Deepening Into Ourselves: Celebrations And Intentions

In this 40-minute guided exploration From conscious embodied attention, we explore our celebrations for 2022, then deepen our attention into what we’d like to connect with in 2023, staying regulated and present to the deeper realms of ourselves. Lastly, we explore how we want to bring intentionality toward the start and end of our day. Would you like to experience more intimacy in your life? Google Lisa for her upcoming course.

Transcript

So if you have a candle,

Go ahead and grab it.

If you don't,

I will light a candle,

A communal candle for us.

And in comes Pearl,

Predictably.

Oh,

She fell down.

She'll make her way back here in a minute,

I'm sure.

So keeping your eyes open if you could.

And as you already know,

You're welcome to have your cameras on or off.

This entire time,

You get to choose what feels right for you to stay seen or unseen,

Heard or unheard.

We don't have rules here except for you to pay attention to what works for you.

So with eyes open,

Yeah,

Just let yourself,

Your eyes calibrate to the space that you're in.

And what I mean by that is literally seeing the actual factual here,

Seeing the place where the computer is,

For example,

Seeing where you're sitting,

Seeing where your chair or your bed or your couch is resting upon.

We're literally bringing our cognizant,

Conscious attention to this very moment.

And we're inviting our brains,

Particularly our reptilian brains,

To notice that we are not in dangerous territory.

We are in safe territory,

Safe in terms of no danger is in the immediacy.

Again,

There may be a felt sense of danger or thoughts or emotions that feel dangerous or uncomfortable,

But we're letting the reptilian brain regulate.

And in order to do that,

We are really looking to the actual factual of the environment.

So the walls around us,

The floor under us,

The ceiling above us,

We also engage in the psoas,

Which helps the vagus nerve system.

And we do that by gently just looking a little bit behind us.

The reptilian brain can see,

Yep,

Nothing behind us,

No danger behind us.

And with those eyes open,

We're still connecting to the actual factual of the room.

The textures that you see could be textures of fabric,

Textures of wall,

Could be colors or shapes.

We're letting our cognizant attention calibrate to that which has no right,

Wrong,

Good or bad to it.

In other words,

The grain of wood that I see next to me,

There's no right or wrong or good or bad to that grain of wood.

It just is what it is on this piece of paneling.

The same could be said for the carpet.

There's just this texture of the carpet.

It's not good.

It's not bad.

It's not right.

It's not wrong.

It just simply is.

And so we're inviting our attention to slow down to see those places or to hear sounds that have no right,

Wrong,

Good or bad,

Or to smell smells that are just,

They just are,

Or to taste tastes that just are.

So we're connecting to the senses in such a way as to bring attention to actual factual.

And we have choice in how we do that through the different senses of touch,

Taste,

Smell,

Scent.

I think I missed one in there,

But yeah,

You get the invitation.

And we do that with eyes open and then eyes closed when that feels right for you.

Then we do bring in,

Come into more of the sense of touch through our bodies.

So we feel how the bodies are touching the chair,

For example,

How our breath is being touched from within,

Maybe through an inhalation or an exhalation.

We might just notice how the hands are resting.

You can feel some part of the hand,

Just an actual factual.

Maybe it's the palm.

Maybe it's the fingers.

Maybe it's the backside of the hands.

And letting again,

The brain regulate by noticing,

Bringing attention to that which has no right or wrong to it.

It just simply is.

So for example,

There's a smoothness under my left palm,

Sorry,

Back of the hand,

Smoothness under the back of my left hand.

It's just simply what is.

We can also do this with other senses,

With eyes open or closed.

We can still smell the cells in our room,

Hear the,

What's auditory in our spaces and so forth.

We're just taking our time here.

If this is a new practice,

It can require,

Or even an old practice,

Depending on what's going on,

It can require effort to reclaim our attention,

To reclaim attention away from thoughts,

Ideas,

Stories,

Value judgments,

All those narratives that we're very familiar with.

It can take some effort to reclaim our attention away from those thoughts and into what is just simply here on an experiential level.

So if that's you,

You're in good company.

It often requires some effort to bring attention to what's simple.

The mind loves to orient to problems and to future and past.

That's just what it does.

And even though simple sounds nice,

It can be hard or difficult to reclaim our attention,

To use that effort to connect to just what simply is.

That isn't a problem to solve,

Which isn't in the past or the future,

But is right now.

So if this is challenging for you,

Give yourself some grace.

This is a practice.

If you haven't already and you want to,

You can include the happening of breath here.

We're not trying to control breath or have an experience,

A particular experience,

But breath is always happening on a factual level.

So we can just notice that the body knows how to inhale and the body knows how to exhale.

And we can observe that.

And we're still noticing the actual factual of sounds and or sense or tastes or touches or sights.

There's sirens in my background,

So I'm noticing a lot of sound right now in my environment.

You might hear that as well.

All sounds come and go.

Some have more continuity.

That one is gone.

It's already leaving.

Now,

You might feel sometimes I say there's a tell,

Like when you play poker,

You can watch people's facial expressions for a tell.

Well,

When we regulate our brain and nervous system,

There will often be a tell in our physiology.

Sometimes the shoulders drop.

Sometimes we can feel a heaviness,

Just a connection with the field of gravity.

Sometimes the breath might just feel more fluid.

Can be lots of very small tells to let us know that we have increased regulation.

We're not looking for perfection.

I don't know what perfect regulation is.

We are just inviting ourselves to use some tools to increase some regulation in our brains and nervous systems.

And then I'm going to come back to the candle.

If you want,

You can keep eyes open or closed.

And now that our systems are going to have a little increased regulation,

I'm going to bring back the candle.

And I'm going to bring back this candle to really symbolize,

For me,

It's a nice reminder of the elements that are always here with us.

Of course,

A candle represents fire.

So we have the element of fire.

It's so important to every moment of our lives,

Internally in our bodies and externally in life outside of ourselves.

We honor fire.

We honor water.

We honor air.

And then we honor the earth that we're upon and the land that we're upon.

Many of us are on stolen land.

We can honor the land,

The stolen land,

Which we are residing upon,

Just as we can honor all the elements that give us life that we are in co-creation and interdependency with in every moment.

If it feels right for you,

You may also just bring in maybe an ancestor or kin that just comes into your attention.

It could be a person.

It could be a plant,

An animal.

It could be anything of the elements just to honor and acknowledge.

Maybe it's something that's close to your heart that you want to bring in,

Someone or something that has had importance or influence that feels good to acknowledge or bring in.

So you may have brought your journals or obviously you all are on some kind of device.

You could type into a device.

We are going to connect next into some celebrations.

And the last few years have been pretty rough for lots and lots of people.

And yet,

In my classes that some of you know about,

We do a practice of gratitude.

This is a little bit different.

But I just wanted to reference that gratitude practice because even in moments of challenge,

We can usually,

When we slow down,

When we regulate our brains and nervous system,

We can usually find something to be grateful for.

So in this moment,

What I'm really grateful for is the light in front of me that's making me not completely backlit.

I just can feel that light coming and it's like,

Oh,

I'm glad I have some light here.

And so that could be something very simple like that.

So we're going to reframe it in terms of more celebrations for 2022.

And we're not,

You know,

We're not,

We're really connect,

We want to really connect to something maybe very small but profound.

But maybe,

You know,

Maybe someone won the lottery here.

OK,

Awesome.

That could be celebrated too,

Right?

So we don't have an agenda here.

We're inviting ourselves to not have a limited agenda of what we can celebrate.

Some of us are going to just be celebrating that,

Gosh,

We are still on this planet.

Some of us are going to be celebrating great things that occurred and maybe both and,

Right?

We talk a lot about both and.

So let yourself for a few moments dream into some things that you just want to give conscious,

Cognitive naming of celebration.

And we're not going to do this out loud.

We're just going to do it in your journals or on the computer or if you don't want to do that,

Maybe you want to draw a picture.

Or maybe you just want to breathe and sit and stay kind of below the level of meandering like that.

So really honor what works well for you.

If a question does come up,

Just put it in the chat and I'll answer it that way.

So we're just going to take maybe like three minutes,

Maybe three or four minutes to just let ourselves put into form if we want.

Write down or speak out loud or name to ourselves some things that we want to go like,

Oh,

Wow,

Like a year ago today,

I can see some things different.

I did this the other day with another community of practice and it was like,

Oh,

My gosh.

For example,

The relationship with my family is very,

Very different.

That's been a big heartbreak for me,

But also immense freedom.

So we do the and both and celebrations cannot always be rosy,

But they can be of importance for us.

And we just want to yeah,

Again,

We want to put something down.

What do we want to see?

We can look back and go,

Wow,

That's really changed for me this year or or this thing happened.

So I'm going to be quiet now,

Go into some quiet time.

I'm wondering if people would like another minute and if you would,

Could you put a raised hand?

On the under reactions,

You should be able to raise a hand or give a thumbs up or if you want more time.

OK,

Let's do some let's do another at least another minute.

If you feel complete,

You can let yourself have a little.

Basking time in your chair with your breath.

Another thing I just wanted to say in case it's useful,

I know that we can often have a streak of perfectionism.

And so when I was doing this the other day,

I was noticing something that I was celebrating.

And then there was this part of my voice that's like,

Well,

But you're still working on that.

Well,

Yes,

Yes,

I am.

But I can still celebrate some clarity with with different patterns,

Knowing that I'm still working on them.

So if in case that's useful for anyone else who might have some perfectionism streaks,

Let's do maybe 30 more seconds.

So we're going to just take a couple of breaths.

Maybe I'll bring the ball,

The singing ball,

Just to do a palate cleanser.

If there's if you're not complete,

Know that you can come back to that to finish up.

Just breathing,

Letting that go.

I'm not trying to have a comprehensive list or a perfect list,

Just some things.

Letting that go,

Letting that exhalation go.

Next,

We're not going to come into some some things that we would like to connect with in 2023.

You might hear me being mindful about the words I'm picking or I'm resting into with this one,

Because our culture,

Our capitalist culture really loves this time of year to make promises and have goals and etc.

And this isn't that kind of invitation.

This is the kind of invitation.

Absolutely.

Let me use the standard one.

Maybe you do want to lose 25 pounds.

We're going to just use that one for fun.

Like there is absolutely nothing wrong with that goal if that's your goal.

But in this moment,

What we're inviting ourselves to connect with or consider is what will that loss of 25 pounds bring me?

Well,

Let's just pretend that like,

Oh,

Yeah,

If I lose 25 pounds,

I'll have increased mobility.

So we might say an underlying desire would be increased mobility and we could just pause there and be like,

Yeah,

That's what I'm actually really wanting.

I'm wanting some increased mobility this year.

And perhaps you might have be able to have increased mobility without losing 25 pounds.

Right.

So we don't want to limit the universe.

We want to be like,

This is what I really want.

Universe,

You decide how how it might come to me.

Now,

There might also be another desire under that.

Well,

What would increased mobility bring me?

I would maybe have an increased connection with nature.

I'm just making this up.

Right.

That's that's what I'm really wanting.

Like I'm wanting to lose 25 pounds because I want to have increased relationship with nature.

So maybe that's actually what we might what you might want to set into as an intention.

I want to have an intention to have an increased sense of connection with nature or have this desire to have an increased sense of connection with nature.

And then we let the universe decide how you're going to have that.

So I hope that makes sense.

Of course,

You can keep coming underneath even that one.

What would increase sense of connection with nature?

Bring bring you.

Well,

This is going to be an individual journey.

So we're each going to kind of lean into what are our intentions for 2023?

And I invite you to to go big and to go small and please just be kind to yourself and playful.

We are not making deals with the devil here or deals with the angels.

You know,

We're we're just like,

OK,

Like me knowing me,

You know.

Yeah,

I want to maybe utilize some increased effort to bring about X.

And maybe you already have some things in line,

Practices or communities that will help you to to that will support you in in connecting to your intentions.

So if you have questions,

Please put them in the chat.

And I'm happy to answer questions in the chat if otherwise I'll assume that that is fairly self-explanatory.

But if it's not,

Please,

Again,

Either put something in the chat or let me know.

And we will take about five minutes for this one.

It's about twenty nine after.

So we'll do about until thirty five after.

And again,

We really want to extend kindness to ourself.

You do not have to do this one.

You could you could also draw pictures.

You could just do bullet points.

You could just do a random word cloud.

You can write a paragraph.

You can just sit here and breathe.

You can walk around your room.

You can go to the bathroom.

You can do anything you want to do in the next five minutes.

You might just contemplate it while you're doing a walking meditation.

What do I want to do?

What intentions do I have for for 2023?

All right.

I'm going to be quiet now.

Who needs a little more time?

Can you put your thumb up or something to indicate that you would like some more time?

OK,

So let's do a little palate cleanser.

See what I do with my.

Self take some deeper breaths and exhalations if that feels right for you.

The last thing I want to connect to before maybe we open it up to some sharing if people want to is I can't remember if it was even maybe one of you or somebody else that was talking about just being intentional of how we start the day and end the day.

And so I've just been thinking about that.

And I don't really like the idea of making promises or being rigid about this question.

But I do like the invitation to be conscious about how or to.

I like the invitation to consciously start my day and to consciously end my day.

So maybe just take a moment again.

We're not looking for right or wrongs or absolutes here or promises.

We're just contemplating.

Maybe you already have some really good practices of how you start the day and end the day and maybe just like acknowledging that to yourself.

And that's complete for some of us.

We might just dream like,

Oh,

Yeah,

What might be a new way for me?

I'm doing this.

What might be a new way to end my day?

And I might not even get an answer today,

But I'm just putting it out there like looking for a new way to end my day.

And I noticed for me,

It's it's not the very last thing.

It's a couple of things beforehand.

So just let this be experiential and playful.

What we're really looking for is a conscious way to close out a day and a conscious way to begin a day.

And I feel pretty good about how I do that.

But but I was just personally curious on that that second part.

So we'll just take another minute to contemplate that.

See what possibilities might arise.

Hmm.

Anyone else want more time on that one?

So at this point,

I'm going to go ahead and pause the recording.

And for those of you who are listening to this later,

If you have any questions about the last 40 minutes,

Please let me know.

If I was ending this gathering,

We would end it with something intentional,

Maybe coming back to grounding or back to our candle.

So if you are listening on your own later,

Do do come back to a grounding practice to end your time with this.

So I'll end the recording here.