Hello and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're

getting a little better at life. I'm your host, Corey mascara, and in today's

episode we're going to talk about the importance of continuity of awareness

specifically in meditation. More to come on that in a moment. First let's settle

in together with the sound of the bells.

Okay, so let's talk concentration. I think so many of the things that people

are looking for, stress reduction, inner peace, more calm, better listening skills,

all of these things could be accomplished with greater concentration. And a lot of people

go into a meditation practice looking for some of those things, but also with the expectation

that concentration will develop. And it does. It is one of the things that happens in the meditation

practice, but concentration will only develop with continuity of awareness, meaning if you're

doing the meditation, let's say you're focusing on your breath, you're focusing on your breath for

30 seconds and then the mind wanders off for 20 seconds and then you come back and you get a

little bit of breath focus and the mind wanders off for a while again. The longer those gaps and

the more frequent those gaps, the less you're going to develop concentration, which might seem

pretty straightforward. But if a lot of us look at our meditation practices, a lot of that time

can be spent off mind wandering and you know a little doses of okay now I'm here right now.

And where the acceleration of the practice really starts to happen is when you can catch your mind

wandering sooner and bring it back sooner. And I would argue that many people who haven't seen

advancements in their meditation practice or a sense of it deepening or something shifting or

really deep states of peace and ease and relaxation, all that move through the body.

If you haven't experienced that in your meditation practice, there's a good chance you haven't

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