Let's do a short practice here together about opening our awareness,
Opening the gates of our awareness to accept and embrace everything that's present for us right now.
We'll warm up together with two five,
Seven breaths.
What that means is we're gonna inhale to a count of five,
Exhale to a count of seven.
I'll guide us,
Two breaths.
And then after those two breaths,
You can settle into some natural nasal breathing and I'll guide a short meditation.
Okay,
Beginning our first inhale in three,
Two,
One.
In,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
Exhale,
Two,
Three,
4,
5,
6,
7,
In,
2,
3,
4,
5,
Release,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
I was stretching it there a little bit on that exhale because that activates our relaxation response and that's where we want to be for this practice.
So now just let go of any counting of any method and just breathe in and out naturally through the nose,
Not trying to control any variable,
Just in and out through the nose,
Letting the breath settle into its own natural rhythm,
Letting your body settle into its own natural shape.
And as you begin to settle and just rest in a bit of stillness,
Notice any sensory information in your environment.
And what we're going to do today is a practice of just opening and accepting.
If you really pay attention and you're trained to pay attention,
You realize that throughout the day you're constantly battling.
External sensory input and filtering it out.
In fact,
Most of it never actually reaches your conscious awareness because you've trained your mind,
Your subconscious,
Your default mode network to filter it and save you the trouble.
Some of this is important because of course we have to get things done during the day,
But a lot of it is simply resistance.
A lot of it is simply judgment.
So for just a moment here in this little bit of practice we're gonna remove that gate of judgment and resistance and just notice completely what's here.
So the first thing we need to do is just notice where we are in our body.
Where's our awareness in our body?
Without realizing it,
A lot of us carry that awareness up in the center of our head.
That's kind of our survival instinct.
You know,
Our brain is trained to be our first line of defense and survival.
So it's hyper alert,
It's hyper aware.
And kind of that space right there behind the eyes is sort of where we're centered throughout the day,
Right?
Felt vigilant and alert.
That's not necessarily the most present place where we can hold our awareness.
I want you to allow that awareness to drop now.
Into your chest,
And even further down into your belly,
Into that space just below your belly button,
In the center of your body.
And just hold your awareness with a little bit of energy right there for a moment and see if you can kind of Settle.
Letting the belly remain open instead of armored.
Letting the heart and chest remain open instead of armored.
And just physically being open.
Now,
Unless you're in real physical imminent danger right now,
This is perfectly natural.
You're safe and there's no reason to carry this subtle level of tension and resistance.
See if you can just sit with your awareness there deep in your body,
Remaining open physically to the world around you.
Let your shoulders drop.
That's your jaw loosened.
And just see if you can release a little bit more resistance.
And from there,
Let's allow your awareness to expand beyond your body into your environment.
There may be smells,
There may be sounds.
If your eyes are open,
There may be sights.
And just noticing these things,
Allowing them to be.
No need to resist them,
No need to hide from them.
Staying open physically and then allowing your senses to stay open.
You may notice this sphere of your awareness expanding.
Naturally,
We have this tight little bubble we carry around.
Surrounding our body throughout the day we miss so much This is a moment where we can intentionally kind of expand that sphere and open Just notice what else is there right now?
Everything just is.
What if,
For just a minute,
We removed all judgment completely and it's not a good smell or a bad smell?
A loud sound versus a pleasant sound.
It's just vibration,
For example.
It's just a smell,
An interesting phenomena generated by this 3D reality.
And just continue like this for another couple of breaths.
Staying open and noticing.
Expanding our awareness,
Removing this resistance.
And when we can train ourselves.
To be a little bit more open throughout the day,
We may start to notice a subtle shift in our experience of just our day-to-day life in reality.
It takes a lot of energy to resist.
Somehow in this modern world we've really trained ourselves to be on constant guard.
And I know your rational mind right now may be justifying that.
You know,
Like it's a crazy world and it certainly is.
But if you think about most of the 24 hours of your day,
How many of those are you in literal imminent danger?
Your body thinks you are because we're bombarded by sensory information like the news and social media feeds.
But really tune in and ask yourself literally,
Physically throughout the day.
How,
Quote-unquote,
Protected do I need to remain?
Unfortunately,
There are many humans on planet Earth and other beings who have to answer that differently than most of us.
They are in uncertain,
Imminent danger throughout their 24 hours.
But most of us,
If you're listening to this,
It's most likely that you're in a situation where you can relax and open.
And if we stay relaxed and open,
We're more powerful,
We're more clear,
And we're more able to help those beings around us who may need a little support.
So.
.
.
We'll close this practice with another breath together.
And you can use this breath if you feel like you are a little bit too open right now.
You can use this breath to kind of come back to your natural default state.
Bringing your awareness wherever you feel like it needs to be for you to carry on with the rest of your day.
And then that will be a wrap.
So we're gonna.
Inhale 2,
3,
4,
5 Release 2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7 Amazing Let me know how this practice went for you.
And stay open,
My friends.
We need you.
