Opening Up Neural Pathways To Now

An alternative naming of this recording could be: learning how to be intimate with ourselves.

Through practicing the exquisite skill of utilizing attention, we can teach our somatic system that it's safe to slow down and experience simple experiences we're having with our bodies. The more we do this, the safer and more stable we feel in/with our bodies, in the present moment, releasing old mental habits of worry, overanalyzing, and obsessively managing.

In this guided rest meditation, we get curious about simple experiences that perhaps we've accidentally ignored. As we teach ourselves, we can playfully explore our experiences, and we keep learning that it's safe to be here in this body, in this moment.

Feedback from a client after listening: Exquisite art of connecting with simplicity. Intimacy of simple somatic exploration.
Hello fingers. Hello toes.

Please note: there are intentional breath sounds and occasional meows in this recording.

Transcript

Find a comfortable sitting space,

Lying space,

Could be a comfortable standing space,

It doesn't matter if you're in public or in private,

Let your body find what's comfortable in this moment for you.

And as we do,

Starting with eyes open and continuing to invite your eyes to notice simplicity in the space that you're in.

Again,

It doesn't matter the space that you're in.

We're inviting eyes to look through that lens.

What is simple that I can access through my visuals right now?

And as we're looking slowly,

We're helping the brain and the nervous system through slow,

Curious,

Meandering looking.

And along the way of the slow meandering we're noticing,

Perhaps,

Solid walls all the way even behind us on either side.

We can double check and look slightly behind.

Yep,

Solid walls behind us or no danger might be a different translation,

No danger behind us.

If there is danger,

You would move,

Right?

So really being literal for the sake of the brain.

And then we're looking again around very slowly our space.

Solid walls,

Solid ceiling,

Maybe solid floor.

And letting our eyes and our brain calibrate together the simplicity that we're in,

The space that we're in.

Again,

Even if you're not in an empty room,

Letting your brain organize to what is simple in the space that you're in.

And purpose.

And then looking where you're sitting,

Seeing underneath your body,

There's going to be something,

Right?

Chair,

Bed,

Floor.

Again,

Doesn't matter the posture that you're sitting in.

There's going to be something solid holding your body.

For me,

It's floor.

I can see the floor under my feet and I can see the couch under my sit bones.

So for me,

It's floor and couch.

You'll be in your own context.

So see what is solid that you can see with your eyes is holding your body in some kind of way or supporting your body in some kind of way.

And then we're just going to invite the eyes to close to now feel what we had been seeing.

So now I'm feeling through my wiggling toes,

The solid floor.

I'm feeling maybe a little bit through my wiggling sit bones,

The solid couch.

Solid and soft in my case.

And that might extend to your backside depending on your context.

I can feel soft pillows behind me.

I'm still with my eyes closed.

I'm feeling what is supporting my body in any kind of way.

Simple kind of way.

And you'll have that in your own context.

So breathing is happening however it's happening.

We're not holding breath.

And we're noticing the simple ways that our body is feeling supported from behind,

From under.

And then we might notice other ways the body is being supported like my arm,

My right arm is supported by my leg.

My fingers are supported by my leg.

And there might be other nuances that you notice in your own context.

The way that you're sitting you might feel different ways of support and ease.

Proof of gravity could be a shortcut.

So we're letting our attention continue to meander just like we had been doing with eyes open.

But now attention is meandering with eyes closed.

Attention is meandering through the simple expressions or experiences of sitting in the context that you're sitting or laying or standing.

And we're kind of noticing a similar kind of viewfinder.

What's simple?

What do we not need to figure out,

Manage,

Fix?

What is just simply true?

I don't need to figure out the leg supporting my hand,

For example.

It's just happening.

And I could be curious of the sensations.

The same with my feet.

I don't need to figure out the floor.

I don't need to figure out my feet.

But I can experience the two together.

So we have this bodily form supported in lots of different ways.

And we can kind of go real micro.

We can go more macro.

If we go more macro,

We can feel maybe we can feel gravity in the way that the body rises upward with inhalation even slightly and then falls back down even slightly back towards the earth or the chair or the floor when we breathe out.

We can feel the shoulders.

A macro would be feeling the shoulders lift and fall.

Another macro might be the ribcage,

Front ribcage,

Side ribcage,

Back ribcage.

Fill and empty,

Expand and fall back.

A micro relationship with breath or experiential with breath might be feeling the nostrils when the air moves in and out.

When we study the micro,

We notice things like the temperature of air might be different when you breathe in versus when you breathe out of nostrils.

Just like the height of the shoulders might be different when you breathe in or breathe out.

So we're not trying to fix anything,

Manage anything,

Or figure out anything.

We're just noticing our relationship with this moment through gravity,

Through breath.

There's a lot of other ways we can connect to the micro of breath.

We can go really deep into the interior of the chest area or the belly area or the pelvic floor area.

We're going to do another micro study though that's maybe more simple for most people.

Sometimes breath can be a challenging area to get real micro or get real curious deep in.

So I'm going to invite our attention to get really familiar,

Really intimate with toes or feet and you get to pick.

Wait,

I meant to say fingers or toes.

That's funny.

Or hands and feet.

Yeah.

So you pick hands or feet and we're going to include the whole area of either.

So if I say feet,

Translate to hands.

If I say hands and you're doing feet,

Translate to feet or something else.

We're really going to practice this exquisite art of connecting to attention in the subtle,

The subtle here and now.

Strengthen those neural pathways to this moment.

Teach our neural pathways that it's safe to be in the simplest of simple.

Now if the hands are really easy to connect to,

I might invite you to connect to the feet and vice versa.

So we're kind of wanting to challenge our neural pathways a little bit.

So whichever is a little more unfamiliar to you,

Go in that direction.

Sometimes when we're going to be really curious of an area we don't know well,

We might have to use imagination.

So I might have to imagine my feet a little bit.

Maybe I can't feel all the nuances of ten toes and all that's involved from toes to heel.

So I can kind of imagine my feet.

It might help a little bit bring my attention into those nuanced areas.

But I can also wiggle my feet or move my feet to find my feet,

Right?

It's like maybe I don't have neural pathways developed towards the feet yet.

So we can use imagination or we can just go right into some simple movement.

Maybe I'm like wiggling my toes.

Oh,

There's my toes.

Okay.

Yeah,

I found them.

Attention found them.

I could say attention found toes and floor in a relationship,

In a very intimate,

Simple relationship.

So in the same way,

If you're with hands,

We might let the fingers wiggle to find them.

And I'm probably going to stay more with the feet.

But again,

Do your translations.

So yeah,

Finding,

Letting your attention,

Really finding all 10 little digits,

10 little toes.

Like let your attention just really slowly meander.

Maybe from big toe out,

Maybe from little toe in.

Just one at a time,

Like you're saying hello to your individual toes.

These toes are amazing,

By the way,

If you did not have toes,

Walking would be really,

Really hard.

So these little digits are really crucial to our existence.

So we're saying hello,

Like,

Oh,

Hi.

Like,

Yeah,

Hi there.

Yeah,

You're here.

We're here together.

Now this is what you feel like when I'm really slowed down to connect to you.

We're being playful,

We're being curious.

Playfulness and curiosity amp up how fast we learn something.

So it's just practically useful to be playful and curious when we're getting to know the present moment in a way.

So yeah,

Saying hi to those 10 toes in whatever way you want to.

Keep letting them move if that's helpful.

Picking them up and putting them back down.

Maybe stretching them out.

Getting to know them like you've never met them before.

It's the first time really feeling the way that they press into floor and maybe feeling the top of the toes that meet air or socks or whatever.

Like,

Oh,

Yeah,

The top of the toes.

Yeah,

They're here too.

And maybe it's really subtle.

Like,

Yeah.

So there's no wrong way to do this.

I might notice subtleness and then you might press down on the floor with those toes,

Even lifting up the heels and really pressing and just even lifting up the whole foot,

But the toes.

Now you can really feel those toes pressing into the floor.

Now it's over.

And boy,

When I press into my toes,

My whole upper legs engage.

And then it engages all the way up into my hips and into my stomach muscles.

Like that's how much we're interconnected through head to toes.

And then we can like let the toes go down,

Back down.

Again,

You can also be doing the same thing with the digits of the fingers,

Pressing them,

You'll feel a reverberation up the arm into the shoulder.

And then we just soften that.

And then maybe we want to meet the front pad of the foot.

And we can lift up the toes and then press into the front pad like,

Oh,

Hello.

Giving a little massage like,

Wow,

Okay.

Hadn't met you very much before.

I can feel you now.

I might let the foot kind of,

Let's see,

What's the words?

Like turn inwards and go outwards.

So we can feel the surface area.

If it's the hand,

It's the same thing.

We might like rotate it.

You know,

So we can feel the inside of the palm a little bit and then rotate to the outside.

So we're getting to know the surface area of the front pad of the hand or the feet or the foot or the feet.

Nothing to fix,

Nothing to figure out,

Nothing to analyze.

We're meeting the present moment experientially.

We can't think our way through this,

But we can feel it in the simple way.

And then we move maybe into the middle of the foot or the hand.

However you can access that part might be a little more challenging,

Nuanced.

No right or wrong here.

And then maybe we move to the heel of the foot or the heel of the hand.

And we press,

Like I'm pressing my heel into the floor.

Like,

Oh,

I can feel that engagement all the way for my heel.

I'm kind of pedaling one at a time.

Now I'm meeting more of me.

Oh,

Hello.

Hello,

Legs.

Hello,

Hips.

Hello,

Stomach muscles.

Hello,

Ribs.

And then I stop that pedaling,

Let the foot gently fall back to the ground,

Feeling that heel still firmly connected to floor.

If it was the palm of my hand,

It would be the same,

Just different.

Yeah,

Different engagements,

But still feeling that kind of that palm near the wrist pressing.

And then what how that reverberates up to the arms and whatnot.

And then letting that settle.

Oh,

Yeah.

And then letting attention just really slowly meander to the upper side,

The upper part of the foot or the hand.

Maybe where the skin meets the air,

Or the skin meets the sock if you're wearing a sock on your foot and you're looking at connecting to foot.

Just taking some time to feel that surface area.

And then I'm going to be quiet for a little bit.

I want you to,

I'm going to invite you to use that kind of attention to explore maybe another area of your body,

Or just stay with the simpleness of hands or feet.

Really inviting attention to get to be very slow.

Very curious of the micro aspects of an experience.

And we'll do this for for a few breath cycles.

And bringing this curiosity to more of the macro,

The macro of the sitting breathing body.

Noticing again,

Or returning again to your relationship with gravity.

You might still be with some micro that might feel really yummy.

So yeah,

Keep staying with that and bring that along.

As you notice more of the sitting body,

The breathing body.

Maybe there's areas,

Experientials,

I could say,

That you didn't really get to connect into,

But you might want to at another time.

Maybe just make a note of that.

Like,

I'd really like to do this with my ribcage,

Or the space.

Gosh,

I don't know,

My shoulders when they rise and fall,

How they're influenced by breath.

Maybe there's something that you learned in this experience that you want to take with you.

So as the eyes slowly open,

Let yourself take some notes if that's useful.

Take some notes of what you want to remember from this little intimate experience.

Jotting some things down.

Maybe you have questions,

You can jot those down.

And then when you're done,

We'll come back to the screen.

Reviews

Being here now. What a beautiful thing 🌺🌸🌷