Good morning and welcome to the artist morning.
My name is Darius and I'm so grateful that you and I get this time together.
The theme of our meditation practice today will be focus.
Our exploration will be an opportunity to step away from the endless distractions of our world and find ourselves in this deep,
Clear,
Nourishing space inside our hearts.
A place set up for deep work and by deep work I mean the work our soul was meant to do.
Let's begin.
If your eyes are open I'd like to invite you to close them now as we begin to go inwards,
As we begin to notice what's alive inside us this morning.
Give yourself a moment to land and allow your thoughts to be as they are.
For many of us that means there are a lot of thoughts.
Emails,
Projects,
Social media,
Text messages,
Phone calls,
Nude.
We are constantly being pulled out of this deep place inside our hearts and today that is exactly where we will start in the loud,
Distracted world.
I know it sounds counterintuitive,
Darius this is a meditation for focus.
Why are you starting us somewhere loud?
Trust,
Dear artist,
I want you to imagine you find yourself in a busy street imagining New York City on a weekday.
Loud,
Cars,
People,
Construction.
Can you feel the energy of millions of people?
I promise we won't stay here long but let's start there.
Endless buzzing in our pockets,
In our purses,
Our phones,
Demanding our attention.
Can you feel the intensity in your body,
In your heart?
Can you hear dozens,
Hundreds,
Thousands of noises pulling our attention?
This is life sometimes.
It's okay.
But today we are going somewhere else.
In this busy New York street you look ahead of you and sandwiched in between two big buildings you see a doorway and this entire door is full of beautiful green plants and flowers and in the center of the door you see the address 1 1 1.
Just the sight of this door begins to calm your nervous system.
We step towards this beautiful door.
Every step closer your breathing begins to get slower and deeper.
You can feel tension begin to melt away.
Of course you can still hear all the sounds,
All the distractions of the world.
And on the side of the door you see two signs.
The first one reads,
No cell phones please.
And somehow you just instinctually know to take your phone out and place it in the mail slot.
And there's no concerns,
No worries.
You know your phone is safe.
And then directly under that there's another sign that says no shoes please.
And again you know to take off your shoes,
To take off your socks and somehow you just know everything's gonna be okay.
You leave your shoes by the side of the door,
Put your hand on the doorknob and open it and it opens forward and all of a sudden there is this beautiful valley full of trees and plants and nature.
And there's a pathway in front of you and if you're open to it there is something beautiful awaiting us.
And together we take one deep breath and we begin to step forward.
Immediately our feet connect with the grass on the path and our entire nervous system relaxes.
Can you feel the grass in between your toes?
This is a different space.
This is a different you.
We continue walking and we close the door behind us and immediately every sound of the city of the world.
There is no internet here.
There are no phones here.
Just nature.
As we walk down the path about a hundred feet or so there's a small cove with a body of water.
It's gentle and still and a few hundred feet in front of that you see this small gentle waterfall.
Weather is just right and instinctually you know to take deeper breaths here because the oxygen,
The air,
It's full of nutrients.
Your family,
Your work,
They're all safe.
Everyone will be okay.
And as you continue walking down the path just to the right of this cove of this gentle pool of water there is a table.
A beautiful table.
As you walk towards it you can see it's a desk set up just for you.
There is a cool drink and a warm drink.
Your journal is there.
Your favorite pen is there.
Whatever you'd like is on top of this desk.
Perhaps a laptop.
Of course with no internet connection.
Maybe a microphone.
You understand where we are.
This sanctuary.
This private space.
It lives inside your heart always.
This is your place to do deep work.
By deep work I mean the work your soul was always meant to do.
As you walk closer to this desk you see the most comfortable chair.
You sit down for a moment and immediately that in this place there are no attachments.
There is nothing you need to create.
There is no sense of urgency.
You can come back here anytime and you are here now.
Does your soul want to express?
If you are open to it,
Let natural flow allow your hand naturally to grab the pen or the laptop or the mic.
Does your soul want to create?
Remember there is no urgency.
There is no attachment.
Maybe you wrote one word on a piece of paper.
Maybe you said one word into the mic.
Maybe you decided to leave the desk and go for a swim or a dance where you wanted to lay down in the field.
This is our last song.
I'm going to ask you one more time and invite you just to let your soul flow and perhaps be surprised by what shows up in this quiet beautiful sanctuary inside your heart.
What does your soul want to create?
And this beautiful garden inside your heart is coming to an end.
But remember you can come here at any time.
Let's close our meditation this morning by taking a nice deep breath and returning back to our bodies.
Breathing in and letting it go.
Thank you for traveling with me,
For going deep with me,
For meditating with me.
For those that are joining us live at the artist morning,
I'm going to put 20 minutes on the clock and share a journaling prompt to allow us to continue the exploration.
Of course if you're catching us on a replay,
Perhaps on insight timer,
You can do the same.
Put some time on your own clock and see what's here and ready to be expressed through you.
My name is Darius and I will see you next time.
