play with.

Home practice

The invitation this week is an informal practice. Explore dropping into present moment awareness with an object, a place, a person and your time. The sensations you notice, the textures and colours, spend time looking at a painting in your house mindfully, make contact with a person you value and mindfully engage in this interaction, go to your favourite bench and sit for five minutes in stillness.

Are you values in alignment with how you are spending your days? You don't need to change a thing, but simply observe. This in itself can bring about change.

Atelier Six

The company we keep - Language

Todays session is intended as a nourishing and soothing, restorative practice as we explore our reactions to language within this contemplative practice

Two invitations for home practice this week:

  1. Taking time to notice what you are reading, listening to and speaking in terms the language you use and your bodies experience.

  2. Taking natural pauses within your day to hold your lower ribs and breath into the back of your hands.

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Atelier Seven

The company we keep - a review

How we spend our moments is how we spend our days which in turn becomes how we live our lives.

What we do with our time, the places we go to, the people we interact with, the way we talk to ourselves, the objects that we use daily and their condition, the media we are consuming all can have a direct impact on our wellbeing.

Essentially the company we keep affects are health, putting ourselves at a higher or lower risk of wellness or illness . In terms of people we keep can more susceptible to certain conditions such as obesity, depression, getting divorced and on the plus side more likely to give up smoking or be content if we’re around people who don’t smoke or are happy. The same applies to music on our moods, the social media we’re consuming, the television series we’re watching can make us anxious.

We are so over stimulated and I hope that in dropping into the present moment you have had an opportunity to pause and recentre, to listen to your body and perhaps make wiser decisions from time to time.

You know where I am if you would like to explore any of this in greater depth. Thank you so much for joining me on this adventure.