All right,
Let's close our eyes,
Settle into the body,
Feel this moment.
This means feel anything that's happening in your field of experience.
And today we're going to do an exploration of the body.
And instead of scanning the body part by part,
We're going to explore the body and see wherever it feels most contracted or tight.
So first,
Let's gently search throughout our body,
Our sensory experience.
Search where it feels the tightest,
Most contracted.
This could come up in different ways,
Like pain or a feeling of pressure,
But it can also come in more subtler ways,
More energetic feel of tightness.
It's like something can feel blocked or clogged or just less at ease than the other part.
Take a minute to settle the mind on that part of the body.
Now,
Keep looking at that part of the body that feels tight or contracted.
See if you can really feel into it,
Not diluting attention by looking someplace else,
Really looking at it fully.
Sometimes there can be a tendency to only partially look at more tight,
Uncomfortable experiences.
And it might take a bit of courage to actually look at it directly and feel it fully.
And as you get more familiar with that feeling and that part of the body,
You might feel that the tension eases up naturally,
Or maybe it doesn't.
So,
What we'll do is to work with the tightness,
Not work against it.
See if you can mentally massage that part of the body,
Bringing the ease of the other parts of the body into it.
Feel the edges of that tighter part,
And feel the edges of the outer edges sinking into it,
Spreading in.
You can also very gently experiment with small movements of the body,
Small mindful movements,
And see how they affect that feeling of tightness.
So,
If tightness stays in the same location in the body,
Keep working with it,
Watching it mindfully,
Gently spreading in comfort from the other parts of the body,
And experimenting with small movements of the body.
If the feeling of tightness eases up,
You might feel that another spot in the body becomes the tightest spot in that specific moment.
If that's the case,
Move attention there,
And repeat the same process.
We are monitoring tension in the body and addressing it gently,
First by being mindful of it and looking at it directly,
Second by spreading the ease of the other parts of the body into it,
And third,
We can also make small adjustments to our posture and body placement and see how that affects the tension.
Now,
The goal here is not to wish for a state where tensions don't arise,
Or a tension-free state.
The goal is really to familiarize ourselves with such a natural part of our experience,
Get more familiar with the actual sensations,
And with the mental reactions to these sensations.
Feelings of tightness or tension will arise naturally in meditation or in daily life.
We need to learn to work with that.
And if it happens in a specific moment that there seems to be no tension in the body,
Simply keep being aware of the whole body,
Monitoring it.
And if tension appears,
Work with it,
As we've outlined.
Thank you.
