Celebrate The Senses

This meditation intends to honor and celebrate our inner and outer senses and our interconnectedness with the world.Why use the senses as a doorway into meditation? It is how we perceive life, through our senses. How we get to know ourselves – aliveness – life – is through the senses. Learning how to track, bless, and lovingly BE with sensation is a skill. Our sensory experience is how we perceive the inner and outer world. If we want to get to know ourselves and our most regulated, centered, grounded home state, spending time with the senses will help us,over time, refine our attention so we can perceive when we are home and when we are not. This meditation guides us to cherish and appreciate both our inner and outer senses, recognizing how they connect us to the world around us. Our senses are the gateway to experiencing life.

Transcript

Welcome, Welcome. Sip of water, Taking some time to transition. Hey, Christine. Hi. Welcome. We've been waiting like, I don't know, Two, Three minutes. See if anyone else is open or willing or can show up with us live. So I'm making a transition. It's been. One of those back-to-back days, Which most of the time I really love. And I'm really loving that. Um Most of the things that I. Facilitate and offer where we have these transition times. So I just get to naturally have them weaved into, Weaved into the day. I imagine that's unique. I actually haven't thought about that. In a while. Yeah, But this is like just a part of my general routine and how and when I think of myself, I'm like, A day when I'm not. Facilitating and working and I'm like, How many pauses, You know, Or transitions, Two, Three minutes do I like offer myself? To make a transition from one thing to the next. Mmm. And so I think about it. I'm just in awe of what. Of what that time does offer me. You know, For me, I usually do like a 10 minute lay down. At some point in the afternoon, Midday, Before evening activity is in. That one is really key for me, I feel like, To be able to sustain and be present to the latter activities in the day. Anyway, Transitions, Transitions. So this week here with our Substack Live meditations, I wanted to weave in a practice around using our senses, Using our senses as the doorway So I'm actually going to read, Let me read some of my notes, Which I rarely do. But as I read a few of these sentences, I was like, I think this would be wise, Wise to just have this set of words. Here for us today and in the recording. So. . . The intention of this meditation is to honor and celebrate. I really love that word, To celebrate. Our senses, The inner and outer senses, And our interconnectedness with the world. Why use the senses as a doorway? It is how we perceive life through our senses, How we get to know ourselves, Aliveness, Life is through the senses. So learning how to track and bless and lovingly be with sensation is a skill. Yeah So it's like the training ground we practice. Ah, We use our senses inside of our practice as a skill set, A training, So we have that skill set in our outer life. Hi Lynn. Welcome. Yeah. Yeah, Welcome to the space. We're just talking about our senses and how we're using our senses as a doorway today for our meditation. Something that I really love about instinctive meditation and what I say and will continue to say most likely for the rest of my life, We'll see, Is that what I learned through instinctive meditation and what I called my teachers, I wouldn't even call it meditation. I just called it like life skills. Um And my teachers are as life teachers, You know, These skill sets, These techniques that we practice in our internal environments, As we could say, As meditation, Are, Are also outer skills, Especially the ones that we're, That we'll weave in today with our senses. Hi, Linda, Welcome. We're talking about our senses as the doorway. We're going to use our senses. To inform, To. Entice our attention. Give our attention some layers, Different layers of experience to be with through our sensory experience today. So for those of you who I haven't met, My name is Heather and my sub stack is called free to wonder. And I just a couple of weeks ago started hopping on and and guiding some live meditations. This is what I do in other areas. On the interwebs and I just felt called to spend a little more time on Substack, Offering these meditations whenever they kind of weave into my schedule. And I love an afternoon sort of, Yeah, Evening meditation. You know, When I was taught meditation through many different traditions, It was taught to me through line that we would have a morning practice and an evening or afternoon practice, Like pre activity, Pre your morning activity. We have a we have a practice pre our evening activities. We have a practice. So this practice today aimed to help to say reset harmony. And eyes. Settle before whatever's coming next in your evening. And then we'll also be playing with our senses today. So also, Side note, I'm in Costa Rica, In the jungle, And the Starlink can slow things down and be a little glitchy here and there, So I just asked for a little grace in when that happens. If it happens, It doesn't always happen, But it might. And my aim is to guide for about 15-20 minutes. I'll transition us out of the practice. We'll have a little time to come back together if you want to share anything. You're here live in the in the chat and if you need to venture straight into whatever's coming next for you then please do that. I think that's all from me. Let's enter. It's already eight minutes over our time. Let me turn my volume up here a little bit. So we always take about five minutes to transition into the practice. We'll be inside of, Playing with, Enthralled by. Blessing, Really this idea of like blessing our senses, Celebrating our senses. And then I'll transition us out. So as we make this transition into. . . Into a practice. I want to offer this idea of freedom. So freedom to set your body up in any position that you feel called to be in in this moment, Whether that is a position of stillness or you feel called to move your body. Throughout this time, Your eyes can open and close. We'll be using our sense of vision together. Whenever you feel called to. To open or close the eyes, Give yourself permission to. Do that, Follow that. Natural flow of how our attention moves and wanders and wonders about a variety of topics, Both external and internal. I think of this transition time with freedom, No restrictions on our attention and how that can inform the type of spaciousness, Type of. . . Embodied restfulness that we can eventually arrive to if we don't control our way there. So this loving curiosity of, Hmm, Where? What do I care about? What am I caring about? What are my thoughts? Noticing the energy that you're bringing into the space, Noticing what the environment they are in is like in this moment. Imagine you're on the ride, On the ride of your attention. Awareness. Loving this bird. I don't know if you all can hear this There's this really loud, Distinct bird, And it's just simply this reminder of how that one part, That one voice, That one loop of thought can just be overwhelming. So easily captivating our attention. What do we do with that stimulus? Can we practice together this allowing as a welcoming? All the different parts, All the different thoughts, All the different voices and inner characters. This is the open welcome canvas party for every layer to be here. Have this ability to choose. But we pay attention to. Can you slow down a little? So let's decide to gather this. Tuning in to the. The internal, The thoughts, Like you just gave whoever's speaking loud. On the inside of the mic. They're like, Yes, Please, Take the podium. I'm listening. What do you got? What do you got for me? What would you like me to know? Use listen. And then let's go more global. Let's go beyond. Our own internal perceptions and go way, Way out with your sense of hearings, Listening. To any sounds that are far, Far away, Farthest away sounds, Scan your environment. And a little more refined and subtle, Can you hear now the sound of your own breath? Lingering with the breath, Moving towards this. Experience of motion, How we can perceive the motion of our bodies, The different parts of our bodies that move as we breathe. You could place hands on parts of the torso. The motion of the diaphragm, The lungs, The ribcage. The experiment of a genuine interest. Wow. Celebration, I can, I still have the ability, I'm alive enough. To be able to perceive this subtle motion. Say, Breathe. The smite. Feel a little jarring if you're used to. Keeping your eyes closed, But what would it be like? Freedom. I'm gonna open my eyes. And I'm going to look around. And celebrate. Fact that I can see. Textures, Colors. And perceive movement through my eyes. If you can see to. To let it in. The astonishment, The amazement. I have these eyes and I can take in beauty. Art shapes, Shadows, Light. What do you love to look at? What do you find beautiful? By yourself to remember and just take that in like wow how lucky am I get to perceive, I get to receive this type of beauty through my eyes. The body. This body is the soul's chance to be here. I'm just really loving this short phrase. Body is the soul's chance to be here and okay let's be in the body in a way like let me stretch this body It's great to be with, Ah, A feeling of subtle stretch somewhere, The tissues of this body. I can feel muscles lengthening. Contracting. Stretching and relaxing again. This feeling of touch. Receiving so much stimulus through our hands. I place a hand somewhere on your body or on a texture, If one's nearby, A texture that you love. Our hands. A blessing. If you were to touch your body somewhere, If you're open to it, Offering a little blessing. And notice, Right here, Right now, Different layers of sensory experience, Which, For you, In particular, Feels maybe just a little more effortless to to love, To merge with, To celebrate, To be. To linger in. Because it feels good or it's just a natural interest. Or easeful spending time with that sensory pathway. Tell me. Be enticed without the grip. Linger without the holding. Gripping our expectation that our attention will stay there forever. Minutes and minutes, Of course. Another wave. See, Another type of aliveness comes. In to be perceived and met. Thought, An emotion, A memory. Let's use our imagination. A couple minutes here and let's let's search a vision see Next. Either the next few hours of your day or tomorrow. Different activities, Different places you'll be going. What you'll be doing, See yourself moving through. Parts of your day. And let's choose a moment, Seeing yourself there just long. One moment. And see yourself in that moment more attuned to your senses. Picking up on the texture of the flower on your block. Looking up at the sky, The movement of the cloud. Where the space all the way around your body as you are at the grocery store. Feeling a touch of your your feet and your shoes as you stand and talk to someone. Technology and the movement of your breath as you send a text message. Watch a video. In the experiment. More sensory perception, What might that offer? My relationships, My work. Sign through the world. So let's together, As we make this transition, Acknowledge. It's right here, Right now. Right here, Right now. Position of this body. If there's been stillness in the body, You might add a little motion once again. And sing. Any any subtle shift subtle or big shift of you know it's like the pace of your piece of the thoughts or the pace on the inside standing out 360 degrees around your body right here right now. You at the center of that sphere of attention. It's acknowledging the center of your spine. Tailbone all the way up to the crown of the head. Sometimes I set these little intentions at the end of the practice, Like may I, May we, May you. It'll take. Sometimes I describe it as feeling a little more home, A little more centered. Grounded, Present, May we have the ability over time to stay a little more in touch with that as we enter whatever is coming next. May I be you. Of access to that. Nuh-uh. So sorry. So long. You have any anything you'd like to share before you exit the space, Feel free to share in the chat. Questions or anything about your experience. These times where we can acknowledge, Like, Sometimes meditation is really challenging. Some time sets. Rev some things up on the inside, You know? It's not always. . . I'm always Zen, In my experience. And then it's, Yeah, So just space to speak to that or space to speak to that you had, Maybe you did have the opposite. Maybe there's a lot of serenity here. Centeredness or calm, Intrigue. I believe in instinctive meditation. I'm just thinking maybe this is module, Getting into the training, Like this is a third month. Spend many months on different different techniques with the senses. I feel like I'm remembering this correctly. We're exploring the senses. I think it was this module where I remember like, Beginning as I continue to walk through the world and be on my walks. Whoever I was, It was like, I felt more naturally attuned and aware of my senses, Like without a ton of effort. It was just so intriguing. It was like I woke up. Everything else woke up. I guess it was more me waking up. Oh my gosh, There's so much to it. There's so much to receive and perceive, It's like. . . Beautifully overwhelming. Yeah. Ah, Opening eyes while meditating. Yeah, That was a trip. Right. Right. I would love to hear more about that. Yeah. Thanks for doing this. The busy electronic world that needed to be calmed and transitioned. Oh my gosh. I love that description, Linda. A busy electronic world that needed to be calmed and transitioned. That, That is it. And that another wild thing, Like how busy it can be in here, Not even just here, I mean, Here for sure, It's like everywhere can just be so lively. That's amazing. I like that. I mean, It's amazing of like, Wow, We should be so lively and so motivated and so doing. And that's a part of it. And we want to like, Again, Celebrate that. That's not wrong or bad. We're trying to go never that it's like, Cool. Great, I can execute and have all that and I have the ability to experience the calm, Right? We're not trying to like favor one or the other, But this is how this is how our systems work. We have action, We have rest. And so we go in and go through these action phases and restful phases in our meditation, Just like in our life, Or like, Again, Partnering up with our how our attention naturally moves. To aim to remember, You know, To aim to have some time. And the restful and the calm. Because most of the time, As we all know with our very full lives, We're often in the opposite. So we have to take some intentional time, Right, To remember. The opposite of the big electronic busyness. Thanks for using that language, Linda. Hi Nancy, We're just wrapping up, But maybe you can join us. For another live meditation, I'll be doing this once a week. The guided or the recording will be up in my sub-sack. I try to have it up in 24 hours. I have a guided meditation section. So these ones are up there, And there's a ton of other ones from other times as well. So yeah, Every week, My idea is we just have a new theme, A new technique. So we're building this whole repertoire, Tool chest or treasure chest. Let's call it a treasure chest. So. Of um different ways to be inside of the space. Because every time we show up to meditation, We could say we're a slightly different rendition of ourselves. So something that was really juicy and alive for us, You know, A day ago, Maybe has no impact, And it feels very unhelpful in the space of meditation. So we practice a variety of ways so we can learn how to meet ourselves every time we show up to practice, Yeah. Okay, Signing off. Thank you so much. I look forward to the next time we can be together. Yeah, Thanks for sharing the space. I feel refreshed as well. Lots of love. Bye.