Wherever you are,
Close your eyes.
Relax any tension or engagement of your body.
Take a moment to turn inwards.
Bring your awareness to any physical sensations that you may be feeling.
Just observing,
Just witnessing.
See if you can release the story that comes after.
Now bring your focus to your heart space.
The energy of your heart space.
Any feelings or emotions colored by this moment.
Again,
Just witnessing.
Observing.
See if you can release the story that comes after.
Nice.
Now from the heart space,
Can you bring your awareness up through your chest,
Through your throat,
To your head space?
Like a scientist.
What's going on up there right now?
And from this place of science,
Whatever data you're collecting in this moment about your head space,
About your heart space,
About your physical body,
It's just data.
It's information.
Also for our time together today,
If anything does come up,
See if you can create some space between the observation and the story.
Now release any of that head stuff.
And instead of striving towards this mindful,
Elevated,
Enlightened state,
This end goal or whatever,
We're going to do it backwards as if we've already arrived.
So we're already here.
You've made it.
Congratulations.
So this is where we're going to be.
We're going to be with where we are right now,
With whatever's happening right now in the present moment with curiosity and compassion and some level or degree of acceptance.
Now a lot of people can see this as a passive response,
But as you may be experiencing right now,
It's actually quite active.
We have to put effort into not running with the stories that we create in our minds about what's happening in our hearts,
In our brains,
In our bodies,
In our lives.
We actively have to resist running down that road.
So what we're playing with right now is this beautiful blend and balance of active and passive being.
The two are kind of happening at the exact same time,
Which is what creates this stillness.
It's kind of like in yoga,
Where you're pressing down,
You're rooting down to reach and expand up.
We're moving in both directions at the exact same time.
Allow yourself to feel however you feel and then see if with the breath,
You can release that feeling out into the world.
Temporary.
It's fleeting.
Sometimes it's very difficult to remember this whole meditation practice.
It's a process of remembering.
Remembering our true essence.
Remembering what matters.
Remembering what we have.
Which is right here,
Right now.
Staying with the breath.
Staying in the body.
Curious.
Open.
Receptive.
Now if you're seated,
I invite you to bring a little bit of a sway to your torso.
It's kind of like you're dancing with the top half of your body.
As you're swaying from side to side,
From right to left,
Can you lengthen through your spine?
Can you relax your shoulders down your back?
Find a slight tuck of your chin towards your chest.
And then reach through the crown.
So your spine is getting longer,
Creating space in your swaying left and right.
Now linger a little bit the next time you sway to the right.
And then slowly allow yourself to swing back to the left.
And as you keep moving with this sway back and forth,
Can you make it a little bit smaller each time?
Can you find stillness in the middle?
Rooting down through your sitting bones,
Reaching up through the crown.
Relax your shoulders down your back,
Reach into chest,
Spread your collarbones.
Gaze is soft.
Your core is slightly engaged.
Your belly button is drawing back towards your spine.
But it's not effortful.
Tall,
Confident,
Strong.
Noises in the background,
That's life,
Right?
Now this balance that you have just found in your body,
This balance that you have just created,
It took a little bit left and a little bit right.
A little bit left and a little bit right.
It took some time.
It took a little bit of wandering,
But you got there.
So as you go on with your day or your night or your life,
That is the path.
You're never off the path.
You might go a little bit right and a little bit left.
And sometimes you're going to go a lot of bit right and a lot of bit left.
And that's okay.
That's life.
This whole thing is an experiment.
It's colorful and textured and complex.
But the more we can flow from right to left on our path,
The more we can remember that we are never off our path.
That sometimes we might make the path a little bit more difficult for ourselves.
But there is a lesson and there is a growth in absolutely every nook and cranny.
Keep your hearts open.
Keep your eyes open.
Embrace the flow.
Don't be afraid to sway.
And remember that you can always find your way back.
Always find your way back.
Through the breath,
Through the body,
And through your heart.
Have fun out there.
