Resting Awareness

Develop a comfortable awareness of everything around you.

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Usually when we meditate, we try to focus on something specific like the breath or a visualization, or a question, maybe. Having something to focus on like this can be really helpful at first. But for some meditations, we don't want to focus on anything at all. With resting awareness, instead of focusing on something in particular, we allow the mind to be free, whilst maintaining a sense of awareness. It's beautifully simple in essence, but needless to say, much harder to master. The reason being that when we're resting in awareness like this, the mind can easily find something to be distracted by. That's why to begin with, we train resting awareness for very short periods of time, usually just a minute or less. With enough practice, though, we can extend that time and start to carry this skill into our everyday life. So if we're say eating, we're fully present in the moment. So instead of focusing on a visualization or our breath while we go about our day, we can give our full attention to whatever's happening with an open mind and a sense of ease....

Details

TypeExpert Guidance

Duration<1 min

About your teachers

A former Buddhist monk, Andy has guided people in meditation and mindfulness for 20 years. In his mission to make these practices accessible to all, he co-created the Headspace app in 2010.
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Eve is a mindfulness teacher, overseeing Headspace’s meditation curriculum. She is passionate about sharing meditation to help others feel less stressed and experience more compassion in their lives.
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As a meditation teacher, Dora encourages others to live, breathe, and be with the fullness of their experiences. She loves meditation’s power to create community and bring clarity to people’s minds.
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Kessonga has been an acupuncturists, therapist, and meditation teacher, working to bring mindfulness to the diverse populations of the world.
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Rosie Acosta has studied yoga and mindfulness for more than 20 years and taught for over a decade. Rosie’s mission is to help others overcome adversity and experience radical love.
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