The Observer at the River’s Edge: Inner Peace for Busy Minds

0:00Hello and welcome to The Observer at the River's Edge. Inner Peace for Busy Minds. This is a little

0:08meditation that helps you to understand and detach from your thoughts. It's one of the things that really helped me

0:16to have more inner peace and more calmness,

0:21even though I found meditation really difficult because my mind just never seems to stop. So

0:29I wrote this meditation and hopefully I'll give you the experience and I use this meditation myself very often

0:36just to quieten down the thoughts, just to give myself a little time out. First thing we'll do is just

0:44become comfortable and

0:47we'll just go on this meditative journey together. So

0:52find a comfortable position. You can be sitting or lying down

0:58And whatever feels more comfortable for you in this moment.

1:04And when you're ready, if you gently close your eyes. Or just soften your gaze a few feet in front

1:09of you.

1:19And we'll start by taking a deep breath in. And

1:23just hold it for a moment. And then slowly release this deep breath.

1:36And then just bring your awareness to your breath.

1:40I'm breathing in. I'm breathing out.

1:44And if you just imagine breathing in calm, breathing out relax

1:51Remember you don't need to do anything with your breath. You

1:55don't need to do anything with your breathing at all. And you don't even need to do anything with your

2:00body to relax. Just allow your body to relax. It knows how to do it.

2:06Breathing in calm. Breathing out relax

2:22And if at any point you find your mind wandering, thinking about something else other than this meditation,

2:29that's fine. Just acknowledge the thought and smile and come back to the next instruction or just come back

2:36to the breath and wait.

2:38That's what the mind does.

2:45So imagine sitting on the edge of a beautiful river

2:57And you can hear the sounds of nature all around you.

3:03And you're just sat quiet and still, really comfortable.

3:12And you feel the soft breeze on your skin. You maybe feel the warmth of the sun on your face.

3:24And the river is going to represent the flow of our thoughts. Each

3:30thought is like a floating leaf down the river.

3:37Each thought appears. And then passes by, you simply observe it.

3:44You don't need to react to it. You don't need to interact with it. You don't need to judge it.

3:52Just observe it and allow it to go.

4:09And as you sit there, a thought emerges in your mind visualize the thought as a leaf appearing in the

4:16river. Just slightly upstream.

4:24The thought could be about something you did earlier or something you're planning to do. Or just some random thought.

4:39And it may be a bit difficult because you may fluctuate between what the thought is and the leaf. That's

4:46okay. That's perfectly normal.

4:51Just when you realise it's the thought, just observe it as the leaf as it floats by and then floats

4:58away.

5:03You are not this leaf. You are not this thought. You have thoughts, but you are not those thoughts.

5:33And if you repeat silently just for a few seconds, I have thoughts. I am not those thoughts

5:54I Have Thoughts. I am not those thoughts.

6:08As more thoughts seemingly appear out of nowhere, imagine each one of them as a leaf in the river floating

6:14away.

6:18Some leaves might stay a little longer. They

6:22swirl around in a little small whirlpool before moving on. But eventually all the thought, all the leaves

6:30will drift away.

6:41Even when the thought generates an emotional response,

6:45recognise it just as another leaf.

6:59It too will eventually float away if you let it be.

7:18You are sitting on the edge of the bank, grounded, unaffected by the movement of the leaves in the river.

7:31You are not the thoughts. You are just pure awareness,

7:40The witness to these thoughts.

7:56And you could repeat in your head, I

7:59am the observer, separate from my thoughts.

8:16I am the observer, separate from my thoughts.

8:35And as you take a moment to truly feel this stillness, this peace that comes with being just the observer,

8:46experience the separation between you, the observer and your thoughts, the observed.

8:55You're here, yet you can be aware of your thoughts.

9:14And one of the greatest powers you have over your thoughts is the fact that you don't have to do

9:19anything with them.

9:21Thoughts can just come and go,

9:36Just like feelings can come and go

9:44when we truly understand the nature of our thoughts that they just appear and

9:50then they disappear.

10:05And if you take a moment to truly feel this stillness, the

10:11peace that comes in this moment,

10:25in a moment we're going to shake out our arms and open our eyes and come back to the room.

10:32But just before we do that, really appreciate your mind and your heart and your body for this little moment

10:39of time out.

10:56And you can place your hand on your heart and just thank you.

11:05Now bring your awareness back to your breath.

11:11And as I come back from five, just bring your awareness back to this moment. Five. Four.

11:19Just gently shake out your arms. Three. Gently open your eyes. Two. Look around the room.

11:26One. And just take a deep breath and just appreciate this calmness in this moment.

11:34Just by imagining ourselves sitting next to the river bank and just watching our thoughts come and go. It's like

11:41having a superpower that we don't actually have to get on every thought. We don't have to

11:49be part of every thought and be part of every moment. We can just sit and observe. And when we

11:55realise we are not those thoughts, we then have ultimate control over them. More freedom. More love. More joy in

12:03our lives.

12:07Thank you.

12:10I'm Steven Webb, and this if this meditation helped you in any way, it would be absolutely incredible if you

12:16could leave a review on this podcast. That's what would really help me today more than anything else. Leaving a

12:24review, following the podcast, that would just be absolutely incredible. It not only tells me what I'm doing wrong, if

12:31you didn't enjoy it quite so much, but it also tells... Apple. And it tells all the other podcast

12:39suppliers that people are listening and they do like it and what they really think of it. And it helps

12:45me to reach new people.

12:49And if you want to listen to my other podcast, Stillness in the Storms, where we dive a little deeper

12:54into looking at life differently, if you head over to thankyousteven.com, you can see the links know there

13:01You're awesome. Take care. And I hope you have a wonderful, peaceful day. Thank you.