Resting In The Unchanging: A Heart-Centered Meditation

What if the lens through which you perceive reality is the most powerful thing you can change? In this meditation, we explore the difference between being caught in the ever-changing content of the mind — our fears, stories, and the things we're trying to avoid — and resting in the unchanging awareness that witnesses it all.

Drawing on the surfing principle of "look where you want to go," this practice invites you to consciously redirect your energy and attention away from what you're afraid of, and toward what you love and what's true right now.

Using a grounding meditation that unites heaven and earth in the heart center, you'll be guided to drop into the space behind the heart as the loving observer of your experience — a sanctuary of presence that holds everything with compassion, spaciousness, and clarity.

Transcript

Coming into your breath, Coming into your body, These points of connection with present time. So constantly here, So steady, So available. Allowing yourself to be exactly as you are right now, Letting your grounding cord drop down into the earth, Into the vast heart-womb space of the earth, Dropping your center of gravity into that deep, Vast holding. And as that connection grows, Really letting it nourish you, Letting that support and stability rise up into your body. Today, We're working with this idea of the lens that we're looking at life through. What tone, What assumptions, What perception, The observing mind is looking at your life through. And it can be helpful just to check, To see what comes to you right now as you take in this idea that it's actually how we're perceiving reality that defines reality. And see if your intuition, Your inner knowing might show you some places that you've been funneling your energy, Your attention, Your time, Your dance of hope and fear of being a human in ways that throw you off your center or that just don't feel true anymore. And we're not judging that or telling a story about that right now. We're just noticing and grateful for whatever comes. Noticing areas of your life where perhaps you get really caught in the content, The display, Where your body-mind structure might continually look at as a challenge or as a problem, As a project, As something that you have to be rid of in order to be okay or to be free, To see what is shown to you. Because what the mystics keep telling us is that you don't have to get rid of that thing to be okay. You don't have to change that situation, At least not in the way you think you do, In order to be okay, To find your wholeness, Your peace. But how do we work with this when it is hooking us or when it does feel like a problem to be solved? Or perhaps we're so used to looking at this situation through a particular lens, We could have inherited it from our lineage, We could have been marinated in it through culture, We could have adapted to it because of trauma. There are so many lenses and patterns of how we perceive reality that are conscious and unconscious based on our experience, Our inheritance, Our karma, Our archetypes and our patterns. So what do we do with all of this? Because sometimes getting caught in it is very painful and of course you want to avoid it. But if we go to war with it, We're automatically hooked. Or if we believe that we can't be okay or whole, As long as this thing is here, There's no space for things to change or for you to be free right in the midst of it all. And so the greatest resource that we can access in practice is we habituate ourselves to remember that you are not the ever-changing mind. You are not the display. You are not defined by any of the waves. You are the unchanging observer of it all. And that realization changes everything. You are the ocean and therefore your experience of those waves is completely different. They're still there. They might calm down. They might not. But how you experience them is completely different. And so in meditation we're training ourselves to continually drop behind and underneath all this arising, Find that peace, That stability, That presence that's right there even in the messy midst of it all. Meditation helps us find this sanctuary in your chest, That sacred shrine of presence that's in between your eyes, That loving friend in your breath, That loving mother of the earth that's holding you all the time no matter what. And when we can connect to those portals of presence, There's so much possibility for the way we're perceiving our reality to change and then our reality can change. The practice of meditation, We slow down, We come inside, We get curious and kind about what's arising and we very bravely stay present enough to be able to look and to feel reality, What's here and to saturate it all with presence and love and to stay in that ever present awareness that's witnessing it all. And the observer that I want to invoke, There's many portals and ways to access this spacious capacity. The portal that I want to invoke for us today is through the space behind the heart. To let that be the observer, To let that be the ocean that allows all these waves to arise and to fall. We're going to drop our awareness into our grounding cord, Let the bowl of your pelvis sink into that rooted, Wide connection, Letting your energy drop down into the heartworm space of the earth and breathing up into your body from that place, Breathing up from the depths up into your body. With each exhale, Letting your body soften into that holding and that support. Breathing up from the depths up into our body and then letting our awareness move up, Up our spine, Up our central channel, Gently until you reach the crown of your head and the space above your head where your higher self comes into your soul star chakra above your head and then descends down into your body. This is where your awareness, Your presence incarnates into this human form. Letting that descend down into the body, The human body is the union of heaven and earth and the heart is where these two join. Once you feel like you connect to your higher self through this upper chakra above your head and then down into your seventh chakra at the top of your head, Start to let it descend down where it can unite with this grounded earth energy in your heart center and rest your awareness in the space where they join in the space behind your heart. When we unite heaven and earth in this way, In our human body, In our heart, It gives us access to so much space, Support and presence that might not always be available. We're aligning ourself to these nourishing supportive elements that help ground and guide us in what's true, What's real and present right now and we're allowing this to help us drop our awareness into the presence of the heart as the observer of our life, As the observer of our experience, As the observer of our hopes and fears, Our memories and our inspiration, As this loving witness to the reality of being you. We're going to practice for a little while just resting into this loving witness observer of the heart. When you notice that you're thinking, You just come back, Breathe it in, Let the thought just dissolve into the space of the heart, It's not a problem. Or if you're caught in a sensation, You can also witness that from the space of the heart and breathe that in to that space. And when something arises or a feeling, A memory, A challenge, A joy in your life bubbles up in your meditation, When you're witnessing it from the space of the heart, Letting that be the observer, It brings a particular lens. It brings a particular perception to the experience and it often provides this spacious, Compassionate ground that whatever's arising can dissolve into. The awareness of the heart can sometimes feel like it's almost like this alchemical, Digestive, Metabolizing space, The fire of the heart. It helps burn through, Illuminate, Make way through what felt immovable before. Perhaps because you just have this loving, Compassionate witness that's with your sense of self as you're experiencing whatever the arising is. Almost like what would life be like if you let love walk you through it? That was always here no matter what conundrum, Challenge, Dynamic you're experiencing. That the space of the heart is helping you hold it all, Even the raw human reality of it. Allow the heart to hold your experience with you and let that be the lens through which you look at your experience or this memory through. Wisdom of the heart might remind you that you're already enough no matter what's happening. It might remind you that this situation does not define you. Maybe it doesn't even belong to you. The space of the heart might remind you that you're not alone or forsaken or as confused as you thought when you were just following what the mind was saying. See what your heart wants you to know about whatever arises in your experience, Your body or your meditation today. Let that be the lens through which you see reality right now. The mind often focuses on the problem to be solved, The memory it doesn't want to have, The thought it thinks it needs to get rid of. What I find in the heart is that it reminds us of the wellness that's already here and the fact that you can be completely free even as you're experiencing this arising. Even as the vast and chaotic display of human life continues to move through your awareness. The heart has the capacity to stay completely with experience, To feel it all and still be connected to your freedom, Your aliveness as life moves through you. There's a sanctuary that's available to you in the space behind the heart. Anahis Nin, The famous writer said, We don't see life as it is, We see life as we are. How and who we are is defined by how we're perceiving reality and the lens that we're looking at it through, The space that we're looking at it from. Often what we find when we come into the observer of the heart is it may not show you the solution to the problem. It might give you all sorts of wisdom and information and guidance, But it might also just remind you that you are safe, You are enough, You are free, Even though that situation is here. Even though that seemingly unresolvable problem moves through your life. And it offers you capacity to stay with it, To stay present in the midst of it all. So taking some breaths and letting the deep heart womb space of Mother Earth come up into your heart. Letting the luminous divine flow of presence come down through your crown and into your heart. And keep dropping and breathing into that space created in the space behind the center of your chest. Letting that be the lens through which you view your life. And then just relax, Just let your attention rest. Let yourself be free and open. And when you're ready, Start to come out of the depth of our practice and into our five senses, Into our open-eyed world experience, But keeping your attention, A portion of it, In this sanctuary, In the space behind the heart. Letting the observer, Loving witness be there. Beautifully done. Thank you. Does anybody have any reports or questions or anything about that practice or anything else? Isn't green the heart chakra color? Mm-hmm. Fitting for St. Patrick's Day, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. The Irish are such good sufferers for all that beautiful poetry comes from, You know, That heart. Yeah. I have a lot of Irish in me. Thank you, Elizabeth. That was a great practice in the middle of the day. Mm-hmm. I can get kind of, Oh, Yeah, That's. . . Thank you. Yeah, Thank you. It's helpful. One I don't often think of behind the heart. I think from the heart or from the central channel, But I'm beginning to sense there's some backpack I have here that's, It's always there. A vague sense of, And bits and pieces like today, A little more awareness of it. Yeah. There's a very powerful portal to presence behind the heart. You know, There's lots of portals. Yeah. Different ones, Dantean, Space inside the skull. Yeah, The space behind the heart can, Yeah, Crown the root. But yeah, That space is a very unique energetic signature to it. It's very, Very, Very powerful. Very. Thank you. I'm curious if anybody wants to share what you notice if something challenging came up, What it was like to see it from that space. If you noticed a different quality that came forward. I'll finish with a poem. It's called Coming Home by Tara Moore, Irish poet. The warmth of the hearth in my chest and the breath of warm enoughness and something like love in my throat. A dense goodness covering all of this because I am home. Because I fought the fight as difficult as Odysseus' journey. I slayed dragons and scaled steep peaks, Laid down in a bed of fear, And walked through the woods in the night. A thousand trials to get home. Yet the journey was also this. Dorothy clicking her heels three times and being instantly transported there the moment she called for it. Home, Coming like rain, Like grace, Without struggle or trial or mud. The long road and the non-road home. Perhaps we are always walking both, Like train tracks, Home on the other side of the door. It's as simple as knocking and as far as a thousand miles to get there. In that home place I can see nothing was ever broken. Warmth savors up from our chests like a hearth. And love is in our throats lunging outward and the world becomes a basket of gifts. And we sit in it and look around and tears rise at the beauty and the intensity of it. I hope you'll keep remembering to come home to the hearth, The sanctuary in this space. And see, Especially when you can't see your way, To see if that space, That observer, That lens might have something new to offer you. Thank you always for being here. I really appreciate it. It's really sweet to practice with you all. And I'm doing a retreat in December now, The next one. I had some people from my group in the retreat. It was so lovely. So really sweet to practice together in a continued way. Thank you for showing up and I wish you a beautiful day, A beautiful month. Thank you. Bye.