SRS Session 1 | Equanimity

Session 1 is all about balance - developing the skills of graceful acceptance to ride the waves of life with joy and ease. This meditation includes a guided visualization. The Spiritual Recalibration Series (SRS) is designed to help you expand your awareness into a new, more open, curious and expansive way of being in daily life. This impactful series comprises 33 sessions, each with a short topic (the recalibration) followed by guided meditation. Meditations include affirmations, visualizations, and brief periods of quiet, musical stillness.

Transcript

Okay, Welcome back to the Spiritual Recalibration Series. Thank you for embarking on this series and opening yourself to a new way of being. My name is David, And this is Session One, Equanimity. Find a comfortable seat in a space where you can allow yourself 20 minutes or so, Undistracted, To focus just on you. A quick reminder, To get the most out of this series, Please be sure you've listened to the Welcome Session, Session Zero. Here we go. So equanimity, It's that lovely sounding word. It's another way to think of it, I think, Is balance. So this was a word that came up for me years ago, And I can't say that I've ever, It was kind of an ideal to be balanced, Which is not super affected by stuff that happens outside. So I'll give you just an example of how I was playing with this, This week. The reason it came up, Or what the initial inspiration was, Like, Oh, Well, I think that's the next thing that I'm going to think on a little bit, Was my car. So when you get to, When you get a car that's, You know, Around 130, 000 miles, I guess if you're a car person, A car guy, Then that's maybe exciting, Because you can tinker with it a little bit, And when something goes wrong, Maybe you know how to fix it, But that's not me. I'm not really a car guy. So here, Living, You know, In the Northeast, You know, We get winter and we get snow, And I have a car that has that many miles, I start to get a little nervous about it, And so I start thinking, I guess maybe now it's time to look at something else. So that's what happened, And I went through the process, You know, Found something new to drive with a lesser miles, And my wife asked me, I think the day I got it, Or maybe it was two days before I was supposed to go and test drive this car, And maybe buy it, If I was excited, And my answer was no, I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't excited, She was kind of a little perplexed, You know, It's a, You know, It's a new car, You can't get excited about that, And so I got curious, So why am I not excited, I mean, It was going to be nice, You know, And cool, And there were definitely things to get excited about, But I was just kind of curious about not feeling excited, Because I could remember in the past feeling excited, So I started getting curious, And so excitement is kind of way up on this curve that I imagine, You're super juiced and excited, And then the other side of that curve is way down here, Right, Which is, You know, Really sad, Or just really low, Like super low energy, So another way is super high energy and super low energy, And so what equanimity is, And I'm not, And I'm not saying that I am a professor of equanimity, This is certainly something I'm playing with, Just getting curious about the idea of living sort of somewhere in the middle, Where, Yeah, Where, And it's kind of builds on the idea that we were talking last time about, About contentment, Where we don't get too high, But then we also don't get too low, Sort of riding, Riding the waves a little bit is how I think of it, So that's, That's another, Maybe, Maybe a metaphor here is with the waves, I don't know, When you were kids, Maybe it was yesterday, You know, Playing in the waves, But I went to Virginia Beach a few summers ago with my daughters, And I remember, And when they were little, You know, Going to the ocean, Playing in the waves with them, You kind of get to revisit being a little kid, And there's a couple different ways you can play in the waves, Right, You can, I remember one time, So one of the ways, So you can ride the waves, Certainly, And that's one thing that can be kind of exciting if you catch one, When you, When you catch one, It kind of rushes over you, But you can also like dive through them, Right, So the waves are coming, And you can kind of dive, Dive through them and come up on the other side, And then there's, So there's all this like playing in the waves you can do, And you can do it aggressively, Or you can do it easily, But as we, The other thing that I remember doing with my big brother was he would stand there and kind of like this sumo stance, Right, And you're standing there, And you're going to brace for the waves, Right, And maybe when the waves come, You get aggressive, And like you want to punch them, Or hold them, Or do something with those waves, But ultimately, You can't control the waves, Right, You can't really, You can't fight the waves, You can't win, The waves, And the waves don't stop with the ocean, They just sort of keep coming, And such is life, Right, Life just happens, And life comes, And then the waves come, And things do tend to come in waves, Another, Another thing that that came up for me, Just before we, Just before this call was, I worked at Burger King, My first, My first real job, Where I put on a uniform, And went to work, I think I was 14, And I remember noticing when I was at Burger King, The, That the people coming to order their burgers and food, It would come in waves, It would get super busy, Super busy, And then it'll be really quiet, And then super busy, And really quiet, So I just noticed that things tend to come in waves, So we're going to use waves a little bit during our visualization here, In just a few minutes, Sort of riding those waves, And it's kind of like, The waves, It's kind of, We can think of it, Not just, You know, The external circumstances of what happens in life, As life comes in waves, You know, Right now we have the election, And soon the election will be over, And that would be, And a new normal will set in, And waves sort of come, And you know, Things happen in life, But we can also think about it in terms of thoughts, Right, So meditation is not about stopping our thoughts, We're humans, And we have human minds, And that's what happens, Thoughts just come, Thousands of them throughout the day, So as we sit back and watch those thoughts, Knowing that it's not about stopping them, But about allowing them, Riding them, If you will, Because, You know, Again, As humans, We tend to do things, So we kind of want to do something, We want to do something with those waves, But with equanimity, This balance, Not too high, Not too low, It seems like that's where we get buoyant, If we keep with this wave analogy, And then the last thing that I wanted to bring up was, So this not getting too excited, And not getting too low, It's not about not caring, That was something that came up, It's not that we don't care, There is a yogic sage, I heard a story told about him over in India, And he has, You know, Lots of devotees and followers and such, And at one point, They asked him, You know, Kind of what the secret is, What's your secret to, You know, Being this peaceful sage, Saint sort of person, And his answer stuck out at me, You know, The quote has stuck with me, And what he said was, I don't mind what happens, So to me, That's certainly not about not caring about what happens, It's that I don't mind what happens, So that struck me as relevant for our conversation today, And it does remind me again about something we talked about the last time, Which is that it seems like, Like contentment, It circles back around to trust, To a certain extent, Trusting in that sort of, Trusting the waves, I guess, In this case, Okay, So is that all? Yeah, I think that's all, All right, Let's go into a short, A short practice here, A short practice here, If you're sitting in a chair, Make sure you're sitting comfortably, Check in with your posture, Sit nice and upright, Draw your shoulder blades together gently, Feet firmly on the ground, Placing your palms, Either palms up or down, Your choice on your thighs, At the juncture of thighs and abdomen, Or a little bit further forward, If that's more comfortable for you, Play with that, See which is more comfortable for your shoulders, Want to make sure your shoulders are relaxed, Allow your breath to come naturally, Just a few moments, Focusing on the breath, See if you can locate that spot in your nostrils, Where you can feel the breath, Cool on the inhale, Warm on the exhale, Your mind will naturally wander, This is what the mind does, This is the practice, Notice it, Notice the thinking, Draw your focus back to your breath, Notice your thinking, And come back to your breath, Allow those thoughts to flow, And come back to your breath, As you focus on the breath, The breath may begin to slow down, That's good, As the breath slows down, The mind slows down, As the mind slows down, The breath grows quiet, As the breath grows quiet, The mind grows quiet, To the extent that it does, And that's good, It's a virtuous cycle, Breath and mind, Quiet, Relax your face, Allow your tongue to fall away from the roof of your mouth, Relax your jaw, Notice if your eyes, Or your eyelids, Are tense, Relax them, Eyelids close gently, If they're closed, Eyes gently drawn upward toward the point between the eyebrows, Gently, It's a gentle upward gaze, Notice your thinking, And come back to the breath, Allow the breath to be just as it is, Allow yourself to be just as you are, Allow things, All things to be just as they are, You can let go of watching the breath, Focusing gently at the point between the eyebrows, Take an intentional inhale through the nose, And a triple exhale through the mouth, Good, Good, Allow yourself to see, Allow yourself to see yourself, Allow yourself to be, Sitting in meditation, On a beach, Sitting in the sand, Listening to the waves, Coming gently, Some bigger than others, Coming up onto the shore, And pulling back, On a warm day, A comfortable day, Clear sky, Just you, Just you in the ocean, Just you in the ocean, The waves coming and going, And now notice, Just a little bit offshore, A single duck, It's a curious thing to see, A duck in the ocean, Ducks are a little bit silly, With their duck bill, Turned into a, What looks like a gentle smile, They're colorful, Playful, That single duck, Floating out there, Floating out there, Perfectly balanced, His webbed feet, Underneath the surface, Relaxed, By keeping him balanced and buoyant, His broad belly, Resting on the water, As he rides the waves, A big wave comes, And he floats, Right along with it, And a little wave comes out there, And he floats along with that too, Just being, In the ocean, And of the ocean, This lovely little duck, And you can be, As this duck, On the waves, Allow yourself, To ride along with them, Perfectly balanced, Right in the middle, Now let go of this visualization, Of the ocean, And the duck, But hold on for just a few moments, This feeling of balance, Of riding, Gracefully, With ease, His waves of life, Equanimity, Is the word, Good, And now, Take a normal breath in and out, Breath in and out, Prepare to come back to the room, Or the space where you are, And when you're ready, You can open your eyes, Or, I invite you to stay, Stay here for as long as you like.