So let's pick out your candle.
Grab that.
If you can find something that will,
You can have your attention connected with that a candle might serve as.
Choose your own.
Yeah,
Just taking a moment here with arriving,
Eyes opened or closed,
Each other is helpful for your attention and your cognition to notice that you are in this moment,
Not in another one,
Not in a past one,
Not in a future one,
Not five minutes ago or five minutes ahead,
But bring your attention to something that will help you remember that you are here,
That you're in the literal chair that you're in,
The literal bed that you're in,
The literal whatever that you're sitting on that you can see with your eyes or feel with your body.
There's no question about it,
Nothing to manage or figure out.
It is just here,
The surface that you're,
That your body is making contact with.
For me,
The glass of the candle holder,
It's just no disputing,
Just here.
The breath that's coming in or leaving,
It's just what it is.
Oxygenating you through both processes of inhalation and exhalation.
We don't even have to know what that means.
We can feel it and feel how breath connects us to this moment in a simple way.
And that can be so tricky for our attention to include simple because there's so many other things that are complicated in the mind and so having compassion for yourself if your attention is dragged away or magnetized by those thoughts outside of this moment,
Just notice that.
And then gently bring your attention back to something,
Anything that's simple,
Excuse me,
Easy to include in this moment.
And maybe even notice what you have gratitude that is simple in this moment.
I'm just noticing like the blue jays come and go and take a seat and leave and it's so simple.
Like I don't need to manage any of that happening.
It's just so simple,
So simple.
And then other things like holding the candle or my tailbone,
So simple,
Whatever it is for you,
Whether it's a sound or a sight or a sensation or a smell,
It's what is so simple that you appreciate its simplicity.
And all the complexity of our life,
It's like,
Oh yeah,
This is simple.
This is nice to recognize as simple.
And we include that simplicity and gratitude or appreciation or the recognition for the simplicity that is here right now.
We acknowledge these figuring out minds,
These managing parts of ourselves.
They are real,
They are part of us.
We don't need to get rid of them.
They're actually super useful.
And for me,
I can get a bit tiring when I forget I don't need to be utilizing that part of myself all the time.
And so coming back again and again to just what is right here,
Right now,
So simple and letting that other part of me have a rest.
We're not denying there's things to figure out or things to sort,
Just in this moment,
Reestablishing our attention with what is simple or with what doesn't need to be figured out.
If you haven't already,
Really letting your body feel the support of gravity that you're in through your chair or bed.
Remind your limbs they get to be heavy in this moment,
Not much for the arms and legs to do.
You just get to be heavy and held.
They're already held,
So we might as well kind of let them,
Let gravity do gravity's job.
Let breath do breath's job.
We don't have to manage it or make it be different or take it.
Let's be the recipient of that inhalation,
Experience that longer,
Slower exhalation.
Just noticing what you notice without judgment or agenda.
The both and,
Maybe there's some subtleness that you're noticing in certain ways and maybe there's the opposite in other ways.
Maybe there's some space of allowance in this moment and at the very same time,
Maybe that part that wants to fix and change things is here too.
To that I say,
Yeah,
You're both welcome to be here.
All of you,
All of your parts,
All of your and,
Both parts can coexist here.
See if there's any kind of resonance of trust that we can feel.
Or know from our sitting,
Breathing experience.
Let me just take a moment,
Eyes open or closed.
Notice,
Notice what of your system is already in trust.
Apart from any concept of trust,
It's already happening.
And or notice something from head to toes that seems to maybe feel a sense of trust.
It's tricky because trust can be a really loaded word,
So we have to try to simplify it down,
Which can be challenging,
But we'll just play with that here.
Just kind of noticing how your body is positioned.
It might help with simplifying this,
What can be a rather large conceptual existential even question.
Connect to the simplicity of what's here now.
So my hands happen to be crossed,
Interlaced in my lap.
Do my fingers trust one another to be there in this moment?
Underneath the concepts of what that might mean,
I might get a simplicity of a,
It seems to be so.
When I lean back into the pillows,
My body must be trusting something to be able to do that without fear of falling to the floor or even rising to the ceiling.
My arms trust something to soften and allows them to soften.
My shoulders to drop a little bit instead of being up by our ears.
Oh.
What is being trusted when we have a nice,
Long,
Slow exhalation,
Or when breath comes in?
What might my feet be trusting in this moment,
In my context of sitting?
And figuring out may not have to happen,
Managing may not have to happen.
Revealing some maybe simple kind of trust that maybe is here underneath them.
What can my attention hang out with?
And just notice the simplicity.
Subtext,
What can my attention trust to just be,
To attend to in this moment?
And I trust the world is not gonna end if I bring attention to something simple or include something simple in this moment.
We trust on some level that some part of us might appreciate these questions and some part of us may not.
And both.
So this is,
I didn't do this just now to try to prove points or to try to prove a point or to try to insist a perspective.
It is more of,
This is kind of the invitation behind the desire inventory.
When we desire something,
We really,
First we might notice there's a lot of concepts to that desire.
And then we see,
We drop out of the ideas of it and what it would look like or in appearances.
And we drop down to how it might be here in the moment in some kind of way,
Perhaps very different than the concept that we had had,
But is here.
And then when,
If we do discover that is here,
We find it in some way,
Even if it's in just the left pinky toe,
We let our attention continue to hang out there to feel what has,
To feel that desire's experience as it has shown for us or has been discovered in this moment and just stay with that.
And we let our system attune to that little tiny experience and hang out there.
Then we stay there for a while if we can.
We have the time,
We just stay there and notice.
What is it like when the rest of us attunes to that little area of our body?
That little area may increase,
It may decrease,
It may,
Something else might show up,
We don't know.
We just wanna give it some time and attention to see.
And if your eyes have been closed,
Letting your eyes slowly start to open or something you wanna jot down,
Write down that's come that you wanna stay connected with,
Take a moment to do that before we pause the stress.
