All right,
Good morning,
Everybody,
And welcome to this Monday's Meditation on the Lawn,
Offered by the University of Virginia.
My name is Ken Horn,
And I am a consultant and trauma therapist with FEEP,
The Faculty and Employee Assistance Program here at UVA.
Thank you so much for joining.
I am really happy to be here with you all this morning,
Leading the final Meditation on the Lawn of 2021.
So today,
I am going to guide you through a three-part meditation titled Pause,
Relax,
Open.
This meditation is part of the Insight Dialogue process developed by Gregory Kramer.
Over the past year,
I have become familiar with this process as a student or this practice as a student in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program.
And it has become a favorite meditation of mine that I have found to be really versatile and helpful in a variety of circumstances.
Pause Relax Open is useful when experiencing strong emotions,
Difficult feelings,
Thoughts,
Or painful physical sensations in the body.
It is also relevant when bumping up against stressful or challenging ideas or situations,
As well as in communication and relationships both at work and in your personal life.
So as we get started,
I invite you to sit comfortably,
Make any adjustments that might help you feel a bit more present and at ease in this moment.
You may close your eyes if that's comfortable for you,
Or just gaze down softly in front of you,
Whatever you prefer right now.
Take a moment to become aware of your breathing,
As well as the momentum and the circumstances of your morning or your day that have led you to this moment right now.
The first part of this practice is an invitation to pause.
Taking a full inhale and a slightly extended exhale,
Begin by just saying the word pause to yourself with a gentle inner voice.
The pause is intended as a purposeful interruption to the habitual momentum of your day.
You can do this anytime,
Anywhere.
It is an opportunity to notice when you are in autopilot and consciously step back and shift into presence.
To pause is to slow down and create space,
The space that is needed to become aware of what is happening,
Rather than being lost in the waves of what is happening.
There are many layers of experience that you might notice when you pause.
As you breathe right now,
Do you notice thoughts passing through your mind,
A feeling tone,
Or any physical sensations in your body?
Take a moment to pause and recognize what is happening right here.
You might ask yourself,
What is the activity of my mind right now?
Is it busy?
Is it calm?
Are there any particularly sticky thoughts?
See if you can let things just be as they are.
If any judgments arise,
Try to hold them lightly,
Reminding yourself that the intention is to simply pause and acknowledge what is here without adding anything extra.
You might ask yourself,
What is my body doing?
Am I aware of my posture,
My feet against the floor,
Or my seat against the support beneath me?
Am I aware of any dominant emotions?
You might ask yourself,
How am I feeling right now?
Whatever you find,
Let it be there just as it is,
Acknowledging any judgments,
Any add-ons,
Any resistance,
Noting them and letting them be,
Recognizing any tendency to go into story or narrative,
Gently reminding yourself to pause and disrupt these habitual human reactions.
When we are in autopilot and reactivity,
It is harder to be aware.
To pause is to practice mindfulness,
To purposely tune out of default habit energy,
And purposely tune in to kind and wakeful presence as this life unfolds in the here and now.
The second part of this practice is the invitation to relax.
Often when we are moving fast or caught in patterns of reactivity,
It is a state of stress for the mind and the body.
When this goes on for weeks,
Months,
Or years,
It can become a chronic state of physiological hyperarousal of the nervous system.
Intentional relaxation is a powerful antidote to stress,
And it is something that we can gently retrain our bodies and minds to do.
We can't force the body to relax,
But after we pause,
We can invite the energy of relaxation and set the intention to allow the nervous system to downregulate.
To relax means to interact with our experience in a new way.
We aren't changing what is happening,
But we are changing how we are responding to it.
Relaxing is a form of allowing your experience to be here,
Just as it is,
Without trying to fight it,
Fix it,
Or change it.
If you like,
You might experiment with placing one hand over your heart and another hand on your belly.
On your inhales,
Allow your belly to rise as you cultivate abdominal breathing for physiological relaxation of the nervous system.
Allow your rate of breathing to naturally slow down just a bit,
And continue to relax your belly and allow your stomach to rise on the inhales,
Releasing on the exhales.
Relaxing does not always mean the absence of difficult thoughts,
Feelings,
Or sensations.
We can have challenging experiences and also nurture a space of kind presence and relaxation where we practice being less reactive to those experiences.
As you breathe,
Generate a purposeful attitude of acceptance for whatever you notice in your mind and body right now.
All experience is welcome.
Nothing is excluded.
Whether your experience is pleasant,
Unpleasant,
Or neutral,
Take a moment to breathe and gently hold it with friendliness and compassion.
The third part of this practice is the invitation to open.
Here we expand beyond our own internal experience to include things outside of ourselves.
When we open,
We can start to feel less separate and alone as we foster interconnectedness with other people,
Animals,
Nature,
The universe,
Consciousness,
And so on and so forth.
Open is an invitation to extend beyond the me of the small self,
To momentarily drop the trappings of the ego and tap into the more expansive sense of the broader collective or the universal self.
With compassion,
Take a moment to energetically open to others on this call and to the environment around you.
This purposeful and friendly widening of the lens helps cultivate perspective,
Connection,
And a heartful spaciousness that can more lightly hold the full spectrum of human experience.
As we near the end of our practice this morning,
Take a few final rounds of belly breathing as you notice the state of your body and mind after walking through the steps of pause,
Relax,
Open.
When you are ready,
You may open your eyes,
Stretch,
And come back to the screen and the space that you are in.
Thank you so much for joining the Meditation on the Lawn this morning.
I wish you a restorative holiday season and I hope you come join us for more Meditation on the Lawn in the New Year.
Thank you so much.
I'll see you next time here.
