Being True To Yourself

Being true to oneself requires being honest ... internally. When we break agreements that we've made with ourselves, we begin to lose trust in ourselves. If you can't trust yourself, who can you trust? Let's take some time to think about this and then drop deeply into the body to let go of that thought, relax, and connect with ourselves on a fundamental level.

Transcript

The idea of being truthful with ourselves,

Being willing to say what we will do and do it,

Be willing to box out that which we know we can't do or that if we start to do will distract us from what we want to do or what we need to do,

Maintaining boundaries,

Really treating ourselves well,

Maintaining a practice,

Maintaining a self-care routine,

Noticing that when you feel good about yourself,

Which is a combination of feeling good physically,

Mentally,

Emotionally,

When you feel that way,

You work better,

You work faster,

You're more communicative,

More collaborative,

More creative,

And the opposite is also true.

When we start to feel overwhelmed,

We stop taking care of ourselves,

We let the things that we know help us feel better,

We let those slip away in order to try to do a little bit more,

Then our sense of time,

Our sense of self,

Our sense of our capacity seems to drift,

And we feel less capable,

Less productive,

Less creative,

Less collaborative,

Get more and more protective,

Defensive.

So let's reach here for that place within where we can rest for a few moments and begin to rebuild ourselves.

It's always good to recognize that with meditation one of the things we're doing is noticing the state of ourselves,

The state of the body,

The state of the mind.

As we lose a little bit of confidence and nourishment and joy of life,

We feel and we start to retract,

Contract into a tense ball.

We feel physically tense,

Mentally our mind becomes less clear,

Becomes a little chaotic,

Maybe loud,

Difficult to focus.

All that is caused and creating a loop of stress in the nervous system.

As we become stressed,

Everything seems more dangerous,

More stressful than maybe it actually is,

And if we stay in that state for too long,

The world can be quite distorted.

Our experience can be quite distorted about where the dangers really are and where they're not.

And so we use the tool of the breath,

The ability to notice our breath,

Shift it down into the belly,

Try to get that diaphragm to move,

Which allows our bodies to calm down by sending a signal,

Signal to the brain that we're safe.

At least right here,

Right now,

There's a safe moment that we're in.

We've decided to do this.

We know we'll get back to everything in a little while.

And so we breathe,

Noticing the tension around that breath.

Even just the shift to a belly breath is a powerful shift,

Requires a letting go of muscular tension that we're normally holding pretty strongly while we're doing our work.

And so gently just breathing in and out into the belly and noticing the body,

Bringing your attention into the body to help ground in the physicality of this moment.

There's so many different sensations to notice in the body.

There's tension,

Might be some exhaustion,

There might be some very upward,

Outgoing vibrations of enthusiasm.

There's the effect of what we've been eating and drinking and very powerfully the effect of what we've been thinking about with each connection to one of these thoughts that are telling us there's too much to do or I'm not doing it right or I'm not doing it well enough.

Comes a little bit of tension,

Try to protect us.

So let's bring our attention up to the top of the head.

It's really bringing that focus,

The awareness to the very top of the head just to look around.

When I say look around,

It's a kind of feeling looking of a visual picture in your mind and also a felt sense what it feels like there.

And then feeling into the forehead and the side and the back of the head,

Starting to notice where the tension is,

All the while continuing just to gently breathe into the belly.

Wherever you notice tension,

Just see if you can move it a little bit and physically move it furrowing the brow or just with your mind just seeing if you can release some of the tension that you find.

And as you release it,

Just imagine a gentle,

Peaceful feeling that will take over that comes in down into the top of the head and starts to soften,

Smooth all of these muscles.

Feeling down into the eyebrows and the eyes.

This is where we can feel a lot of the exhaustion,

The heaviness using our eyes so much,

Taking in so much information.

This is one physical area where we can feel very overwhelmed.

And so just allowing the eyes to to flush like tears coming out and just going down,

Releasing the tension,

Releasing the buildup,

Just letting those go down into the earth,

Taking the weight off of us,

Feeling down into the face,

Into the jaw,

Noticing the amount of tension that's held there and just gently opening the jaw a little bit,

Just releasing some of that tension,

Feeling this peaceful feeling come down,

Washing through the eyes,

Down into the face,

Down into the jaw,

Just taking away some of that tension,

Just taking away some of that tension,

Feeling the mouth,

The lips,

The tongue,

Chin,

All those muscles around the lips and the face,

All that natural tension that's just there,

Letting just move it around a little bit,

Let it soften,

Feeling into the neck where it meets the back of the head,

Sides of the neck,

Letting those muscles unwind,

That peaceful feeling comes down,

Nourishes those tired neck muscles,

Holding up the head,

Allow this to start coming down into the shoulders,

Into the chest and the upper back.

Now breathing into these areas,

Noticing where there's restriction with each breath into an area of tension,

Just allowing it to soften,

Smooth,

Release those tense muscles,

Feeling that peaceful feeling,

The energy come down to your arms,

All the way down to your hands,

Notice the palms of your hands,

Notice for energy there and then feeling down into the belly and the lower back,

Lower back where we hold up our,

Hold ourselves upright,

Tends to tense up under all the stress and the pressure of life,

Just allowing that to be soft for a moment,

Letting this peaceful feeling now nourish the abdomen,

The lower back,

Down into the pelvic floor,

Into the legs,

Bringing that down all the way through the legs,

Notice where there's any resistance and just allow that to smooth down to the feet and this peaceful feeling then emerges through the fingers and the toes,

The fingers and the toes,

By relaxing and releasing,

Allowing this sensation of openness through the body,

A free flow of energy just moving through us,

Noticing how the body quiets down,

Through it all noticing your attention being drawn into thought,

Your thoughts about what's happening and then just bring your attention back to what's happening,

The sensations in the body,

Breathing into the belly and slowly elongating that breath,

So that you're filling the belly and then filling the chest and the out-breath just slowly letting go and then actively expelling all the air so that towards the end of the out-breath you're pulling in and up the belly and the diaphragm to really feel like you're squeezing out all the air that you can on that in-breath when you get into the chest,

Trying to find those spaces where you can take a little bit more,

Fill a little another little nook in the chest where there was once tension,

Bringing in a little bit more air,

A little bit more chi into the body,

We're taking it all in and we're letting it all out and then as we get to the edge of an in-breath or the edge of an out-breath,

Just holding that breath for a few seconds between the transition,

Just giving us pause during this transition to notice the sensation and then letting go of the breath,

Allowing your breath to happen automatically along with all the other functions in the body,

Pulling your awareness back to just noticing now without engaging,

Just taking in,

Noticing sensation without figuring it out,

Trying to understand,

Just being,

Noticing the awareness,

Noticing in this state you are here,

There's this aspect within you always,

It's quieter,

Non-attached,

Present version of yourself,

Always there,

Always available,

And then we'll take three quicker breaths to bring ourselves back,

Full in,

Full out,

Feeling into the hands and the feet,

Fingers and the toes,

Beginning to open the eyes in a soft focus,

Bringing this sense of peace,

Calm,

Connected self back into the game.

Connected self back into the game.

Reviews

My takeaway: Thinking about tension as a self-protection mechanism enabled me to shift into better prioritizing self care.. :) KEY: 5*Insightful 4*Interesting 3*Okay 2*Not For Me 1*Irritating