Where Is My System Right Now?

One kind question you can carry anywhere. This is the first move of every nervous-system practice, and the one everything else is built on. In about four minutes it asks a single question, with kindness: where is my system right now? Not where it should be, not where you'd like it to be, but where it actually is this minute. You'll learn to feel for three rough directions your system might be leaning: revved, away, or settled. There is nothing here to fix, change, or get right. You can do it sitting, standing, or lying down, eyes open or closed, anywhere at all, at your desk, on a train, in a doorway. Because attention itself is something a nervous system reads as safety, simply turning toward yourself this way often begins to shift things on its own. Where you are right now is the weather, not the climate. This is how you learn to read yours.
Tags: nervous system, grounding, self-awareness, anxiety, check-in, somatic, regulation, mindfulness, beginners, stress

Transcript

Wherever you are. You can begin from exactly here. You don't have to sit in any particular way. You don't have to close your eyes. There you can if you feel inclined. This is more straightforward than most things called meditation. And there's nothing to get right. Here's the whole practice. One question. Asked with kindness. Where is my system? Right now. Not where should it be. Not where would you like it to be. Where it actually is this minute. You're not grading it. You're looking. The way you might glance out of a window to check the weather before you decide what to wear. So let's look. There are three rough directions your system might be leaning. You don't need to name them exactly. You're only feeling which way it tips. It might be revved. Wired and quick, An engine running with nowhere to drive, The body somewhere between alert and non-edge. If that's you. You don't have to calm it down. Just notice it's here. It might be distant, Flat and far off, Turned down low, The world held at arm's length. That's not laziness and it's not failure. It's a system that's pulled back to save resources. If that is where you are. You don't have to push yourself up out of it. Just notice that it's there. Or it might be settled. Breathing easily in no particular hurry. The body more or less at home. If that's you. Notice it too. So that you know what it feels like from the inside for the times when you might want to find your way back. Maybe it's some mixture of these. Maybe none of these were quite fit. Perhaps it's something only you know the name of. That's fine. The words are only here to help you look. The looking is the thing. Now notice something quiet. Just by asking the question. Just by turning toward your own system with a little kindness instead of a verdict. Something has most likely already begun to shift. A small loosening somewhere. This is not a trick. Attention itself is one of the things a nervous system reads as safety. So the noticing. Is not the warm-up to the practice. It is the practice. And where you are right now is not who you are. It is the weather, Not the climate. Weather moves. You've just learned to read yours. And reading it. Is the first thing that helps it turn. That is all of it. One question you can carry anywhere. Where is my system right now? Ask it whenever you remember to. And let the asking. Be enough.