Imperfectly Present, Spacious & Easeful

Imperfectly present and spacious with the breath, easeful with the body and settled with the mind. This guided practice provides nervous system nourishing support for those finding it difficult to just BE. Utilizing the sense-doors of breath, sound, and even finding comfort in your home space, the practice gently guides you to release perfectionism, tension, distraction, self-judgment and cultivate a spaciousness of felt-sense presence.

Transcript

I think I'll start off by inviting you to take your eyes away from the screen and just be in your space for a moment,

Giving yourself a moment to look around the room,

Spot any supportive items,

Plants,

Fur babies,

Knickknacks that just kind of acclimate you to your space,

All of your day-to-day items that we tend to just gloss over because we end up in our minds so much,

Giving yourself a moment to look at the things that you love to adorn your space with and in a way allowing your body to also exist in that space where you feel a part of your space,

That this is your whole living home.

And before even closing your eyes or drifting in,

Notice your breath in this space too.

Notice how you can breathe in and breathe out and be one with your environment and just taking a moment to find that ease,

Taking a moment to tune into that bit of safety and comfort and love,

Even the aliveness.

Noticing how your space might be messy or maybe some of your plants have some brown leaves that you need to tend to.

You can see some dust in the corner.

And let these imperfections live as just part of your life.

We don't actually have to have it together all of the time.

All of these things are evidence of our humanity.

And then refinding that breath and that deeper breath,

Allowing yourself to have a sigh and a really soft exhale.

Just even starting off with allowing yourself to be imperfect in your space.

Allowing your eyes to drift closed,

That's comfortable for you.

And allowing your awareness of the present moment to kind of shift back,

Kind of diffuse and invite any of your five senses forward that you feel connected with.

And that could be sound,

Hearing any soft sounds in your space like the air conditioner or birds outside.

You could be touch,

Feeling the clothes rustle against your body as you breathe.

You can feel the cushion or a chair underneath you.

Even the sense of smell.

You can smell a nearby candle or the remnants of your last meal.

Even the smell of your fabric softener.

And taking in just sense awareness of any or all of these five senses that let you feel at home,

That let you feel alive,

Let you feel here and now.

Any and all of these five senses that bring a sense of presence,

Bring a sense of aliveness,

Bring a sense of humanity.

And so as we settle into our meditation,

There's a point of realness,

Of real connection to our physical body.

And real connection with our physical space.

And inviting yourself to also connect with the flow of your breath.

Inviting your breath to be soft.

Inviting your breath to be easeful.

Inviting your breath to be supportive.

Inviting yourself to take deeper cleansing breaths,

Allowing and inviting the breath to not be caught.

If you find the breath is like shallow or you find yourself tensing with the breath,

You can actually utilize the breath to send that softness throughout your body.

Allowing any soft yawns to come through.

Even allowing your posture and the shape that your body is taking right now to settle in and conform to the breath.

So if the breath is space and ease,

What is it like to allow your body and muscles and bones to shift around that and find their own space and softness and ease?

In this way of partnering with the breath and partnering with the body,

You're inviting your body to be just as it is and take up its own space and take up its own seat.

How does it feel to invite your whole being to take its seat?

Your whole being to relax and ease and take its own space in imperfection and here-ness.

Inviting the breath to release your mind's own judgments about how the meditation should be or how the body should be or how the breath should be.

Doing your best to stay connected with those sense doors.

So sound,

Touch,

Smell,

Taste.

Doing your best to stay connected with those as you allow your nervous system and body and breath to settle.

So truly partnering with your physical space in the way of finding a vehicle of support to invite your mind to settle.

It's knowing that most of our challenge of the day-to-day exists in the mind.

How can we invite our breath,

Our physical space,

And our senses to come up and partner with us to allow us to just lay down the challenge of the mind.

Each time that you have a thought that comes into your mind that might be challenging or judging or assuming,

Fixing,

Or planning,

Anything that takes you away from the present moment,

Invite the breath up to take a deeper breath and allow your physical body to carry away that thought with ease.

Even allowing yourself to sigh and audibly exhale and return to your seat,

Return to the breath.

Knowing that it's perfectly natural for the mind to want to carry us away in story.

So you can even allow yourself a little moment of,

That's okay and that's fine,

And also I can still feel my breath.

In fact,

I can take a deeper cleansing breath and invite that breath and space into my physical form.

And in doing so,

In returning to your seat and your breath and your sense doors,

Even inviting yourself to incline your awareness towards what feels good,

What feels supportive,

What feels like space,

Maybe even what feels like joy or pleasure.

You incline your awareness to find a space in the body and you can rest your awareness with joy and ease.

Even bringing a sense of curiosity about this place of joy and ease where you can incline your awareness to,

What does joy and ease actually feel like?

What sensations are present?

Just a small sense of curiosity about the nuance,

About what you can sense.

You sense a temperature,

You sense a vibration,

You sense a density.

Is it spacious?

Is it fuzzy?

You feel the tingling of edges.

You feel the space radiate.

Even does your awareness and attention move when you bring your awareness to it?

You feel like a constellation of places and sensations.

Inviting your mind to soften,

To not focus too intently.

This practice is not about straining or directing,

But about opening into curiosity.

Opening into the curiosity of the present moment.

Just softly saying to yourself,

What's here?

What's next?

What comes up to meet me in softness and ease?

As you practice with this softness of presence,

How does the breath also come up and meet you and partner and be that supportive softness of presence?

You stay with your awareness on experience and sensations themselves and stay with the experience of breathing and flow of breathing.

It's even enough to just find a little ebb and flow on the waves of the breath.

So in this way of partnering with the breath and the body,

This is a pathway of practicing staying with the present moment of experience.

I'm doing so with a spacious sense.

Spacious with the breath,

Spacious with the body,

And then spacious with your sense of sound around you.

Spacious with connecting to the space of the room that you're in.

So in this way,

You're inviting yourself to notice yourself in the physical sense,

In the breathing sense,

And in the context of your own room.

You are very much alive and in this moment.

Taking a moment to breathe deeper here towards the end of our meditation and connect with the sense of what it feels like to practice the pathway of here and now.

And remembering how the body and the breath can meet you in this moment with ease.

I'm not even having to like mentally recall this,

But noticing the sensations that are present so that we in a way can bring this practice off of the cushion and into our day-to-day life.

Offering ourselves a moment of grace and awareness to know that it is always enough to just exist in the present moment.

You don't always have to go forward into planning or get caught in memory and worry of what is behind.

Being here in the present moment is always enough.

So no matter what you might have on your plate today,

Or this week,

Or this month,

Or in this lifetime,

That your breath,

Your nervous system,

And your body can come up to meet you,

To support you with ease and presence and softness.

Inviting yourself into a few deeper exhales,

Connecting with your diaphragm and belly breathing,

Allowing that breath to really be carried away audibly.

So hear yourself exhale.

Noticing the softness of that larger exhale and how it feels in the body to carry away tension.

Letting that exhale carry away the practice itself.

Inviting your spine to be soft.

Be inviting your body to sway and just move a little.

Inviting your neck to rotate and just swivel a little bit.

Inviting your fingers to wiggle and your toes to wiggle.

Inviting yourself to shift in your seat.

Inviting yourself to move out of the meditation and reopen your eyes at your own pace.