Let this moment,
This meditation,
Be a place of refuge for you.
Do not have to have the whole journey figured out.
We can't control everything and everyone around us.
We can only do our part.
We can learn to self-soothe,
To keep things simple,
To take a breath,
To take a moment,
To give ourselves what we need.
So settle down into your sitting place,
Get comfortable,
Stretch if you need to.
Settle in,
Settle down,
Take a breath and another deeper breath,
Rest down.
The future isn't yet here and the past is gone.
We are here in this moment,
In this place,
On this day,
Showing up for ourselves as best we can in this practice.
In this meditation,
We're going to look at two framings of keeping it in the day.
That of putting down the behavior that doesn't serve us and that of cultivating good habits of mind,
Of not spinning out into the future or falling back into the past,
But learning to keep our energy and life force here in the present,
Here with us in this moment.
Keeping it in the day may help us manage behaviors or addictions or urges that just don't serve us.
We don't have to give up the things that have helped us through in the past forever.
That can feel an overwhelming a task.
We just put it down for this minute,
For this moment,
For this day.
On some deep level,
We know what does and doesn't serve us and it feels good to put down the behaviors that don't,
Even if we get left with a lot of feelings when we do that.
So,
We keep it in the day.
Just for today,
We don't do that.
We don't act out.
Just for today,
We won't do that one behavior.
Just for this minute,
Just for this moment and instead,
We practice being here,
Being with ourselves.
Notice that you're sitting here with yourself,
Taking time to practice.
Sitting with yourself,
Staying with yourself,
Not acting out and as we sit,
We settle some.
We can stay with it.
We can feel our body breathing.
We can feel our body being breathed and the sensations of sitting here,
Being in a body,
Practicing being present,
Keeping it in this day.
Notice as you lengthen your breath,
Your nervous system settles some.
You might feel a little bit better.
We don't have to do fancy yoga breaths.
We just sit here,
Watching our breath and as we do that,
We might find that we don't need what we thought we needed to numb out to take the pain away,
That we can find some sense of being okay with reality just as it is on this day,
Here and now.
The second gift of keeping it in the day is a practice of being present.
It stops us from spinning out into some far-flung future or wading around in our past,
Looking at things we just can't change.
Keeping it in the day brings our life energy here,
Now,
To doing what we can in the present moment,
To taking the actions that we can,
Letting go of the rest,
Letting life take care of it.
Our past cannot be changed.
We can learn from it,
Dare to do it differently and make amends where we need to,
But it was what it was,
And we were who we were.
The future is not yet here.
We can take wise action,
Set new goals,
Make good choices,
Do our part,
That will take us a good way forward and also life will still show up with wild cards from time to time.
So keeping it in the day stops us from engaging in bad habits of trying to figure out our whole future,
Places where our mind wants to control so that we can feel safe.
We can land feet first into this moment,
Resting here in this day.
Deepen your breath,
Soften,
Soften the body,
Relax just one muscle in your body if you can.
We're seeking to make progress,
Not to do it perfectly.
Coming back to sitting here,
Breathing,
Practising being present,
Keeping it in this day,
In this moment.
Presence of mind will serve us,
A sense of coming in close to ourselves and caring for ourselves will gift us with many things.
We are here,
Practising moving out of control and overthinking and cultivating care for ourselves.
Being with our own experience,
Showing up for ourselves in a way that maybe we haven't known how to do,
Hasn't been modelled to us,
Sitting,
Breathing.
See if you can even find a sense of enjoyment in this moment.
Notice what is good here,
What progress you're making.
We can take inventory of all the things we're doing good too.
Our increased ability to be present,
Our commitment to practice,
To learning.
Notice we are indeed keeping it in this day,
Showing up for ourselves,
Making new choices.
Appreciate yourself for that.
Bit by bit our lives change and it serves us well to honour the good that we are doing.
So we'll finish up today's session with a poem from Kalidasa on the joy of being in this day,
The beauty of being here,
The gift of coming to be in this moment,
Alongside the struggle of being in the moment sometimes.
See if you can savour the sweetness of sitting still,
Staying with yourself and listening,
Of not acting out,
But of dropping in.
Look well to this day,
For it and it alone is life.
In the brief course of this day lies all verities and realities of your existence.
The pride of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of beauty.
Yesterday is only a dream and tomorrow is but a vision,
Yet each day well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and each tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this one day,
For it and it alone is life.
Each day well lived makes each tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this one day,
For it and it alone is life.
So I thank you for your practice today,
For your commitment to keeping it in the day,
To keeping it simple,
To making progress forwards,
Not doing it perfectly,
But showing up here with our human heart,
Tending to ourselves.
I wish you so much wellness for the rest of your day.
Thank you for your practice and for being part of this community.
