Being Somatically Anchored In Life

In this longer embodied guided rest, Li slowly guides our attention in ways that teaches us how we have choice to co-regulate our brains and nervous systems. In the spirit of allowance, Li gives lots of possibilities with regards to what is easiest/accessible for our attention to rest with, taking us deeper into getting intimate and safe with ourselves.
From a client: The way Li slowly helped me to discover may own anchors, and then spend time with getting to experience them, has been so useful in being able to be in the present moment, and live life while being connected with the present moment. Connecting with anchors while sitting, standing and walking has allowed me to take what I'm learning in this rest mediation out into life, and stay anchored in my day.

As with all recordings, please push pause any time you'd like to stay longer with what is being connected with and explored.

Transcript

Yeah, So just letting yourself settle into your space, Wherever you are, If you're standing, If you're sitting, If you're laying. Take a moment to settle in and keep the eyes open for a little, We're gonna start with the eyes open. So you can even see what you're settling into, Whether it's a couch or a chair or a bed or if someone happens to be standing, You can just notice your position in space with your eyes open. And then I'm gonna invite you to just take a very slow, Gentle look around. And so we may be feeling some anxiety or challenge internally, But we're gonna just double check with our surroundings and all of our surroundings are different, But we're going to make sure that there's no imminent threat in our surroundings. There may be challenge in our immediate surroundings, But we're gonna differentiate between challenge and imminent threat. So we're just double checking, We're letting the cognition through our eyes see if there's any imminent threat. And if there is, We should choose a different location. You know, Like if there's literal imminent threat, We should not be in this space, But we're letting our eyes like really verify that. And we're looking at the walls, The walls are hopefully solid, The ceiling solid, The floor that we can see solid. And we're just, Again, Looking around, Really fact-checking, Really seeing through the sense perception of sight that there's no one chasing us, There's no imminent danger, The walls aren't caving in, Et cetera. And we're also gonna include the space behind us because the brain wants to know what's going on behind us. We just gently, If we can, Just gently look a little behind our left shoulder and our right shoulder in whatever order you do. And we're just verifying to the brain that regardless of what we might be feeling inside, There's no imminent danger outside of us in the space that we're in right now. And then we're going to let our eyes take a look, Continue to take a look around our room and find an object or two that for you doesn't need to be managed or figured out or fixed. It could be a color that your eyes identify. It's like, Oh yeah, I can just kind of softly look at that color. I don't need to change it, Manage it, Fix it. It might be a texture that you see or some kind of simple object. But whatever your eyes rest upon, The invitation is for it to be an object that doesn't require managing, Figuring out, Fixing. And we're gonna let the eyes just kind of rest in a soft gaze, A soft inclusion of that object or color or shape. Yeah, Nothing for the thoughts to do about this object or just curiously holding it in attention while we sit and breathe. If that object grows weary, You can choose a different source for your eyes to rest upon. And the same kind of way we're choosing an object to include in our attention, Our visual attention, That doesn't need to be managed or figured out to give that part of our brain a little rest. And instead, We're just using the power of our eyes and instead, We're just using the part of our brain that's observing, Observing without judgment, Observing without managing. And if attention drifts away, That's fine. Just gently bring it back to this object that there's nothing to do about other than include visually. Nothing to fix, Nothing to figure out, Nothing to manage. Or seeing it as what I call an actual, Factual, Just is very simple, Simply what it is. Nothing to negotiate or maneuver with. And with that same kind of perception of just observing or connecting to what simply is or actual, Factual, We'll bring our eyes back to what we're sitting upon or laying upon. And just seeing that through the same lens, Seeing the couch or the chair or whatever just as a solid object that we don't need to manage, We don't need to figure out. This object is doing its job, Which is to hold the body. So whether it's the floor or a bed or a chair, All of these objects hold our bodies due to the field of gravity. And we can see that kind of actually, Factually with our eyes open, We can see our sitting body or our standing bodies or our laying bodies. And we can see the object or the surface that we're connected to, Just offering that relationship of connection. And wherever you see your body making contact, So for me, It's mainly through, I can see my legs sitting cross-legged on this couch. I can see the couch under my legs. I can see that solid couch. I'm gonna let my eyes close and now I'm gonna feel the solid couch under my legs. So for you in your own context, Let the eyes gently close and now feel what you have been seeing. Feel that simple, Actual, Factual support of contact. And you might have some choices here. You might have feet on the floor, So you could choose to feel the feet on the floor. Experiencing that contact, You might have something behind your back. I do, I have a pillow behind my back so I could feel that contact in an actual, Factual way, The pillow meeting my back and the back meeting the pillow. If you're resting on your side, You'll feel that place of contact or sit bones. Could even be hands resting somewhere. So there's not a right way to feel our body anchored in this moment. We're just letting our attention come to the simplest way that we feel this direct relationship with gravity and the object that we're being supported by. Not trying to figure anything out. We don't need to figure gravity out, Thank goodness. We don't need to figure the chair out, Thank goodness. Just inviting our attention to experience what's already happening, Which is this placement on something solid. Yeah. And bringing our attention to the experience of that. So we all know that we can't just magically turn off thoughts so thoughts will likely be coming. That means you have a brain. So just notice the thoughts will be coming and going. It could be thoughts about yesterday or tomorrow or what are we doing now or all sorts of different kinds of calibered thoughts. Whatever those thoughts are, Just notice them as thoughts and then gently bringing that attention back to the simplest place of contact that your body has with the field of gravity or with this chair, Bed, Couch, Et cetera in this moment. Moving forward, I'll just refer to it as a sitting body but you can change that language in your own context. Again, Just noticing the simplest, Most actual factual experiences of sitting. Not thoughts about sitting or concepts about sitting but how your body's directly experiencing sitting through sit bones or feet or back or hands or yeah, Any way that you can really feel it most easily. And we're really inviting that actual factual lens to be here where we don't need to manage what we're noticing. We don't need to be figuring out our sitting-ness including or acknowledging the experience of what's already happening. And we might notice the heaviness of our bodies, The heaviness of our limbs. The arms don't have a job to do right now really. The legs don't have much of a job. They just get to be resting and get to be heavy. So we might start to feel the weight of arms or legs or we might start to feel the shoulders drop. We might even feel other areas that habitually or innocently hold. For me, It's often my jaw. I just have some habitual patterning of holding in my jaw and my cheeks. So I might just check to see like, Ah, Is that accidentally holding? Can that soften? For other people, It might be the shoulders or it could be the inner thighs, Could be even the hands might accidentally habitually clench. And we don't have an expectation for any part of our body right now. We're just seeing what's possible. If the hands habitually grasp, Is it okay for them to soften in this moment? If the chest or the belly habitually clench or grasp, Can they soften a little bit right now? And maybe yes, Maybe no. We're noticing what is able to soften a little bit as we're supported by the object that we're connected with. If you're noticing a clenching or a holding and it just kind of seems to need to be there, Great, Just let it be. We're not trying to fix anything or manage or figure anything out. We're just kind of observing or experiencing and seeing what might be available to soften. And we might also just observe what needs to stay a little bit in holding. That's okay too. We might notice some peripheral sensations of the sitting body like air on the skin, Maybe air on the face or for me I don't have, I'm wearing a sleeveless shirt so I can feel the air on my arms. You might just notice the space around you through air on skin. You might notice the shape of you, The shape of, If we had an outline around us, This outline or shape, It moves, It moves with our breath. So we might just notice that. We might notice that we take up more space around us when we breathe in and a little less when we breathe out. And we just notice this movement of filling and emptying. We can keep our attention kind of on the outside of our bodies or of the upward and downward movement for just a little longer. Just noticing that movement of inhalation takes us up slightly towards the ceiling most likely and that exhalation brings us just a little bit down into the field of gravity, Back down towards our chair. And we're just gonna continue to be our own little scientist of our experience. So just noticing that movement of breath and how it influences or shapes us, Makes us bigger, Makes us smaller in different parts of the breathing cycle. And there's nothing to manage there or make happen. Breath does all of that for us. So we can just observe, Continue to use that observational part of our brain. We don't have to manage or figure out or fix the breath because we're all born breathing for the most part. So in this moment, Breath is just gonna be breathing us. We could be maneuvering breath if we wanted or altering breath if we wanted, But we can also just let breath breathe us. We can kind of sit back and just wait for that breath to come in and then when it's ready to let that exhale, Breathe out. If we wanna keep our attention in this way, We can by noticing the filling and the emptying or the rising to the ceiling and the dropping back to gravity. And or we could also notice the interior space of where breath lives. We might notice the nostrils, And that experiential aspect of breath. The breathing mechanism goes from nostrils all the way to pelvic floor. So that's a lot of territory to potentially explore. But I want you to choose what's really simple and easy. If it's nostrils and just hanging out with the air coming in and out of the nostrils, Stay there. If it's the air coming in and out of the nostrils, Stay there. If it's easy for you and simple for you to notice the breathing mechanism near the pelvic floor or anywhere in between the lungs or the belly, You get to choose what's simplest for you to experience breath. Again, You might be noticing thoughts coming in, Thoughts of past or future or analyzing thoughts of this moment. Just notice them as thoughts. Our brains are designed to have thoughts, So we will have them. And as soon as you do notice like, Ah, My attention has gone to thought, The invitation is just to gently bring that attention back to something of sitting and breathing, Back to something experiential that is very simple, That you don't need to manage or figure out. And those thoughts might be wanting to manage something. That's perfectly normal. We use our thoughts to manage things. And sometimes that's really, Really useful and important and necessary. In this moment, We're just seeing if we can, If we need to use those managing thoughts to be sitting or if we need to be using those managing thoughts or if we need to be using those managing thoughts to be breathing. And maybe the answer is yes, Maybe the answer is no. Just see what's possible as you keep bringing your attention back to what is the simplest aspect of either sitting and or breathing. And maybe to yourself, Just have a conversation with yourself of right now, What are some simple experiences that your attention is anchoring with? So for example, If noticing the inhalation in and out of the nostrils is really simple and easy, That might be one of your anchors, One of a place that your attention can anchor. If your attention really has an easy time with where the sit bones are, For example, That might be an anchoring experiential area that your attention has an easy time including or anchoring with. And you may have a few anchors. So just let yourself have that conversation of discovery when you determine or experience or discover those anchored experientials. Just let your attention hang out with those. And those experiential anchors are kind of gonna be the center of your existence for a little bit here as if keeping attention here is the most important, This is key. And yes, Attention may drift away or maybe a certain percentage of attention is other places, But we're gonna practice the majority of your attention resting with those anchors and just hanging out there. And this is what I call the movie theater chair where our anchors are really anchored. Like, Ah, This is my movie theater chair where I might notice a movie, Images and thoughts and stories coming and going in that imaginary screen in front of me. But I'm gonna remember that I'm in this chair now. It's like when we go to the movie theater and we start to get really freaked out and it's like, We might have to have that self-conversation like, Oh yeah, I'm not the one being chased. I'm in my movie theater chair, Literally. I'm not being chased, I'm not on that screen. I wanna reorganize my attention, Recalibrator, Re-regulate, Co-regulate. So we're not at the movie theater, So we're not at the movie theater but we're kind of using that metaphor, That practice of having these anchors that allow us to remember that we are within a simple experience, Perhaps having not simple thoughts and perhaps not having complete simple experiences but we're bringing attention to some simple experiences through these anchors. And letting these anchors be our movie theater chair where we can really rest in, Be supported in. And again and again, We're gonna bring attention back to these anchors. We're gonna do our best to not give ourselves a hard time when our attention leaves. We're just gonna gently bring our attention back to these simple anchors and hang out in the sitting breathing body with these anchors. Getting really curious of your anchors. We're really getting intimate. So whatever your anchors are, Getting to know them even more. What are the temperatures there? Is there movement at all in your anchored experiential location? Just observing, Just getting to know this area. Are there textures of some sort? Are there other energies that maybe are really moving you? Really subtle, Maybe even impossible to name with particular words or identifiers but you can feel, You can experience these energetics. And just hanging out with what you're getting to know. So we're gonna keep inviting attention to stay with these anchored experientials. Even though we also notice there's other experiences here, Maybe there's sounds that are happening or smells or thoughts. And we're just gonna just notice them coming and going, Keeping more of our attention on those anchors. So like a boat has an anchor, It doesn't stop moving or functioning as a boat. It rides those waves, It's moving, It's sometimes going all over the place but something of that boat doesn't leave that anchored, The anchor that's anchored into the earth, Right? So in this kind of way, We're keeping some attention with what's just so simple. And doesn't require managing or figuring out. Knowing that other things are gonna get into our attention, Things that maybe want us to figure them out and we're just gonna observe them, Just notice them. We're not going to figure them out or try to figure those thoughts out that are coming. We're just gonna notice that they might have a little bit of that figuring out appeal or that we might often jump on the bandwagon of figuring out with regards to thoughts. Again, We're not making that bad or wrong, We're just observing that tendency or habitualness. And all the while keeping some of our attention on what is just very moored, Very anchored, Very simple and actual, Factual. In our movie theater chair where we might literally be able to lean back or at least lean into our anchors. Sometimes people find that a thought connected to an anchor can be useful, Sometimes people call those mantras. So if there's a sentence that helps you to stay anchored, You can use that sentence. It could be, I'm breathing in, I'm breathing out. It could be, My sit bones are here. And you just repeat that over and over. It could be any sentence that you want. Experientials often can anchor us. So sometimes like we compare experiences and that helps us stay, Our attention stay occupied with anchored experiences. Or movement can help us stay anchored. So there's different ways to occupy our attention with this very present moment using sometimes sense perceptions of touch, Sometimes sound, Narratives, Other things. We can be experimenters, Little scientists of our experience. I'm just gonna be quiet for a few breath cycles just so we can experiment. So as your attention continues to be with your anchors, I'm gonna invite your eyes to slowly open. And we're not gonna look at anything, Like we're not gonna look at the screen necessarily or anything to figure anything out. We're just gonna let the eyes softly open. And we might be just kind of have a soft gaze at something that happens to be in front of us. Let it be something simple. That's something that doesn't require figuring out our managerial brain. And even though the eyes are now open, We're also keeping the bulk of our attention in that anchored inner experience. So we're sharing attention, We're sharing, We're ideally or the invitation is to start with our anchored experience as the center of our attention universe. Attention universe. And then we're including a visual from there. And if you notice when your eyes are open that you kind of lose your interior anchor, Just let the eyes gently close, Reestablish that anchor. When you reestablish that anchor, Then let the eyes open back up again. Softly, The eyes softly looking at something that's simple. Staying connected to your anchors internally or experientially inside your sitting and breathing body in some way or another. And then we're gonna practice another step of sharing attention. This one's gonna involve standing up or just shifting positions, Whatever makes sense in your environment. So if it makes sense, Let your body start to prepare for standing. So for me, That means I need to come to the edge of my couch. Now my attention is still being invited to stay with my anchors. So my attention is still with my anchors, Whatever they are. They may need to reestablish, Right? Because now I'm in a different context. I don't have that pillow behind me anymore, So I can't use the pillow as an anchor. In your own, So you translate that to your own experience. What might your new anchor be in this positioning as you're preparing to stand up and or adjust that to your surroundings, To your context? If you want to close the eyes for a minute to reestablish that anchor, Let yourself do that. And we're just letting attention connect experientially or to the experience. It's very simple in this moment, Very actual, Factual. An experience that doesn't require figuring out or managing. It's just simply, It's already here. Letting that anchor continue to be utilized with your attention. And then we're gonna come to standing and you don't need to be, You can be off camera. So you're just letting yourself stand whatever's in it, Whether it's easy for you. And we're just pausing here. Now we might have to find another anchor, Right? So because we're in a different context, So standing, Whatever your positioning is, See what your new anchor is, Experientially. Not as a concept, But as a lived experience. It might still be the same for some of us. Might still be the pelvic floor area or the nostrils or whatever. But it might be something different. So you get to choose what's most useful, What's useful to have your attention connected with in this moment. And then we're gonna move. We're gonna go into just very slow walking, Just in the space that you're in. Might even just be a few steps. Maybe you're in a really small space. So it might just be a couple of paces forward and just a few steps. And then we're gonna move. It might just be a couple of paces forward and then you turn around and go the other direction, But go very slow and notice, Did you leave your anchor? Did your attention leave your anchor? If it did, No worries. Just gently reestablish your attention with that anchor. And maybe the anchor needs to change again. Maybe it's not what it was, But it's something different. Where is a resting place for your attention in this simple movement? It doesn't require figuring out or managing. It's just simply here. If you need to pause and close the eyes, At any time you get to do that, Reestablish that relationship with your anchor. We're basically recalibrating our brain to a very actual, Factual, Or simple experiential component of this moment. And so if you need to close your eyes to do that, Great. Go as slow or fast as you want. And just see what you notice. Maybe if when you walk faster, It's easier. Maybe when you walk faster, It's impossible. We don't know. There's no right or wrong here. It's just, You get to notice. And then do what helps you to reestablish that anchor. Maybe it's slowing down. Maybe it's standing still. Maybe it's closing the eyes. You get to choose. And we're gonna make our way back to the chair. Keeping the eyes open, Just seeing what that's like now that you've got a seated spot. You got the chair back with you or whatever. See what that's like with your anchor in relationship with your anchor. And then I'm gonna invite you to do a little bit of, A little bit of journaling. So maybe just like if you have a piece of paper or a computer or a phone, Just make some notes of what you learned in this rest recording, In this experiential rest. Like what did you learn that you wanna remember? What are some things for you that you like, Yeah, I wanna remember X. Or I wanna keep practicing Z. And just take your time with that. You could also, Like if you're listening to this again later, You might let yourself pause during the recording or take longer to journal afterwards with, But just for now, Yeah, Like make us a few notes and then we'll come back together here in a moment.