Arrive in your body,
Find your seat and breathe into the spaces where you are holding tension,
Your neck,
Your shoulders,
Your back,
Your chest,
Your belly,
Your pelvis,
Your legs,
Taking full inhales and long slow exhales.
Arrive through your breath,
Notice the quality of your inhalations and your exhalations.
In through the nose and release with a sigh.
Do that a couple more times to help your body,
To help your mind arrive in this moment.
Feel into your seat,
Feel the weight of your own body resting here now.
And on your own,
Breathing your box breathing,
Inhale on four counts,
Hold for four counts and exhale for four counts and hold for four.
Going at your own pace,
Taking your time,
Drawing a box with your inhales,
Holds,
Exhale and hold.
Imagining with your mind's eye a square with even sides formed by your breath and the gaps between your inhalations and your exhalations.
Draw two more squares with your breathing,
Complete cycles and then release the pattern and go back to your normal way of breathing.
Become curious,
Become open,
To your inner landscape.
That is our intention for our practice today is to become curious.
I will read a passage from Rising Strong written by Renee Brown.
This passage is about getting curious.
Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty.
It wasn't always a choice,
We were born curious but over time we learn that curiosity like vulnerability can lead to hurt.
As a result we turn to self-protecting,
Choosing certainty over curiosity,
Armor over vulnerability and knowing over learning.
But shutting down comes with a price,
A price we rarely consider when we're focused on finding our way out of pain.
Einstein said the important thing is not to stop questioning,
Curiosity has its own reason for existence.
Curiosity's reason for existing is not simply to be a tool used in acquiring knowledge,
It reminds us that we're alive.
Researchers are finding evidence that curiosity is correlated with creativity,
Intelligence,
Improved learning and memory and problem solving.
There is a profound relationship,
A love affair really,
Between curiosity and wholeheartedness.
How do we come to those aha moments if we're not willing to explore and ask questions?
New information won't transform our thinking much less our lives if it is simply lands at our feet.
For experiences and information to be integrated into our lives as true awareness they have to be received with open hands,
Inquisitive minds and wondering hearts.
A critical piece of my wholehearted journey has been moving from judgment to curiosity about my own path.
Poet and writer William Palmer wrote,
Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.
Connecting the dots of our lives,
Especially the ones we'd rather erase or skip over,
Requires equal parts self-love and curiosity.
How do all of these experiences come together to make up who I am?
Curiosity is an act of vulnerability and courage.
In this stage of the rising strong process,
The reckoning,
We need to get curious.
We need to be brave enough to want to know more.
I say brave because getting curious about emotion is not always an easy choice.
I have to take a deep breath and think through questions like,
What's at stake if I open myself up to investigate these feelings and realize I'm more hurt than I thought?
Or what if she's really not to blame and I was wrong?
It's going to suck if it turns out that I'm the one who needs to make amends.
But again,
The upside of curiosity outweighs discomfort.
A study published in the October 22nd,
2014 issue of the journal Neuron suggests that the brain's chemistry changes when we've become curious,
Helping us better learn and retain information.
But curiosity is uncomfortable because it involves uncertainty and vulnerability.
Curiosity is a shit starter,
But that's okay.
Sometimes we have to rumble with a story to find the truth.
In his book Curious,
The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It,
Ian Leslie writes,
Curiosity is unruly.
It doesn't like rules,
Or at least it assumes that all rules are provisional,
Subject to the laceration of a small,
Smart question nobody has yet thought to ask.
It disdains the approved pathways,
Preferring diversions,
Unplanned excursions,
Impulsive left turns.
In short,
Curiosity is deviant.
This is exactly why curiosity is so vital to this process.
The diverse and sometimes erratic course of rising strong is also unruly.
Embracing the vulnerability it takes to rise up from a fall and grow stronger makes us a little dangerous.
People who don't stay down after they fall or are tripped are often troublemakers,
Hard to control,
Which is the best kind of dangerous possible.
They are the artists,
Innovators,
And change makers.
Inhale to receive,
Exhale to release.
Breathing in,
Know that you are breathing in.
Breathing out,
Know that you are breathing out.
Breathing in,
Your breath is deep.
Breathing out,
Your breath is slow.
Breathing in,
Become curious,
Become open.
Breathing out,
Release judgment.
Give yourself permission to feel your emotions.
Give yourself permission to get curious about your emotions.
Give yourself a permission to pay attention and to practice paying attention over and over.
Give yourself permission to feel the awkwardness of feeling your emotions,
Becoming curious.
Allow yourself the grace to be uncomfortable,
Knowing that you can push past it and on the other side you become more whole,
More self-aware,
More alive.
Give yourself permission to just breathe.
Inhale to receive and exhale to release.
Simply being present from moment to moment and as much as possible.
Allow yourself a few more spacious breaths to slowly transition and reorient back to your space.
Begin to attune your senses to any ambient sounds,
Movements and textures of your world.
Begin to attune to the rhythm of your day.
Reawaken your extremities by wiggling your fingers and your toes.
Wiggle out your wrists and your ankles.
Reawakening your body by moving in ways that feel good and right.
Give yourself a nice long body stretch and on your next inhale sweep your arms overhead,
Palms meet and exhale your thumbs down to heart center to close your practice.
Thank you for allowing me to guide you in your practice,
Reminding you of the things that you already know.
Have a wonderful day.
Namaste.
