La Trobe Counselling Service
transcript
- Bubble of Awareness
First Minute
Sit in a comfortable and upright position, drop your shoulders and open your chest, gently close your eyes, and bring your attention to your breath. Take a couple of deep breaths and then allow your breathing to return to normal.
During the first minute, try to simply notice your thoughts and feelings. Imaging a ‘bubble of awareness’ that is only the size of your head and heart. What are you thinking about? What are you feeling right now in this moment? Remember, nothing outside of your frame of awareness matters right now. Give yourself permission to focus on noticing your thoughts and feelings as they occur. Once you have noticed them, try to be aware of them like reading a billboard and simply allowing them to move on and leave your ‘bubble of awareness’. Continue throughout the rest of this first minute by noticing whatever thought or feeling arises next.
Second Minute
During the second minute, expand your ‘bubble of awareness’ to include your physical sensations. Add your physical self to your frame of awareness over your body and notice any sensations. Add your physical self to your frame of awareness and simply notice the sensations in your body. What does it feel like to be in your body right now? What sensations do you notice? Scan your awareness over your body and notice any sensations you might be feeling in any part of your body. Again, just note them and then allow them to move on. Do your best to allow the sensations to move on just as easily as they first arose. Notice any thought or feeling that arises out of noticing your body or that simply pops into your head and allow them to be as you notice your body movement.
Third Minute
In the final minute, again, expand your ‘bubble of awareness’, this time to include the space around you. As you do this, maintain your awareness of thoughts and feelings as well as your physical sensations. Notice the room or area around you. What do you hear? What do you hear that is close and what do you hear that is far? What do you smell? Open your eyes and notice what you can see. Notice the stimuli of your present space and then allow them to move on from your focus. As the third minute comes to a close, bring your attention back to your breath and move out of this mindfulness exercise.
