Connecting To Our Outside & Inside Experiences

In this 30-minute recording, Lisa gently guides us in noticing that which we often try to avoid: uncomfortable sensations. She helps us become intimate with the backside of our body, then front side of our body, and then the space between the back and the front, where we learn how to identify easy sensations, and then be in a relationship with challenging or uncomfortable sensations and experiences in our bodies.

Transcript

So just letting yourself, If you're not already comfortable, Just letting yourself rearrange yourself in your chair, In your space, And make sure that you're taking care of yourself in the way that you need to in this moment. So if you get cold, Have a blanket. If you get stiff, Move around. If you need to stand, Of course that's welcome. So there's no right way to be here right now. There's just the way that feels comfortable for you to be most present, To be most connected to yourself. So with this invitation to connect for us all in our own ways to connect with ourself, We'll just literally drop into how our bodies are connecting to our chairs. Let's just start with the literal connection that's here. So just noticing your own bodies, The outside of your body, So to speak, The outside of your body is touching literally, What it's resting against or being supported by. Noticing whatever is behind your back. If there is anything behind your head, Noticing that too, Or maybe just space behind your head. Noticing that the space behind your head, If there's nothing there, Will feel different than the space behind your back that's supported by a chair. And feeling that space behind your back that's supported by the chair, Feeling it pressing in, Feeling it resting upon. Noticing the space of contact just as it is for you in your exact predicament. So for me, I have a pillow behind my mid to lower back. I have nothing behind my upper back, So I can feel the space behind my upper back where there's just clothing. And I feel that space and then it feels quite different behind my lower back where there's a pillow there, A soft pillow that I'm literally leaned back into. Just letting your spine know that there is literal support behind you in some kind of way. Maybe it's not until you get to the sit bones or the tailbone, But there's going to be some support somewhere under you depending on how you're positioned. Now you can be leaned forward if you want or you can be leaned back. It doesn't matter. There's no right or wrong way to be here. The invitation is just to notice how your body, Your bones are making contact in this moment. And you can even have a little internal conversation with yourself like, Ah, Okay, Pillow, I can feel you pressing into that middle, Middle spine right there. Let's check in with ourselves. And then we get to the sit bones and it's a very overt connection that's there. The weight of our body is resting upon the chair through our sit bones since we're all sitting. And again, We'll feel it differently based on the context of how we're positioned. So there isn't a right way to be feeling your sit bones or feeling the underneath part of the chair or the underneath part of the legs. There's just the way that you are. Some of us might have cushions underneath us and some of us might not. So for some of us, We might notice a hardness and some of us might notice a softness just depending on context. You might notice the difference between under the sit bones and behind the back. I notice, Oh, The cushion under my sit bones is, It feels different than the cushion behind my back. So we're just noticing that nothing right or wrong about it, Nothing good or bad about it. We're just, I'm just noticing the differences. Underneath the thighs. And then again, Depending on context, If you're listening to this and you're laying down, You'll feel the container hold you or the bed or whatnot hold you all the way to your feet. But if you're sitting upright, Then you won't feel, Like right now I don't feel anything under my lower legs, For example. I just feel space. So it's all contextual, Not a right way to feel your legs in this moment, Just based on what is actually here. And we're just noticing that. We're just observing like, Oh yeah, I could feel that pressure under my upper thighs, But I don't feel that in my calves. There's nothing, There's nothing pressing into them. We get down to the feet and the feet may or may not be pressing into something. And in the same way, You just notice that. You can even have that internal dialogue of, Oh, I feel a pressing under my heel, But I don't feel it under my toes, For example. Or maybe you feel the weight of your foot on the floor very solidly. You just feel it kind of evenly under the foot. So just noticing your own context of feet and toes. Now it's okay if you're thinking about things, If you're having thoughts about how you're experiencing this moment, Or if you're having thoughts about tomorrow, Or you're having thoughts about yesterday, That's all normal to have thoughts. Just notice the thoughts and then just gently dropping your attention into something that's literally here right now, Whether it's the sit bones or the back or the feet, Something that's indisputable, So to speak, Or what I call actual factual. It's just right now. Even imagining that our attention can just scan this behind part of us, Scan the part that's behind and underneath us, This backside. I'm just noticing the backside of our existence for a moment. Even the backsides of your arms or your hands, We don't want to leave them out, We want to include them too. However, The arms and the hands are making contact. So we're kind of observing or witnessing or noticing the underneath or backside of us, And then we're going to flip it for a moment. We're going to be curious now, What's in front of us? What is our chest making contact with? Or our belly, What is the front part of us making contact with? It will feel different than the backside of us. What are the fronts of the legs making contact with? We remind ourselves that different isn't wrong, It's just different. We're just observing the differences. I notice a lot of warmth behind me and more coolness in front of me. That's not better or worse, It's just different. Just observing that. You can, With your attention, You can kind of scan down. You can imagine your, Even with your eyes closed, Your attention kind of taking note of the different sensations as you meander through the front side of your body. Noticing the space in front of you or maybe there's a blanket on top of you, The weight of that or their clothing. Again, If you're having thoughts about any of this or trying to figure anything out or manage or having judgmental thoughts, Am I doing this right? Or again, What's for dinner tomorrow? Those are all just normal thoughts to have. Just gently bringing your attention right back to this moment, What I call the actual factual, Something that's simple here now, Maybe a temperature or texture, Something fairly neutral for you. It just allows the prefrontal cortex to come online and that's the part of our brain that helps us connect to spaciousness, To witnessing, To yeah, It helps us be present. And then just kind of noticing, Noticing that we have this front side of us, We have this back side of us. Some of that we can feel really overtly and some of it we cannot or will be very subtle. When we connect to the breath, We'll literally feel the front part of our body move into the space in front of us. We'll pause with that noticing just to notice that when you inhale, Your body will, Depending on how your position, Will either move up towards the ceiling or into the space in front of you. That's just the rib cage and the diaphragm taking in air and releasing it. We can notice how the body participates with the space around us or in this case in front of us. And again, We're just watching and noticing we're not trying to have a quality of experience here. We're just noticing how the front of our body engages with the space in front of us. Noticing how the front ribs move, How the shoulders or the collarbones move. Notice how the belly might be moving. It may only be moving just tiny amounts or it may be moving a lot and that will just depend on the breath. So you don't need to try to change that unless you want to. If you want to experiment, You can on purpose take a deep breath and you'll notice more movement. That's just the physics of breath. And then we can do the same thing with our backside. We can feel, We might have to put a little more attention on this to feel the back ribs move. But when we put our attention on those back ribs, We can feel the breath moving the back ribs or maybe even the side ribs. We're just observing what's already happening. We're just noticing what's already happened that maybe we weren't noticing before. Just getting to know ourselves in this very simple, Maybe boring way. It might be boring for you. It might be easy. It might be hard. It might be not the opposite of boring, Maybe complicated. Just noticing your own experience of inviting your attention to be here in this moment with the breath, The sitting. And we're continuing to invite ourselves to notice how we're just simply, We're taking up space here and we can literally notice that in our experience. We can notice how our breath through the breathing, Our body takes up space. It moves into the space around us. And it moves, So it fills up and moves into the space around us. And then with the exhalation, It kind of releases that space a little bit or comes back in a little bit. You just can watch that. We can experience that happening. The expansion of the chest where we become a part around us, Become the space around us. And then that exhalation, Our body releases all of that and it comes kind of back to the field of gravity into the chair. We down a little bit even. The body lifts up with the inhalation and it releases down with the exhalation. And I'll just be quiet while you just observe that the mechanics of breath. Again, We're not trying to feel good or have a quality of breath. We're just noticing how our human beingness exists with breath. If you want to on purpose, You can use effort to have bigger breaths or deeper breaths that will just allow you to feel the movement more overtly. Just to study the front and the back body, Take up space, Interact with the space around us. This may be very simple for you or it may be really hard for you and that kind of depends on neuroplasticity. If you're familiar with doing this, It might have an ease to it. If you've never done it before, It just means you don't have neuroplasticity or neuropathways to this and so it will be maybe unfamiliar, Maybe a little hard, Kind of like the first time you ride a bike and you don't have those neuropathways developed. It's awkward, It's uncomfortable maybe, It's disorienting even. And then when you've ridden a bike for a long time, You have those neuropathways already created and it can become very simple, Almost effortless. Honoring and respecting your own experience of if this is easy or a little challenging. And then we're going to invite our attention to kind of come in the middle, Come in the middle of this front and back sandwich so to speak. Come into the insides between the space between the front of the body and the back of the body. And we're going to invite ourselves to use the same lens, The same noticing lens of just to observe, To notice what is happening as we breathe on the inside. What's happening between the lungs or right in that diaphragm, Belly area. And just like with noticing the outside of the body, There's no right or wrong or good or bad that you should be experiencing right now. There's just what you are experiencing. However, You might have your own thoughts about what you should be experiencing or you might have some thoughts or judgments of the way you're experiencing it. So sometimes these thoughts come in and they tell us we're not doing it right or we don't like this sensation or this shouldn't be happening or shouldn't be here. And those are all really valid thoughts. We just invite ourselves to notice them. Sometimes we might be having discomfort in that middle area where our viscera live. Today I had noticed a tightness in my chest a lot today. I noticed this tightness in my heart area and I could just notice that, Just noticing that maybe it didn't feel great and it was okay for that to be there. So you will have your own experiences. You might have a lot of fluidity or ease and you might have holdings or tensions like I was having earlier. And that could happen in the chest, The belly, Really anywhere in the visceral area or that middle section. Our human selves do have a lot going on so our bodies will just naturally have different experiences from head to toes and some of them we don't like and some of them we don't even care about or some of them we like. So just giving that lens an opportunity to notice and if you find things you don't like, That's normal. If you find things that you do like, That's normal too. And maybe even just name for yourself like, Oh I kind of like the feeling of the inhalation in my belly for example. That feels nice or that feels okay or neutral to me. It feels easy. And then somebody else might have thought of, Oh I don't like the inhalation in my belly. Yeah, Just notice that. That that's not an easy spot for you. And let yourself find a spot that is easy for a moment. Just noticing the spots that aren't or that aren't so comfortable and letting your attention kind of meander to find something in your experience right now. It could be with the breathing or it could be something different. It could be the feet or the hands or the back. Something that does feel easy or simple in this moment. Just notice how your mind responds to the easy or simple. You may not have a lot of mental activity when you find something that's very simple or easy. It could be a little more quiet in the mind or not. So just noticing your own experience as you let your attention kind of hang out with anything that has ease with it. So it could be the hands, It could be the sit bones, It could be the armpits. Definitely anything in your experience right now. Just to experiment, Letting yourself be very gentle, Gently approaching or connecting with an area that has a little less ease. Maybe it's something that you noticed earlier that was uncomfortable or yeah, It wasn't your favorite, Your favorite sensation to feel. Just kind of noticing that and noticing how that is for you in this moment and noticing your mental activity as well. Sometimes when we are experiencing something challenging, The mind and the body can spin something up, Can really make something that's challenging even more challenging when we add the stories or the narrative. And that's very normal, That's not something wrong or bad. That's just very normal. During those moments we can try to use our cognition to be in relationship in a little more simple way. So in other words, Earlier today I was having that chest sensation and I had a conversation with that. It's like, Ah, Okay, Yeah, There's some tightness here. I'm just going to say hi to that tightness. And that allowed me to be in a simple relationship with it as opposed to thoughts that can just start to run rampant and can start to take us into maybe fear stories or thought patterns that on our own may be hard to be with. Of course, When we're in a session or getting support from another, That's a different, That's a wonderful opportunity to look at our thought patterns. But sometimes when we're on our own, We may not know how to handle those and they quickly kind of get out of control, So to speak, Or turn into a big hamster wheel. So to help ourselves be in relationship with ourself, Not from a place of bypassing or avoidance, We can learn how to have simple conversations with ourself. To acknowledge what is easy in a moment as well as what's not easy in a moment. And how can we support ourselves noticing that we probably are having both in one moment, There's probably something that's easy and something difficult. So how can we support ourselves when we're in challenging times? Well, We may include the easy. Like, Ah, I can feel this tightness of my chest. And yeah, I can feel the chair supporting me. I can feel my back being supported behind me. So that tightness in the chest can maybe also feel that support behind me can rest into that. Maybe that tightness in the chest wants my hand to go there and I can just put my hand on that tightness and hold it very gently, Supportively. I can even have that conversation with myself and say, I'm right here with you. Right here, My hands right here with you tightness in the chest and right here to support you. And letting my my back feel the chair behind me at the same time. I was just using the chest as an example. So it could be anywhere in your body. So if you're experiencing something challenging, You might just try right now just to have that conversation, That gentle, Kind conversation with yourself, Using your hands to support you if you'd like, Or using the chair behind you if you'd like. If at any time the thoughts start to get quite complicated, Just gently let yourself anchor in something that's simple and easy right now. Maybe again, It could be anything could be your feet, Your hands could be the exhalation or some part of the breath. Letting your nervous system have a break and letting your nervous system know that you are okay in this moment in your chair. You can even open your eyes to just confirm that you have nothing dangerous is around me. I might be feeling something challenging inside of me, But looking around, I can see that I'm in a safe space. I can feel that behind me. I'm in a safe space. And I'm feeling something kind of challenging and in my body in somewhere in some location. Yeah, They're both happening. And we'll come to a close in a few moments. Just letting your attention rest now, Rest in something simple or easy in your sitting, Breathing body. I'm going to bring in the singing bowl and just let your system take in sound. Sitting and breathing. Sitting and breathing. Sitting and breathing. Sitting and breathing. Sitting and breathing. Sitting and breathing. And slowly letting your arms start to move a little bit, Stretch your fingers, Your toes, Your head, Your back, Your front. Just feeling yourself take up space again, Just taking up space, Moving into the space around you. Being in relationship with the space around you and inside of you. And when you're ready, If you haven't already, Letting your eyes open, Continuing to notice even with the eyes open, The sitting and breathing, Letting some of your attention be dropped down below the chin, So to speak, Into your sitting bones and into your breathing bones. And when it feels right for you, You can gently come back to the camera.