S1E8: Mindfulness Meditation Practice for Beginners on a Spiritual Journey

What happens when we pause to notice what's happening within us? Freedom emerges in that space between stimulus and response. 

This guided mindfulness meditation introduces a simple yet profound practice of noticing—bringing awareness to breath, physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions without judgment. Unlike many meditation practices that feel disconnected from everyday life, this approach is designed to be integrated into your daily activities, creating more choice in how you respond to challenging situations.

We explore the fascinating concept of confirmation bias—how our existing beliefs create filters through which we interpret all experiences. When someone doesn't respond warmly to us, do we automatically assume it confirms our unworthiness? Or can we create space to consider alternative perspectives? The practice of noticing helps us recognize these interpretive patterns as they arise.

The physical component of mindfulness serves as our anchor. By bringing attention to bodily sensations—the weight of our body supported by a chair, the movement of breath, areas of tension or relaxation—we establish presence that grounds us in reality. These physical cues often reveal emotional states operating below conscious awareness, giving us valuable information about what's happening internally.

Throughout the meditation, we bring God into our practice of noticing, asking for guidance and understanding with the sensations we experience. This spiritual dimension adds depth to our awareness, connecting us to wisdom beyond our limited perspectives.

Whether you're new to meditation or a seasoned practitioner, this episode offers practical guidance for cultivating presence that transforms reactivity into conscious choice. Try the practice today and notice how it changes your experience of everyday moments. What patterns might you recognize when you pause to notice what's happening within?

Music by Song Channel Music.  Listen at SongChannelMusic.com

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988 suicide and crisis hotline to call info here.

PsyhcologyToday.com find a therapist page here.

Internal Family Systems find a therapist page here.

Check out Jim and Jori Manske of Non-Violent Communication here.

Check out Eckhart Tolle's work here.

Check out Amber Elizabeth Gray's work here.

Transcript

Introduction and Content Warning

Sarah Haykel 0:00

Hey everyone, just to let you know, sometimes I do use swear words in these episodes and sometimes we may be talking about adult content, just in case you're listening around little ones or people that might not appreciate that. Just to give you a heads up. Thanks so much and let's get into it. Hi, and thanks for joining me on Welcoming God. God, thank you. Please guide our meditation session today wherever you want it to go, for the best for all, for the greater good, for your glory, god, in all spaces, places, times, dimensions and realities, with the least amount of suffering and the most amount of joy. Thank you, thank you, god. So today we are going to explore a practice, a mindfulness meditation practice. This is not centering prayer. This is more a mindfulness meditation practice of noticing, so that we can begin to bring ourselves into the present moment more fully and begin to experience maybe some space from normal reactivities that we may have, maybe some space for emotions that we're feeling, maybe some calm or peacefulness. Maybe it brings up an awareness of more activity in our minds, within ourselves, that we might need some support to deal with. Whatever comes up, for you know that you have the resources to get support. I am a firm believer in good therapy, professional therapy with a certified professional therapist. I have a spiritual coach that I work with frequently. I also am a part of some really great online communities that I feel very supported by and challenged by at times. But you know, learning to speak up and speak up when things don't feel good, and find resolution and take responsibility for my own part to play or seeing how I'm showing up to experience things. So, whatever your needs are, there are resources out there for support and I encourage you to seek that support. This is not a substitute for therapy, for professional support, if you really do need support. I am not a therapist, so I really encourage you as, as you go through these types of practices, if you start to feel like gosh, I really need somebody to talk to. I'm having some difficult thoughts, emotions, feelings. Things are coming up from the past. I don't know how to deal with these things. Things are coming up from the past. I don't know how to deal with these things.

Sarah Haykel 3:46

Search out, talk to friends, talk to people that you know, trusted people that you know that might be able to point you towards good support in your area. You can look at psychologytodaycom. You can go to the Internal Family Systems website for IFS therapists in your area. There's a ton of resources out there and, of course, there is 988, which is a crisis hotline. If you really just are in crisis and need support right away, please do utilize that calling service 988. So, and that is in the US the USA. I'm not sure what else is in the rest of the world, but, yeah, I know you have the resources to search out the support that you need and we'll do that whenever you need to.

Bringing Mindfulness into Daily Life

Sarah Haykel 4:52

So whenever we're going into a mindfulness practice meditation, mindfulness practice I encourage you to do this when you are not doing anything else. It is unsafe to meditate in a deeply relaxed state while you're doing anything other than just sitting and being present with yourself. So, no driving, no operating heavy machinery, no taking care of little kids or cooking a meal or whatever. Make sure that you have time and space to be uninterrupted for at least the next five to 10 minutes, and you can always communicate to people in your household that you're taking this time and only to interrupt you if it's an emergency, so that you really can be uninterrupted. Sometimes, if we're in meditation and we get deeply relaxed, if we get interrupted out of that abruptly, it can feel jarring to the system. So it's nice to be able to have the space and time to go into a meditation, be present in your meditation, come out of it gently, bring yourself fully back into reality in the present moment, out of your meditation, so that you can enter back into life from a meditative state, bringing some of that into your life and flowing back into your life with more flow than just reactivity, jumping back into life as it is or was. So that was a lot of information and I just invite you to check in with yourself right now. How are you feeling in this moment? What's going on for you right now? And just noticing. So this is how we're going to start our meditation today. So if you can't meditate right now, I invite you to pause the podcast and set a reminder in your phone to come back to it later today when you have a moment of uninterrupted space to be with yourself and do this guided meditation. And, of course, you are in full control.

Sarah Haykel 7:25

During this guided meditation, you can keep your eyes open. If it's safe and you feel comfortable to close your eyes, you can do that. If you want to just soften your gaze, look down at the ground and just soften your gaze, not really focusing on anything. You can try that. You can do this meditation standing up, sitting down, lying down whatever's good and right for your body. If you're seated and you're able to have your feet flat on the floor, that is nice, but it's not necessary. So it's kind of like learning how to be present in whatever state we're in.

Sarah Haykel 8:05

That, to me, is the goal of mindfulness and meditation is learning to bring this presence into my life, not just to do it when I have uninterrupted moments, but we're cultivating the practice in these uninterrupted moments. And when I bring it into my life, it's not like I'm standing there in a group of people and all of a sudden I just close my eyes and go into a five-minute meditation. That would be really different for people. They'd be like are you okay? But it might mean that while I'm standing with a group of people, if I get triggered I feel emotionally triggered about something I might be able to stop within my own self and just notice that I still look like you know, my eyes are open and everything, but I've just turned my gaze inward to pay attention to myself a little bit and just do some of this noticing meditation that we're going to do right now to help bring myself back down to a centered place so that I can re-engage with the group in an outward way that feels good and right to me. So that could be an idea of bringing it out into your life.

Sarah Haykel 9:13

Maybe it shows up as you're washing the dishes, where you become very present with the practice of washing dishes. Or while you're driving a car. You become very present while you're driving the car, noticing everything that you're doing, noticing the traffic around you. You're totally focused, totally there, totally present and aware, but you're not going into some deep meditation. You're actually bringing the idea of noticing presence into your active day. So I know that might seem contradictory to what I said before, where you shouldn't be driving while you're meditating or doing anything else. That is absolutely correct. You should not be practicing deep meditation while you're doing anything else. You should just be able to have the time and space to deeply go into a meditation when you're doing a deep meditation.

Sarah Haykel 10:11

But we can bring what we learn from these deep meditations into our daily lives and bring some of that presence and noticing awareness into our daily activities, which actually can give us more choice in how we're responding to life. I learned this from Jim and Jory Manske of Nonviolent Communication. They're trained facilitators in NVC and I took this course with them. I think it was called From Reactivity to Choice and it changed my life and I actually wrote an ebook called Free to Be. That was highly influenced from what I learned from them, as well as through other teachers like Eckhart Tolle and other people as well, so you can get that on my website as well.

Sarah Haykel 11:04

But this practice of being able to be present in the moment, noticing how we feel, noticing the sensations of our bodies, it can give us a lot of information and it can also give us a great sense of freedom to choose, to have a choice in our actions. Now there are reactions that are just automatic and those are there for safety and survival mechanisms, that kind of thing. So those types of things are happening without much thought on our part, and that's just a natural part of being a human. What I'm talking about are habitual emotional reactions or habitual thought patterns that show up in certain situations. If you've ever heard of confirmation bias, this was something I only learned about maybe eight years ago or so, maybe even less and confirmation bias, from my little understanding of it, is that we have these beliefs within ourselves and then we look at the world through these belief lenses and we use the lens that we're viewing the world from these beliefs through to confirm that the beliefs are actually true.

Sarah Haykel 12:30

So if someone doesn't respond in a super friendly way to me and I already feel like people don't like me or I'm not included, I'm not a part of, I don't belong, if somebody responds to me in a way that doesn't feel welcoming or warm, I can say oh see, see, it's true, I am not dot, dot, dot, dot dot. It's true, I am not dot, dot, dot, dot dot. When that person might just be totally in their own mind, thinking about something else, and they're they have no intention of not being welcoming or warm, but it's just how they responded in that one moment. But the belief in me has taken that moment to confirm the belief in me, and so it's good to be able to start to notice these things, sensations in my body which lead me to what emotions are coming up, lead me to the thoughts that may be causing some of these emotions and sensations in my body, some of the things I'm experiencing in the outer world how those impact me. So doing a noticing meditation can be very powerful.

Guided Noticing Meditation Practice

Sarah Haykel 13:55

So I hope this is all clear, as clear as it can be, that we are going to go into a noticing meditation. Do it when you're in a safe space to do so, where you can be uninterrupted, and we'll begin now. And we'll begin now so, as you find yourself, wherever you are, in the safe space and time of uninterruption for at least the next five or so minutes, I invite you to notice. Just notice your physical breath. It doesn't have to change, it can, but it doesn't have to. Just noticing your breath moving. Notice your physical body, how it feels on whatever surface is supporting you. Are you seated, are you sitting right now? How does your body feel sitting on the chair that you're sitting in? Or are you sitting seated on the ground or on a meditation cushion or block? How does your physical body feel where it's physically sitting right now? And just notice all of the surfaces of the skin that are touching something. How do those areas of the body feel? What does it feel like to be supported by this structure, by the ground underneath you? And if you're standing or lying down, you can do the same thing, just noticing how your physical body feels right now, supported by the surface that you are standing on or laying on.

Sarah Haykel 16:39

And again, we're just bringing our inner eyes, our inner ears. Like I had mentioned several episodes ago from Feminine Power, the course that I took, they'd say you know, let's turn on our inner ears. We're getting curious about how we are in our interior world, inside of ourselves, just noticing how does this feel, being curious. This is nothing major. I'm not asking you to go into any deep emotions or thoughts. We're just noticing these basic things. We're just noticing these basic things.

Sarah Haykel 17:07

So, just continuing to again bring your attention, noticing the physical body, how it feels right now, noticing the physical breath moving in and out of the body, how that feels, and basically doing a baseline check-in. I learned that from a movement therapist, amber Elizabeth Gray. She talked about doing a baseline check-in at the beginning of a practice to see where you are right now. Check in at the beginning of a practice to see where you are right now. And this is all just information, just noticing, bringing our noticing presence. And if you find that the mind is super active or you're feeling some sensations that feel challenging, triggering, hard to feel, just again. What's it like to come back to noticing the breath, the physical body supported by the earth, the ground underneath you and whatever other support system you're using a chair, the floor, a couch, a bed, whatever you're seated on, lying on, standing on just noticing how does it feel to feel safe, the support of this underneath you. And let's just take another moment to bring our awareness to any physical sensations you might feel on the body. What physical sensations do you feel Do you notice right now? Physical sensations tingling, prickling, warmth, cold, tension, relaxation, tension relaxation, tightness, smoothness, softness. What physical sensations do you notice right now in your physical body? And again, we're just bringing that existential detective to the noticing, opening up our curiosity, our inner ears, our inner eyes, just to notice what's going on. You know this witnessing presence Eckhart Tolle talks about.

Sarah Haykel 19:57

What is it like to just notice what we're sensing in the body, the sensations that we feel. And if you feel any sensations that really want your attention, what's it like to just breathe, breathe into that sensation, notice it. You can call God into it. God, please help me with this sensation. God, what do you want me to understand, to know about the sensation, always talking to God about it so that you know you're getting the direct, clear information from the one true source, not from anything else from the one true source, and allowing God to share whatever God wants you to know.

Closing Reflections and Season Finale

Sarah Haykel 20:56

From the sensation Good. And just continuing to breathe to know from the sensation Good. And just continuing to breathe, notice your physical body, feel yourself connected to the ground, to the earth, and you may notice that, as you're noticing a physical sensation and giving it some space by breathing as you notice it, by asking God to help you understand it, stand it. You may notice that the sensation begins to shift or change. It might disappear completely, and that's totally normal. It might not change as well. So you know it could be anything but just noticing. We are this witnessing presence right now. Good, good. So just take another moment to check back in to this baseline check-in, to see how you feel now. How does your body feel? How's your breath moving in and out of your body? How do the sensations in your body feel? Has anything shifted? Has anything changed since the beginning of this meditation? Good, and as we come out of this meditation, I invite you to just wiggle your fingers and your toes, take some deeper breaths, open up your eyes, look around you, notice where you are, bring yourself fully back into the present moment. And I invite you, as you move away from this meditation.

Sarah Haykel 23:35

What is one way that you will remember this noticing, witnessing presence in your daily life? We're not going into a deep meditation in the middle of our random daily life. We're just bringing a little bit of that noticing presence into our daily life so that we can notice. Oh, I feel some tension in my body. Oh, my breath is shallow. Oh, let me notice my feet on the ground, let me notice myself sitting in this chair.

Sarah Haykel 24:09

If you're in a meeting or eating out somewhere, at the dinner table, at home, at your desk at work, just bringing a little bit of this noticing presence into your daily life, how will you do that and when? So that you can begin to be more present as you move through the day and when you have time and space to go into a meditation, like we just did, in a safe way, where you're not doing anything else, and you can do that by yourself, uninterrupted. Or maybe you have a partner. You want to go into a deeper meditation so that you can cultivate this noticing presence throughout your daily life, in your normal life, not while you're meditating, but just as you're moving through your life, and what does that do for you? So I'm excited for your journey with this meditation.

Sarah Haykel 25:24

You can use this whenever you'd like and if you have any comments or questions about this, you can comment question through the website, welcominggodcom. Just scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to the Get In Touch section and send me an email there, and this episode culminates our first season of Welcoming God. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm super happy and excited that you've been here. I am looking forward to season number two and I'm currently deciding, discerning with God, when that will come out. So stay tuned for an announcement about that. And the best way to stay in touch with me is through the Welcoming God email newsletter. So if you'd like to be a part of that, go to welcominggodcom and there's a button in the top banner of the web page. You can click that button to sign up for our newsletter and you'll be updated about all things Welcoming God, because I do have some other fun things in the mix coming up and I look forward to sharing that with you as well through the email newsletter. Thank you so much for being here today and please share this with someone that will benefit from it as well. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode and take care.

Sarah Haykel 27:08

Hey everyone, sarah Haeckel here from Welcoming God, a podcast for spiritual seekers. This is a legal disclaimer to say that this podcast is not a substitute for therapy or professional help. I am not a trained therapist. I also have not studied theology in a formal setting. This podcast is purely for educational, inspirational purposes, to share the goodness of welcoming God back into my life and all of the things that I'm learning on this journey. So thank you for joining me here and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks for joining me on another episode of Welcoming God. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen and consider leaving us a review, as it helps more people find and benefit from this show. Music by Song Channel Music. You can listen and hear more at songchannelmusiccom. Until we meet again, aloha nui loa, take care and God bless.