Thought Labeling & Un-labeling: Part 3, Liberation (4.17.26)

When we name something, we honor it; when we unnamed it, we free it.
We'll continue our practice of labeling/naming and un-labeling/un-naming in this slow and easeful guided practice. Labeling thoughts and emotions gives our brain little moments of safety, so we can rest for a moment. Settling into pure sensation, un-labeling, helps us free ourselves from all of the constructs our mind can get stuck in, even if it's just for a moment. Spend a little here time creating spaciousness and freedom in your body and mind.

Transcript

My name is Larissa. We're going to practice together for about 30 minutes spending a little bit of time in silence a little bit of stillness and remembering that we don't have to be perfectly still or perfectly silent just taking a bit of slower time just to get to know yourself in a new way just taking a few moments to settle into your body find a posture that feels supportive I often talk about these things in the beginning of meditation going slow inviting in considering that we're inviting in stillness and slowness and I name these things often because they're not always things that we practice throughout the day when we're in the busyness of the day and I like to remind that these are invitations not things we have to do we have plenty of things on our have to do list here there's no shoulds or supposed tos you just get to show up exactly as you are and then notice what you notice and you're noticing tending to yourself to the best of your ability and that self-tending moment to moment is oftentimes just reminding your mind it's okay to rest for a moment sometimes our mind ruminates it tells us the story 100 times it brings in the same concept 16 more times sometimes our brain is a little bit slow a little sleepy all of that is just something to experience take a few moments here just to notice what kind of sensations you're feeling in your body your mind will tell you a hundred things as we continue to stay just notice what is my body telling me where do I feel sensation here and a reminder that your mind will just move eventually and you invite it back so remembering too there's nothing wrong with your mind moving we're not trying to force stillness we're simply practicing both allowing our mind its brilliance in its movement and invitation to rest and this mental rest is not the same thing as sleeping at night certainly sleep gives us physical mental cognitive emotional all kinds of rest very often throughout the day our mental capacities are just going and you don't need sleep to slow down for just a moment it can be this moment of rest just noticing how your body softens when you exhale and when you witness that with your mind it's a moment of rest for your mind not just your body and then invariably your mind will move again when you witness the movement you invite your mind back to the steadiness of your body part of the steadiness of our body is this rhythmic movement of breath movement and stillness inhale and exhale a moment of anxiety a moment of ease we're experiencing lots of things all the time things that are constantly shifting and changing our mind likes things to be steady and concrete so it can predict so it can find safety for us and even though there's movement in our breath there's a predictable safety to it no matter how many times we exhale our body will inhale for us again and when the time comes that no more inhales come there's an ultimate rest that we no longer even need to consider this practice that we're in right now and there's a freedom in that rather than a morose kind of morbidity to consider that your last breath but as long as you are inhabiting this human body you can trust no matter how many times your mind is caught in a worry loop caught in planning some exciting thing coming in the future you're caught in some past story that it's hard to get out of no matter how many times that happens your body will take the next breath and this experiential rest this mental moment of rest when we just witness our exhale there's nothing that we need to do to learn to do that we don't have to come up with something new we don't have to try hard it's just here the breath is always right here so anytime a thought becomes a little sticky it's usually because we're trying to resist it or put it away instead of resisting or putting away either come back to your body notice the sensations of now or just put a little label on that thought oh future thinking is happening or even the broadest label thinking is happening it takes us just a half step removed from feeling like we are the thought or our body starting to respond to the thought as if it's real in the present moment what's true right now is breath what's true right now is that thinking is happening and you just invite in what's also true right now is resting is happening can i notice my shoulders soften when i exhale wise action is happening as i breathe in and just witness again the sensations in your body as many times as needed you just return to your breath you might put a little label thinking is happening a moment of anxiety is happening a sense of ease is happening future thinking is happening and we just notice that you might even use this voice in your mind and name a hundred times especially when something is a little sticky like an anxious moment and we get caught in a story in our mind a moment of anxiety is happening where do i feel it in my body moment of anxiety is still happening where do i feel it in my body that thought is coming back again thinking is happening what do i feel in my body and we might do that a dozen times until that grippiness of the anxious moment starts to soften never have to push it away we stay with it and just notice these waves these fluctuations when it feels like you can no longer stay with it you might move your body a bit rock your body side to side open your eyes and stretch i've been shifting your mental load for a moment and just saying i am safe here i am safe here i can relax into this exhale i am safe here and this is the practice allowing movement through all of these human experiences a moment of ease a moment of sleepiness a whole chunk of time that just feels like rest a whole chunk of time that feels like something a little more challenging all of it is just experience to be received there's no winning or losing as we stay it's just experience we can use these little tools a little label on our thought on our emotion not to put it in a container and shove it away so that our mind can soften for just a moment of its figuring when we give something a name our mind slows down just for a moment and then we contend to whatever has come up where do i feel it in my body can i let the rhythmic movement of my breath soothe me for a moment the other side of labeling and naming is to start to notice pure sensation itself just pure awareness and there's a practice it's in many indigenous cultures it's in some ancient germanic and siberian cultures it's in certain types of folklore but it's this practice of unnaming and it's this idea that when we name something we honor it and when we unname something we free it to consider when i look in the sky we might name a bird that's an eagle that's a crane what is its wing pattern that might be a hawk and we honor it by giving it our attention and naming it there's something about language that sometimes we have these little containers and they become tight and restrictive if i'm trying to decide if a bird is an eagle or a hawk i'm no longer paying it my attention i'm lost and thought about so this idea of naming can help our brain with these little containers to help us feel safe naming and labeling and then an invitation to eventually unlabel yourself and notice the label oh yeah thinking is happening and then we free ourselves up from the thinking by coming back into the feeling of it and sometimes our feeling tone there's no words for it i've heard students before when we do a little three-part check-in how's my mind how's my body how's my heart and sometimes say things like i'm not sure a word for this but it feels like waves in my heart and when we slow down like this we can start to move beyond the construct of our mind but even the construct of language as our language shapes us when we say i am sad instead of sadness is upon me in the way that other languages might say it we've claimed something we've put ourselves in this container of sadness instead of sadness is upon me how do i tend to do it and so this unnaming practice we might begin with a label so that our brain can slow down for a moment and then eventually how do we unname how do we unlabel so we can have a little more freedom very often it's going to the sensation that you feel it's one of my favorite phrases it doesn't have to make sense if it makes sensation when we go to sense making our mind starts thinking and it pulls us away is that an eagle is that a hawk what kind of eagle is it and it might be exciting for my mind but suddenly i can't even see the bird anymore i've missed the moment of now for my thinking about it here what does it feel like for your body to give you pure sensation you'll notice your mind labeling oh that's a bird oh that's an itch oh that's a pleasant sensation i like that i don't like that you'll notice that but in the practice of inviting in the nameless you start to invite in a deeper layer of sensory awareness and it allows your mind a moment of rest that's okay we don't have to figure this out we don't have to know what kind of bird can i just notice the sound itself where does that sound hit me does it bring a smile to my face do i feel sensation across my chest and it doesn't have to be dramatic sensation it might be so subtly subtle it's barely perceptible but just bring a deep curiosity to the nameless sensation you might feel as your ribs stretch to take in this next breath and then invitation to unnaming it's a newness a freshness for our mind sometimes our mind doesn't know what to do with it very often your body knows exactly what to do it's just inviting your mind to slow down not stop letting giving your mind permission we don't have to figure this out we can just feel it's noticing again sensation in your body a moment of rest for your mind these little tiny balances throughout the day every exhale balances the inhale every invitation to rest in your exhale gives your mind a moment to rest and there was a study done at john hopkins in 2021 it was a sleep study on almost 2 000 women it was done on women who self-reported deep exhaustion despite the amount of sleep they got at night and one group rested more rested more throughout the day tried to take naps tried to take physical rest tried to stay in bed longer and another group did what was called cognitive load reduction and somebody else is going to do your shopping list for you when you start thinking about your email list we're going to do breathing exercises and things of that nature just a moment of rest in the mind not just the body and in that study there was a 280 percent increase in energy and the women who reduced the cognitive load there was zero change in energy increase for the folks who simply rested physically more often 280 percent increase in the energy they experience coming from extreme exhaustion simply by allowing their mind to rest more often i say simply it's not always simple to find someone else to do the grocery list i'm not saying that's simple but these moments where we can reduce our cognitive load by just reminding our mind oh i don't have to figure that out right now there's nothing wrong with you mind it's okay that you're moving it's okay that we're anxious it's okay that we're so excited about the next step that i can't focus on right now right here in this exhale can we just rest a sec and let's do it again you invite your body to soften let your shoulders soften let your mind notice that softening and in that there's a moment of unnaming i don't have to be so caught in responsibility i'm just freeing up my mind from all of the words that it tries to contain all of my responsibilities within just a wordless moment a sigh a softening and notice again your breath your breath itself is nameless it's just this energy that moves through you consistently continuously moving in and out animating you aliveness as a human just allowing yourself these moments of rest letting the words endless cognition in our mind soften into a nameless moment it's the softening of your exhale as we start to come to a close i'll share a brief passage this is from part of a poem jared k anderson and this poem two parts there's a poem called nameless and another called in the end and he says remember this somebody made up the word sky like like likewise the word wolf the words leaf and raindrop words are jewels precious to us but small and finite forget these words and try to name things anew you will feel their scope and meaning way upon your mind pour a new word into the sky and see it fade like smoke look for the noise that equals the reality of wolves not the naming of them how could we even wrap such things up in syllables and set them upon our tongue to be contained and then finally he says you were a part of the sky on loan to a body a part of the sea that awoke to thought a part of the earth who borrowed a name the essential piece of you that lingers is the love and knowledge that you set in motion while you moved through the waking world you are nature and nature will go on but there is a kindness that only you can choose to bring to the world and i'll invite you to bring your hands into any of your closing habits or practices take a moment to literally name yourself there's some studies that show to speaking to yourself in third person can do all kinds of wonderful things for your brain just take a moment and say your own name and then say something that you're grateful for an example i'm saying to myself larissa thank you for i just noticed what that feels like to quite literally name yourself and thank yourself for something thank your body thank your hands try to be specific and allowing your nameless breath just to expand and soften your body one more time and we'll end with a few loving kindness phrases just repeating them back as they make sense for you may i remember this gratitude especially when i'm tired may i remember this gratitude when my mind gets tight may i remember to soften in my exhale when action is needed may i choose to move with ease and peace and may the merits of our practice ripple out to benefit all beings and then as always taking your time there's absolutely no rush whenever you feel complete take a moment to thank yourself as always thank you for being here supporting each other