Scent: hair product (sea salt spray, very nice)
Visuals: messy, too tired to clear clutter
Sound: AC, street noise, music (songs below)
An Ending (Ascent) x Brian Eno
Laying down: on bed, hands face down on belly
Stress Before: just came off a bad presentation, otherwise minimal. Had a great day, just super tired tonight and not looking forward to early wake up time.
Stress After: none really! I feel very invigorated.
Today was super cool. I really enjoyed my lying position, but onto the good stuff. When I first started my meditation, tons of negative thoughts flooded my head and I began to feel overwhelmed by them. In response, I kinda dropped a “no active thought allowed” rule I’d been subconsciously developing throughout my other meditations. I started actively and very consciously using my breath to release the thoughts. On every exhale I said “release” in my head, and slowly the thoughts dissipated. My breathing became deeper, easier, and more fulfilling as well. It was so cool! It’ll be fun to continue to focus more intensely on breath. Another, now nonvocal, momentous song came on for the bulk of my breathing journey too, which gave me energy + focus. Its timing was PERFECT - the beat slowed down towards the end of my meditation and I had a few moments of total calmness before my alarm went off. Today the alarm actually upset me -- I didn’t want to stop!
In terms of the bubble: it was strong today! Something new I did was blink my eyes open somewhere in the middle of the meditation to see how it would affect the bubble (this was not a pre-planned thing). It didn’t as much as I thought it would and actually opened the bubble to the entire room. It was a cool feeling.
I felt more physical focus during my breathing, especially during the energized song, but not to the degree of last time. This time was longer lasting and in unison with mental focus though, so I think that’s a good trade off.