Welcome,
This is Allison with Mindful Pause Center and I'm so glad to share this resourcing practice with you.
Taking time to recall a place of refuge can renew us in times of stress and worry.
It may also produce sadness or sorrow if that place is no longer available to us.
Mindfulness can help us hold that loss even as we receive through the power of our imagination the gifts that refuge offers.
Please find a posture that you will be supported by for the next 10 to 15 minutes.
This can be seated or standing or lying down.
So as you settle in,
Being mindful of time of day for you,
Space you're in,
Your surroundings.
Might be hearing sounds that are in the room with you or drifting in from elsewhere.
Taking our seat in the middle of the world that's in the middle of its own dynamic.
Feeling gravity,
Its gentle tug.
Noticing where it connects you to that which you're sitting on.
And if it feels available,
Letting gravity do more work while you do less.
See if you can rest and receive the support of the chair,
The cushion,
The bed,
The floor.
Likely you've been striving quite a bit today.
This is a moment to let that energy go and move into being more receptive.
If it feels available,
You can notice the body breathing.
Be curious about where it feels strongest for you tonight.
And between the weight of the body or the breath or sounds.
Choosing a home base for this practice in case at any moment you need to come back and reset.
Remembering as well that you can pause practice at any point,
Opening the eyes or adjusting the posture.
I'm going to ask you to think of a place,
If you were given an hour,
Anywhere.
Any way of getting there.
This is a place that you would want to go to feel good,
Safe,
Connected.
Where would you go?
This place could be at home,
Maybe connected to animals.
Could be a place in nature or maybe somewhere in the city.
Could be a cultural event,
Either that you're observing or participating in.
An activity like music or dance.
Again,
This is a place where you feel good and safe and connected.
With the imagination,
I'd like you to make it as vivid as you can.
So for some of us,
This will play out like a movie.
For others,
We'll have to narrate it to ourselves.
Recreate it with our words and our thoughts.
Just checking to see who's here in this place of refuge.
Maybe you come alone.
Maybe you bring people with you or animals with you.
Or maybe you come alone,
But other people also enjoy this place.
What are the sounds of this refuge?
What can you hear in this place?
Maybe there are smells.
What's the quality of the environment?
Can you tell what season it is?
The lighting,
The time of day?
Shifting back to your anchor if you need to at any point.
What is the sense of touch like in this place?
Are your feet somewhere?
Your hands somewhere?
Are you moving?
Are you settled?
What's it like in your body?
How does it feel?
How does it feel to be here?
In this moment,
As you're reimagining the place,
Are there any sensations that are coming into the body?
A sense of weight or lightness?
A sense of space,
Constriction,
Maybe warmth or coolness?
Just exploring and being curious about what recalling this place of refuge brings up in the body.
You can spend some time going back to the vividness of the experience and then noticing again what it feels like in the body to revisit this place of refuge.
If metaphorically,
You could turn the volume of the experience up or down,
How would you want to adjust the volume?
If you wanted to make this experience louder or bigger,
What would you do?
If you needed it to be quieter or smaller,
What would you do?
I'm trying to notice how this experience feels in the body and playing with the sense of volume.
All of this is in service of helping us know in a physical way,
This experience of refuge.
Not to ignore moments when we are unsafe,
But being able to teach ourselves to recognize and be present fully with elements of safety that we do have the capacity to generate.
Giving ourselves a sense of some agency we have.
In a moment,
I'll ring the bell.
As you hear the bell sound,
As it fades,
You can begin to move the body in ways that feel good.
As you do that and your eyes open or your gaze lifts,
Finishing the practice with reorienting to the space you're in by taking in something of the forms or the quality of light or the temperature.
Thank you for your practice.
