In this episode, part two of an eight-part series, Amanda discusses her journey through the Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP) and the profound lessons she learned. She emphasizes the importance of self-compassion, especially for women, teachers, and social justice advocates who often experience overwhelm and self-blame. Amanda defines mindfulness and meditation, highlighting the benefits of body awareness. She shares practical techniques for body scan and walking meditation to help listeners find peace and presence amidst the stressors of modern life. The episode concludes with a guided body scan meditation to practice these principles.

00:00 Introduction to the Series
00:40 Personal Journey into Meditation
01:39 Teaching Mindfulness to Women
03:20 Challenges of Modern Life and Self-Care
09:22 Defining Mindfulness and Meditation
17:16 Body Scan Meditation Techniques
24:23 Beginning of Guided Body Scan Meditation

Transcript: 

Amanda: [00:00:00] Today you are going to hear part two in a series of eight episodes. Part one was episode 99, and that was the first class I ever taught. I. As part of my mindfulness and meditation teacher certification program, M-M-T-C-P, I taught eight classes for a practicum to graduate this program, and I really think that this information is incredibly valuable, especially to hardworking teachers like yourself.

I began meditating in around 2018. And what I learned changed my life so profoundly that I decided I wanted to learn how to teach others the tools that had helped me navigate the chaos and stress of modern life [00:01:00] as a woman, teacher, mother, and social justice advocate. So in 2023, I began a program called M-M-T-C-P.

Which stands for Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher Certification Program? It’s a mouthful. During this life changing two year program, I taught an eight week practicum. The end goal of every class for my practicum was to help others find peace and presence. And to normalize how truly challenging it is to attempt this in these modern times.

The students who attended my class, this was a year ago, were mostly women, big hearted working moms, who in my eyes had all the defining qualities of. Heroes yet over and over again, these courageous, kind and hardworking women spoke about overwhelm, [00:02:00] sadness, mental health issues, problems in their relationships, stress and chronic pain.

And the most surprising, but also not surprising part was the way that these women admonished themselves, the way they blamed themselves and talked about feelings of guilt for not being able to dedicate enough time to meditating or to time alone or to the activities that brought them joy, like gardening or hiking or singing or dancing.

It was humbling to witness their vulnerabilities. Because I saw myself reflected back at me. Meditating all these years has forced me to become very familiar with the critical voice that resides inside my own head, and I’ve learned that just that awareness alone holds enormous power. In each of my classes, I did everything I could to support these women by consistently [00:03:00] reminding them to be gentle with themselves.

To witness the admonishing thoughts and redirect their attention to the wise inner self that we all possess. This self understands fully and completely that you are doing the very best you can with the tools you have been given up to this point. If you’re a teacher, a woman, or a social justice warrior listening to this podcast, you are most likely overburdened.

With the needs and demands of others. If you’re anything like me, it’s hard to say no to others. You have a giving and kind heart, but that way of being in the world can get us into trouble. We can overextend ourselves. Chronic stress is one of the leading causes of disease and unexplainable ailments in America.

It’s so vital for us to slow down and turn inward, but who in the hell has time for that? [00:04:00] The term self-care has become a popular one that often brings to mind activities that I’m not that interested in or just don’t have the motivation to make time for or the money to invest. In things like massages and yes, I do get massages ’cause I have chronic back pain.

And yes, I do take Epsom salt baths, but like bubble baths, massages, pedicures, and getting my hair done. Sure, who wouldn’t love these activities, but they. Happen fairly rarely. Uh, and so I’ve had to find ways to be realistic and to find practices I can integrate easily into my daily life. I tell you this listener, because as you consume information about how to care for yourself.

How to find peace and presence in these incredibly tough times we live in. Please remember, there’s no one right [00:05:00] way to meditate or to be mindful. You get to choose what feels best for you and your circumstances. Don’t force yourself or others to meditate. Or conform to what they say is best. If you take nothing away from listening to this eight part part series, the most important point I want to emphasize is the importance of self-compassion.

Everything else grows from the daily practice of kindness towards self. And yes, there is an episode coming up on that soon. For now, I just wanna say you are all you’ve really got in the end. Self knowledge is. So powerful in every attempt, no matter how big or small, whether it happens when you’re young, middle aged, or very old.

Self knowledge, becoming an expert in the way your mind works. Just the act of noticing and redirecting self blame and guilt. I can personally attest that just this practiced [00:06:00] alone will change your life for the better. In this series of talks, I will reiterate this point again and again because it’s really the most impactful thing I learned through the M-M-T-C-P program.

Self-compassion. The episode you are about to hear is part two in the series of eight classes I taught during my practicum. I published the first class I taught on this podcast a few weeks ago. It’s episode 99. And the topic was how to use the breath to find peace and presence in your daily life. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Well, during the talk I definitely tried my best to be honest about the challenges of making time for these things. Today’s talk though, is about the body. Next week will be about emotions. Each class session is organized. As a 10 minute talk and then culminates in a five to 10 minute guided meditation. I hope you’re [00:07:00] able to glean some insights from this episode and how, and learn how to cope better with the stresses you face, and I would be so unbelievably happy if this episode allowed you to find a bit of calm and presence in your life right now.

If that does happen and I achieve this goal. And if you have the time and the will. Please tell another person about this episode and the series, or let me know your thoughts. Head over to Amanda right now.com. That’s Amanda Wright, W-R-I-T-E now.com and contact me. I’d be so, so stoked to hear from you.

Welcome to the Empower Students Now podcast. A podcast about equity, neurodiversity, mindfulness, and student engagement. There’s a lot that needs to change in our education system. The good news is teachers have the power to make these [00:08:00] changes now.

Like most of us, I’ve lived the majority of my life caught in thought, believing everything my mind produced without really examining what surfaced. I took all the beliefs, ideas, and my own personal perceptions of the world around me at Faced Value. A book I read years ago called The Power of Now by Eckhart Toley.

Maybe you’ve heard of it. We called this way of being human in the world, being unconscious. And as we start to notice the incessant and even painful thinking that goes on in our heads, we begin to become what Eckhart Toley calls conscious. And this is actually a quote from him that I love. What a liberation to realize that the voice in my head is not who I am.

Who am I? Then [00:09:00] the one who sees that. I love that quote. Once I realized I could redirect my mind to other aspects of my internal experience besides my own thoughts, I felt I had learned a very important skill for living in this chaotic world and brain of mine because my thoughts had caused me so much pain in the past.

However, I want to remind everyone listening that meditation. Is not about transcending your thoughts, mind or body. This is a major misconception about meditation that often leads people to turn away from it without ever fully reaping the benefits. I’d like to replace this misconceived idea with a new one listener.

This is my definition of mindfulness, and afterwards I’ll define meditation as well and talk about the difference. Mindfulness is the continual moment to moment practice of intentionally choosing [00:10:00] to direct your attention toward an anchor, such as your breath, the physical sensations of your body sounds a mantra or movement to name just a few of the anchors available to you.

An anchor helps still your attention, like it helps a boat stay still in choppy water. Now, what about meditation? How would I define meditation? How is it different than mindfulness? I’ve come to come to think of all forms of meditation as, um, as really just a set amount of time that you intentionally carve out during your day to practice redirecting attention, right?

Directing your thoughts back to an anchor when the mind strays. So the more you do it, the more your awareness of your own thinking patterns expands, and the better you are and better you get at redirecting your [00:11:00] attention to a calming anchor. It’s helpful to think of all forms of meditation as exercises for the brain because the brain is like a muscle that needs to be worked in order to strengthen its ability to be mindful on a day-to-day, hour to hour, minute to minute basis.

Mindfulness is coming back to your anchor throughout your day-to-day life. Meditation is a practice you set time aside for to build your ability to live mindfully. There are many meditation practices to choose from. In this talk, I will tell you about my personal journey, realizing the ways in which my body, all of our bodies are portals to a more peaceful, calm, and mindful life.

In the past, my body was only a tool for optimizing and health. It was something to be controlled when it was out of control because of sickness, pain, or injury. I resented [00:12:00] and distrusted it at some point in my late thirties after having my daughter working full-time as a teacher and trying to build a business.

My body and mind. Hit a wall. I didn’t know it then, but I know now I was experiencing burnout. But like many women living in these modern times, I kept going. ’cause what else was I supposed to do? Quit my job, run away. No, I. This is when I first began trying out meditation through the app Headspace. I used this app off and on for a few years, but the stressful, fast-paced life of a teacher, wife, mother, and entrepreneur couldn’t compete with a worldwide global pandemic in 2020 where like.

Many of you, I was forced into teaching well all of you from a distance while also trying to facilitate distance learning for my young elementary aged [00:13:00] daughter. This is also, as you all know, when the BLM movement gained. Important momentum and as a privileged white woman, I was for the first time really coming to terms with what it meant to live in a society with rampant systemic racism and being complicit because of my lack of knowledge and awareness.

About these issues. Oh, and this was also during the time when the skies of California turned apocalyptic orange and gray and forced everyone to stay indoors for weeks on end. It felt like the world was ending. All of these issues collided and formed within my body an extreme physical response in the form of head to toe rashes.

As well as unexplainable muscular pain throughout my entire body, but most notable in my hands, neck and upper back. I’ve been in [00:14:00] consistent chronic pain for many, many years now, and I still don’t know exactly why. And the biggest culprit I can point to is stress and burnout, and all of this persists to this day.

You may be wondering how can someone practice meditation on the mind and body when they’re undergoing so much stress and physical pain? Maybe you relate to all of this. The truth is that in many instances of my life, it was impossible to practice meditation. In times of extreme stress and pain, meditation was not accessible to me.

Anyone who says it is when every fiber of your being rejects it, they’re lying or they’ve never been through what you’re going through. This is why one of the most critical practices when it comes to mindfulness is self-compassion. As I’ve said before, [00:15:00] some might say, including yourself, that self-compassion is just wallowing or feeling sorry for yourself or letting the pain and problems fester and not doing anything about it.

But most teachers, mothers, and social justice warriors I know could use a great deal more self-compassion and be advised to drop the self-flagellating thoughts about whether or not you are wallowing in your own pain. Most of the women I know. Are not, but rather have gotten used to people minimizing their pain and gaslighting even themselves.

So as I proceed through this talk, please remember that meditating on the body should not be forced, especially if you’re going through a difficult period of your life. However, if you are ready and willing and in a good place to allow your body to experience the presence that is available to you at every moment of your waking life.[00:16:00]

Then here’s how to do it. The very first step in using your body to meditate or practice mindfulness on a day-to-day basis is to remember. It sounds so simple, yet it is actually very challenging. Why is it so challenging? I mean, it’s our bodies. Why can’t we pay attention to our bodies more? Because there’s so many distractions in our modern day life.

It’s easy to choose an activity that distracts us from pain and stress, such as a favorite TV show, or listening to a podcast. Don’t worry, I’m not judging. I love distracting myself. My distraction of choice is. Work, so no judgment, but back to this idea of trying to remember to pay attention to our bodies in a mindful way.

It’s hard. Yes. This is why it is recommended by many meditation teachers to be intentional [00:17:00] by setting a time and place that you choose to practice meditation on the body. During this dedicated time that you choose for beginners, you might try a number of methods, which I will describe now. First, there’s what’s called a guided body scan meditation.

I’ve tried many apps and websites to do this. Uh, and guided means someone’s talking and walking you through it. The Calm app, Headspace and mindful.org are some really great. Places to find guided body scan meditations, but my favorite app and the one I use most often is Insight Timer. The reason being that it has a wide range of functions for novices and experienced meditators.

There are timers and singing bowls, nature sounds, guided body scan, meditations, guided meditations. That [00:18:00] cover all sorts of topics like manifestation, um, and there’s many genres of instrumental music. There’s mantras, there’s yoga, there’s courses, and just so much more. It’s a fantastic app with many uses for a wide range of experience levels.

You just have to search body scan, meditation, and there are many beautiful audios to choose from. Experienced meditators can use Insight Timer, and this is what I do. Often you just listen to peaceful sounds of nature, like birds chirping or a small creek flowing. As you lead yourself through a body scan, you can also just set a timer and listen to the sounds within your own living space as you scan your body.

This, this can also help if you have. Issues falling asleep. Or if you wake up in the middle of the night, I often will try to, um, just guide myself through a body scan. So how exactly does [00:19:00] this body scan meditation work? You can do a quick body scan at any point throughout your day. You just have to remember and then choose to slow down.

At the end of this talk, I will guide you through a body scan meditation that you can practice anytime you remember. So here’s how you put this into practice During your day to day, basically, and I’m not guiding you right now, I’m just gonna describe what to do. But you sit in a chair, or you could lay down too, if you have a space to lay down.

I used to lay down, I had a big closet in my old classroom, and I would lay on a yoga mat. Um, you just need to make sure you have back support. And because I have back problems, I like to lay down. I, you just really need to be as comfortable as possible. And if you’re sitting upright, you wanna have good posture, but you wanna be comfortable, you wanna have back support.

You can use a pillow, anything to make you comfortable. And you usually would wanna put your feet flat on the floor and your hands [00:20:00] on your lap facing up or down. I like to put my hands down ’cause it’s very grounding feeling. And the first thing you do is you take in some deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth.

Um, you could also do inre your nose out to your nose. That’s very calming too. And you wanna do, you know, like five, maybe even 10 breath deep breaths just to calm your nervous system. Once you feel some calm, you can begin scanning parts of your body. I usually start with my toes and move upwards. And I just notice the sensations that are present in the different parts of my body.

And I try to go as slow as I can, but sometimes I speed up. So you just begin, um, noticing what, what’s present, what sensations or present in the different parts of your body. What parts feel tight or tense or tingly or painful. What parts maybe feel neutral, [00:21:00] what parts maybe even feel. Pleasurable and you just notice what what you feel.

That’s how you do a body Scan meditation and stay tuned to the end of this episode because I will guide you in a body scan meditation. Another form of meditation on the body is walking meditation. I do this all the time when I remember, of course. So what you do is you just, you, you take a slow pace as you walk, and you just notice the sensations of the bottom of your feet as you step.

And that’s it. It’s your anchor. And so anytime you get lost in thought, you notice and you come back to the sensations that you feel on your feet as you walk. That’s it. Um, another type of meditation on the body involves visualizing. The body floating above water. I’ve [00:22:00] done meditations where I visualize water rising, which that might be kind of scary for people who are, who are nervous about drowning.

Um, but it is really relaxing. Uh, another fun body meditation. It involves softening different parts of your body and sending peaceful, calming energy to parts of the body that may feel tense or pained. And lastly, of course, there’s yoga, which is a very popular form of meditation on the body. I’ve practiced yoga for years, even before discovering meditation.

Um, so when you combine the concepts of meditation on the body, uh, and using your body as an anchor and your breath as an anchor with the movements of yoga, you really, you really do have lots of good tools, uh, that you can use to heal from the stresses of your life when you can combine all of these things.

Uh, it’s [00:23:00] critical to remember that as you do any of these meditations. You will, most likely, you will definitely. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Most likely you’ll definitely drift away in thought. I can’t emphasize this enough. It’s normal. This is what happens. This is our brains. This is what our brains do.

Meditation is not about stopping thoughts and that is a very major misconception that I really want to, um. I just warn you about because it’s not about ending your thoughts. Your thoughts won’t go away. They just won’t, and it’s, it is annoying. Here’s what’s really important to remember. When you notice you are caught in thought, when you recognize this, it should be a moment of pride and accomplishment.

A moment you’ve been waiting for. You noticed your brain just got a little better at redirecting your thoughts to [00:24:00] your anchor. And when you recognize the thoughts, come back to your chosen anchor for this talk. It’s the body and feel proud because you are doing the work. You are working the muscle of your brain and you will get better over time the more that you.

You practice this. So now it’s time to practice. Are you ready? Are you ready for the guided meditation body scan? Okay, let’s get started. This meditation will last about 13 minutes. If you can find a space where you will be undisturbed, begin by finding a comfortable position. You may choose to lie down or sit upright, allowing your body to begin to relax [00:25:00] as you prepare to journey inward.

Now, if you’re comfortable, close your eyes. If not, just look at something in front of you with a soft gaze

and take some deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.[00:26:00]

Inhale slowly.

Feel the air expand in your body and hold it gently for a moment. As you exhale, release the breath

along with any tension you may have brought along today. [00:27:00] Try and let go a little more with each breath out.

Now bring your attention to your feet.

Imagine the soles of your feet are touching the cool earth, a connection deep and nurturing.

Notice any sensations in your feet. Warmth, coolness. Tingling [00:28:00] or perhaps nothing at all.

Breathe into your feet. Envisioning each breath, coloring them with calmness.

Now slowly move your awareness up to your ankles,

feeling the gentle shift in your bones and skin as you focus.

What do you feel there?

Breathe into these joints, sending them your attention with each [00:29:00] inhale and exhale.

Now guide your focus up to your lower legs. Notice the muscles encasing your calves, the weight of your legs against the surface. Below you. With each breath, imagine a wave of relaxation rising through your calves, softening and soothing them.[00:30:00]

Now pay attention to your knees.

These vital hinges that bend and flex and do so much for us. Acknowledge your knees significance. They’re so important. Notice any sensations.

Invite, ease and soft softness into your knees.

If you’re noticing intrusive thoughts, be gentle with them. Just notice them and like a cloud, let them float away. Bringing your loving attention back to your body [00:31:00] and my voice. Continue upwards to your thighs, heavy and strong. These pillars support you daily. Send gratitude to them with each breath,

feeling the release of the burdens within your thighs.

Now shift your awareness to your pelvis and hips, the cradle of your being, where many emotions linger. Breathe into your hips, letting your breath stir the emotions. [00:32:00] Within like a soft breeze, allowing everything to flow freely without judgment.

Now focus your, your attention on your belly. Soft and tender.

Feel the rise and fall with each breath.

Now gently rise your attention to your chest and heart.

Notice the life force [00:33:00] pulsing through you, nourishing and revitalizing every cell.

You might put a hand on your heart to feel its gentle and steady rhythm.

A drum of life

each beat. A reminder of your connection to this moment. To life’s tender, embrace.

Now bring your awareness to your shoulders, neck [00:34:00] and throat. These are all very common places where daily pressures of life reside with each breath. Imagine a weight lifting space opening where all that burdens you evaporates, operates like morning mist.

Now focus on your face,

your eyes.

If you notice any tension in your brows,[00:35:00]

maybe lift them up and down and loosen that tension.

Notice your nose, your lips.

Your chin

soften each part of your face with your breath soothing. The lines of worry.

Finally sense the crown of your head.

Imagine it opening gently, connecting you to [00:36:00] the sky above.

A conduit between the earth and the vast open air.

Feel this connection between you and earth.

Spend a few moments in this complete stillness and connection. To your body, you are grounded yet limitless.

Breathe in the space, this peace for a few more deep breaths.[00:37:00]

If you’re ready, you can begin to shift your awareness back to the space around you.

Notice sounds,

notice sensations, the space you’re in.

Maybe the air on your skin.

Maybe gently wiggle your fingers and toes, bringing movement back to your body. [00:38:00] And when you’re ready, open your eyes returning to the world around you. Carrying with you a sense of peace, calm, and [00:39:00] [00:40:00] rejuvenation.