Hello,
My beautiful friend.
I'm super excited to be with you today.
Today we're going to do a little time travel during this guided practice.
And this guided practice is one that I use quite frequently when I work with people one on one,
Because it supports them to get distance and perspective from a situation in which they maybe are experiencing a little tunnel vision.
This practice is also connected to the work of Ethan Cross,
Who is a researcher and professor at the University of Michigan.
And he is the author of the book,
Chatter.
So in order to get the most out of this guided practice,
I invite you to find a comfortable place where you can be physically comfortable and mentally and emotionally present.
Now that we're there,
We've maybe gotten some wiggles out.
I invite you to take several deep cleansing breaths in through the nose,
Hold for a moment at the top and out again through the nose.
If you can,
Slow that exhale down and really let it go until it becomes a little bit uncomfortable.
And now let's do that again.
Pause and exhale slowly and steadily.
Let's do that two more times on your own.
Nice long inhale,
Pause at the top and an even longer exhale.
Now I invite you to forget about your breath.
Just let your breath breathe itself.
And now that we are more settled,
Our heart rate has come down,
We're a little bit more connected to ourselves and the earth,
We're going to go on a little adventure together.
So here you are sitting.
And what I invite you to do is imagine yourself lifting up out of your body and floating up to the ceiling or potentially into the sky so that you can look down upon yourself and see yourself sitting in meditation,
Listening to a woman named Teresa.
Can you see yourself?
Beautiful.
You're calm and serene.
So now I invite you to turn your attention back towards the past.
We're going to do a little time travel back to a moment in which you left the event,
The situation,
The conversation with a niggling feeling of doubt,
Anger,
Frustration,
And you continue to replay that situation in your mind afterwards.
This could be a situation that happened just yesterday.
It could be something that happened last month,
Last year,
Or even a decade or several decades ago.
A situation or event or conversation in which you left feeling heavy,
Heavy with what some would consider negative emotion.
And there you are still up in the sky or on the ceiling.
And I invite you to continue to keep this perspective.
You're not in the situation like you were last time.
You are seeing it from above.
You have physical distance and emotional distance.
What I invite you to do right now is to replay that situation as if you weren't a part of it,
As if you were a sportscaster,
For example,
And you're giving a play by play.
And what's interesting is you're not necessarily in the minds of any participants,
Not even your own.
So as you give this play by play,
Refer to yourself by name in the third person and refer to anyone else involved as their name.
So observe and watch and describe to yourself and to me what is happening.
What do you notice?
What do you hear?
What do you see?
And while you're noticing and naming,
I invite you to get curious.
Ask about what's happening.
Turn to wonder.
Continue to name,
Notice,
And wonder.
And ask questions.
If you find yourself getting distracted,
Bring yourself back to this moment in time.
You are looking from above down on the situation,
Naming,
Noticing,
And practicing curiosity.
Myhonemusic posed the mode for me in Beveridge and the And now I'm gonna invite us to come back to the present moment.
So from wherever you are in time and space,
Turn yourself back to the present.
Fly your way.
Quantum leap your way back to the here and now where you can see yourself again sitting in meditation from above.
And when you are ready,
Dip down,
Slide down,
Back into your body.
And I invite you to fully get present in this body of yours by wiggling your toes,
Wiggling your fingers,
Maybe shifting in your seats,
Rolling your shoulders or your neck.
Take a nice big deep breath.
When you are ready,
I invite you to open your eyes.
And if you have pen or paper handy,
I invite you to write down any new learning that you gained from watching and naming and noticing and getting curious.
What do you see that you didn't see before?
How is this experience different when you look at it from above?
What might the other person have been thinking or feeling based on what you had been saying and doing?
What stories did you make up by yourself or the other people or the situation in general?
How might this new perspective shift those stories for you?
I invite you to contemplate these questions.
Think differently,
To see the forest and not just the individual tree.
Ethan Cross in his book Chatter reminds us that it's through distance that we can end the negative cycle of rumination and chatter.
It often pulls us down and allows us to feel stuck.
This practice of distancing ourselves and seeing things from the perspective of a fly on a wall opens us up to new opportunities and new ways of seeing the world and the people in it.
I also want to remind you that although this experience may have been short,
You are welcome to come back and do this again.
What's interesting is that your memories and what you see and notice might shift and change the next time.
Our memories are fallible.
They're not always correct.
As we see things from our values,
From our emotional landscape,
And sometimes that can cloud the real truth behind a situation.
With that,
I will leave you to your journey and I remind you to continue to deepen your learning and to build stronger connections.
Until next time.
