Wake Me Up: Morning Positivity - Morning Meditation for Improved Focus | Avoid Distraction

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

This morning, enjoy a simple breathing meditation that will train your brain to be more focused. The WMU Focus Course is live now! Sign up and improve your focus in just two weeks. The life of your dreams is waiting for you! Join the course here: https://wakemeuppod.gumroad.com/l/focus Enjoying Wake Me Up? Get ad-free access to the entire WMU catalog + bonus content by joining the WMU Premium Feed. Sign up and start your 7-day free trial at https://wakemeup.supercast.com/. Follow the show on Spotify - Apple Podcasts - Amazon - Podchaser Say hi or request an episode at www.wakemeuppodcast.com/contact. See visual guides for the yoga and stretches in WMU episodes at www.wakemeuppodcast.com/stretches. And find the podcast on Instagram and TikTok. **Only partake in the physical movements suggested in Wake Me Up episodes if you are physically able and in safe surroundings. All movements are done at the individual's own risk. Be safe, and always consult a doctor if you have any questions or concerns.** Have a wonderful day 😃 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you'd like to enjoy Wake Me Up completely ad-free and get access to exclusive bonus content, check out the link in the show notes for the Wake Me Up premium feed. Hey there, and welcome to Wake Me Up. I hope you're doing fantastic today. It's the end of the year, and it's the holiday season for many of us. I know it's a time that often feels extremely hectic and scattered. So today and this week, we're going to be working on removing distractions, and staying focused. In this episode, we'll do a very simple meditation

that will help you improve your focus. And we'll talk a little bit more about this tomorrow, but for now, just know that focus is a skill. You can train it just like you can train your muscles. And if focus is something that you'd really like to work on, then I want to let you know that I'm launching a focus course at the end of this month. I'll teach you about focus exactly what it is,

why mindfulness and meditation are the best tools to improve your focus, and it will feature a program of meditations that will step by step take your focus to a new level in just a few weeks. If you'd like to get a discount and early access, then fill out the form in the show notes. And if you're considering joining Wake Me Up Premium, then now is an even better time to do that because premium supporters will get a discount on top of that too.

But save that for the end of the episode. For now, let's dive into this meditation. So go ahead and find a comfortable position, anywhere that you want. As you know, I recommend sitting up when you meditate. Because that ensures that your body remains awake and attentive. But I know we all have different preferences, so do what's best for you. And once you've found that comfortable position, just allow yourself to settle in. Release any tension that you may be holding on to.

And just begin to slow down. Now take a deep breath in, fill all the way into your belly. And on your exhale, slowly close your eyes. The first few moments of any meditation are spent settling in, allowing your mind to unwind for just a little bit. We always have thoughts bubbling up, and that tends to happen especially at first when we settle down. There's a little trick I'll teach you. It's that when your body is relaxed, so is your mind.

These two are intertwined. So a few things you can do to help your body relax are to soften your face, drop your jaw, and relax your shoulders down. And for now, just follow. that rise and fall of your breath for about 30 seconds. Allow yourself to keep settling in. All right.

Hopefully, you're nice and settled in now. What we're going to do in this meditation is very, very simple. You're just going to breathe in and count one. And when you breathe out, you'll count two. And that's it. So inhale, one, and exhale, two. Keep doing that over and over. The point is that your mind will wander away from that count and your breath.

And that's good. That's exactly what you want to happen. When your mind has wandered away, that's an opportunity to train it to be more focused. So when you notice that it's happened, just acknowledge it and come back to counting that breath. Inhale one and exhale two. All right, friends, we're about halfway through this meditation now. So you're going to keep going for a few more minutes.

And for this second half, let's step it up a little bit. So now, instead of just counting one and two, count all the way up to 10. So inhale one, exhale, two. Inhale, three, and exhale, four. Just like that, all the way up to ten. And once you get to ten, start over at one. And again, your mind will wander. That's okay, don't get frustrated.

That's exactly what you want. Just acknowledge that you've wandered and come back to counting, starting over at one. All right, friends, it's about time to wrap up our meditation. So you can let go of counting and just let your mind run freely, wherever it wants to go, for a few seconds.

All right, let's wrap up now. So begin to bring yourself back. Notice whatever is going on around you. Any sounds in the same? the room and the air on your skin. Notice whatever is supporting you, whether it's a chair or the floor. Take one final deep breath in and as you exhale, slowly open your eyes and just take a second to gather yourself and come out of that. All right, so I hope you enjoyed that. And I'm curious, do you remember how many times you made it all the way to 10 without losing focus?

Maybe it was just once or twice through, and maybe you never even made it to 10. Whatever the case may be, don't worry. I have been in each and every one of those situations. What's cool about this meditation is that if you come back and repeat it, you will actually see improvements in your ability to focus, because it's measurable. You can take note of how many times you make it all the way to 10 without getting distracted. And there's no point in cheating by breathing really fast just to get there.

That doesn't serve you. Hopefully you saw with this meditation that you really can train your focus. It's like a muscle. And just like if you go exercise, you'll get faster and stronger. The same is true with your mind and your ability to focus and avoid distraction. So come back and repeat this meditation for a few days. You will see, I promise. that you'll get better at it.

Now, just a quick reminder that if you're interested in that focus course, it's going to be about two weeks long, and it mostly will just be a meditation like this every day. If you're interested in it, follow the link in the show notes and fill out the form to get early access and a discount to the course. Again, you get an even bigger discount if you're a Wake Me Up premium supporter. So, that's all for now. we'll be back tomorrow for this week's motivation on this same theme.

I really can't wait to see you there. Until then, go out and have an absolutely fantastic day.