Being Home In Our Being

In this 23 minute rest we deepen into the space of a regulated brain and nervous system, which allow us to connect with becoming more intimate with how we are cared for in every moment in a practical, actual/factual way. In doing so we discover our relationship with Home. We also connect with writing prompts which may help us deepen into our learnings and discoveries.

Transcript

All right,

So if you haven't settled in,

Go ahead and let yourself settle in.

And let's just start with the eyes open as we have been doing just to take a minute to orient to this moment with our,

With the parts of our brain that connect to sight.

The reptilian brain does like to know what's going on in actual factual,

In actuality.

So we're just really for the benefit of our whole brain and nervous system starting with the eyes open to just very gently let your eyes notice some actual factual misses of your space.

As you know,

My lately I've been drawn to just noticing textures of walls.

Just observing,

Noting the different textures that that's just my mind of the walls or the ceiling or the floor.

But you might have other things that are just things that you observe,

Maybe colors or shadows,

Lights,

Colors.

Let yourself look up and look down slowly.

Let yourself very gently turn to look to the left and,

And or the right in whatever order you want.

Again,

This engages the vagus nerve which runs through our psoas.

And it also lets our reptilian brain know that there's nothing dangerous behind us.

And as we gently look around,

We are reptilian brain also notes there's nothing dangerous in the room that we're in.

We may be having some feelings on the inside or having thoughts,

But we're cataloging to note with the eyes open and the part of our brain that can observe there's no actual danger in the room.

And that's important for a nervous system to just actually factually note.

And then we can look down to see where we're sitting.

See what we're sitting upon.

See the actual factual positioning of our bodies,

Our limbs,

Saying hi to the legs as they are high to the arms as they are the hands positioned however they are.

Anything else you can can see.

And then just gradually letting the eyes soften.

And then we can feel into those spaces that we were seeing a moment ago,

We can say hello to the feeling of the hands or the legs or the arms.

We can say hello to the space behind us that we couldn't see,

But we can feel we might even be able to say hello to the space that we are occupying in some kind of way as our body is filled up with that space when we breathe in.

When we feel when we breathe out.

Bringing more attention to the places that your body is making contact with.

So as we're in this field of gravity,

We have weight and we rest upon solidity in all moments.

So just noting your own connections to the solidity now,

Based on your context of sitting or or lying or maybe someone standing.

This the solid context that you're upon chair,

Bed,

Floor.

With your bodies,

You could also do it with your thoughts or your intellect,

But with your bodies,

Notice what's being supported by this chair bed floor.

Feel feel what's being supported.

Maybe it's the small of the back that you can feel real directly.

Maybe it's the feet,

The soles of the feet that's being supported really directly by self solidity.

Maybe it's the hands,

Right?

So there's no right or wrong answer to this question.

It's a question that gets discovered through bringing our attention into our experience of sitting.

Let your attention keep orienting to that place of this moment of sitting or laying or standing,

Or you can really feel the support in a practical,

Actual factual way.

Feel that space of solidity that's supporting something of your sittingness right now.

Supporting your being right now.

And then just notice how much effort is needed in that area.

If your hands are feeling the support or your lower back or your feet or whatever,

Just notice how much effort is required in my hands,

For example,

Or your lower my lower back to feel that support.

How much trying do I need to be putting in?

Do I need to try at all?

No wrong answer,

Just notice.

Sometimes we try when we don't need to.

We work really hard at something that we might not need to work really hard at and I don't know if you do or not in this moment,

But just see.

Do the hands need to work hard or the feet need to work hard to feel solidity under?

Maybe you let your attention meander to other areas of your sitting body.

And just notice again habitual holdings or habitual tryings or muscles that might be engaging from habit and in this moment do they need to be?

And for me I might ask like that my inner thighs,

It's a place sometimes I accidentally hold.

Do I need to hold the thighs right now?

Or do I need to hold the belly right now?

Or do I need to hold some part of my arms or back?

And the answer might be yes,

So we're not looking for an answer,

We're just asking the question to see what reveals.

And we're also looking for the space that we can be supported fully or more fully by the solidity that we're upon.

Can I really let this bed or chair do its job and hold my body?

Just notice the yeses,

Notice the noes and then just ultimately come back to what is being held.

Can you let gravity do her job of holding your form and the chair do its job of holding your form,

Your being?

Look for the spaces of possibility with that,

Without an agenda.

What muscles might soften?

What releasing might happen with the exhalation or even with the inhalation?

And we're going to bring that same curiosity to breath.

When we're sleeping,

We trust the object that we're on to hold our bodies.

When we are sleeping,

We trust our bodies to breathe us.

We don't stay awake managing breath or managing gravity or managing the bed.

We hand ourselves over to the field of gravity.

We hand ourselves over to the breathing,

The wise breathing mechanism that always is here.

And we say unconsciously,

Usually,

Okay,

I trust you.

I'm going to sleep.

I will be cared for.

And then we wake up and we forget that we don't need to be in charge of breath.

We forget that we don't have to manage breath.

And we can,

We can,

We can choose to manage breath.

There's nothing,

Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

In this moment,

We want to explore into the possibility of letting breath breathe us just like we've been letting the chair support us.

So in a moment,

Not quite yet,

But in a moment,

I'm going to ask you to not breathe in.

So not yet.

But in a moment,

I'm going to ask you to not breathe in.

And what that means is don't hold your breath.

It just means don't try to breathe in.

And don't hold your breath to refuse air.

We're going to just do a simple experiment to notice how we are breathed.

So in the next cycle,

When you exhale,

Just let your body stay in that exhaling and just wait.

You can come back in your chair or your bed and just wait.

If you let the body,

The body will breathe you because that's this design is to breathe us.

So in this moment,

We are inviting ourselves to stay dropped into this field of gravity designed to take care of us through this chair.

And in this moment,

We're inviting ourselves to allow breath to do her work of breathing us.

Inviting wisdom and divinity to care for us through the breath of life.

We don't have to manage that we can be an engaged participant and receiver of daily in the back and just observe breath doing her work.

If you can stay out of the quality of breath,

Stay out of how it feels and just notice that the breath is here.

Just actually factually,

It is happening.

Maybe it feels good and maybe it doesn't.

But if possible for a moment to set aside your likes and dislikes,

Not making them bad or good,

Just letting breath herself be the subject of our attention,

Just noticing that breath is happening.

We are within breath.

We are within the field of gravity.

And our minds may be coming in right now to narrate or analyze or have commentary and that's okay.

It's happening while our bodies are being received and nourished.

If your attention is going to those mental capacities,

Just acknowledge that and if possible,

Gently drop your attention back into the happenings that we don't have to manage.

We may want to and that's okay,

But we don't have to.

We don't have to manage how the couch is supporting the body or how the breath just comes in and flows out or leaves the body.

If it's useful for you to have a little mantra,

To give your mind a little mantra,

It might be something like receiving with inhalation,

Releasing with the exhalation and maybe even a nice audible sigh like you tend to hear me doing.

Maybe letting the mouth or the embouchure soften.

Ah,

Feeling that releasing,

Feeling that receiving.

And maybe you feel a receiving when you exhale and you feel a releasing when you inhale.

So there's no right or wrong or good or bad here.

Just play with your experience.

Notice in this moment,

Even if it's just 1%,

What feels like home,

Being at home in this moment where there's nothing to take care of,

Nothing to do,

Nowhere to go where you are being taken care of in some way or another.

We're going to slowly start to transition out of this time.

Before we do that,

Just notice what you have discovered today or are discovering now.

What do you want to deepen into?

What have you learned today or what have you discovered today that you want to deepen into or learn more about or discover more with?

Maybe what do you want to get to know more about this experience that you're having in any kind of way?

Maybe you really notice your resistances and you want to explore those more.

Maybe you're noticing your receiving and you want to know that more,

Maybe both and.

Before you open the eyes,

If they're still closed,

We're going to be spending some time writing about this in a moment.

Let's take care and first just gently let the body start to move just a little bit side to side or maybe back and forth or maybe letting the arms stretch or the fingers stretch.

Maybe the back wants to arch or the belly wants to do something.

Gently let the eyes start to open if they're not yet.

And then come to your journal or your keyboard to connect a little bit.

So you may write about again,

You may write about what we've already named with the prompts or this new prompt,

Which is what you're learning about your relationship with breath and or how to align your attention with this moment.

We'll just take some time to write on that.