The Way Home

In this 17-minute guided rest, you will be invited to return home. The following poem will be read:
"The way home every single time is this, after my worst failure, after I am convinced this time I have gone too far and destroyed too much I must believe who love says I am. I am not defined by my erratic behaviors but by something so much deeper, infinity strong, and constant. I am a new creature."

Transcript

Alright,

So yeah,

Just letting yourself settle back in and you can have eyes open or closed,

Whatever feels right for you.

Rediscovering your bones again here.

Understanding your skeletal system just as it is,

As it's here in your context.

The mind often so quickly swoops in with those rights and wrongs and goods and bads and judgments but underneath that there's just knees bent or elbows bent or cold toes or etc.

So we're dropping beneath the level of right,

Wrong,

Good and bad and for a moment connecting to what I call the actual factual to just simply what is underneath judgment.

Maybe just starting at the toes,

Just starting at the factualness of your own toes as you are experiencing them,

Noticing temperatures and textures.

I know under my toes I feel one thing and on the top of my toes I feel something different so there's quite the individual experiences happening for all of us and the invitation is to drop just into our actual factual nuances of toes and feet.

Getting to know our feet with curious attention in this moment not to solve anything or to figure anything out but to meet ourselves as we are,

To meet our toes and our feet as they are in this moment.

Gently move up,

Move our attention up to meet our legs just as they are in this moment,

Or straight or warm or cool,

However they are.

Coming up to the sit bones,

The sacral area,

The pelvic floor,

The lower back and again in your own context meeting yourself so to speak just as these areas are in this moment.

And again this is all based on context so if you're laying down you'll feel the weight of your body fairly evenly distributed.

If you're sitting up you'll feel the weight fairly collected in this area.

Staying kind of curious of the space of the sacral area that is most likely fairly still or fairly connected to chair in a somewhat solid way if you're sitting down.

So in a practical way our bodies might be fairly rooted into the chair or if we're laying down fairly rooted into the surface that we're laying upon.

And then the breath on the other hand will be a little bit of a paradoxical experience.

The breath will be coming and going,

Will be rising and falling whereas the sit bones will be fairly stable.

So we can feel that juxtaposition of solidity in the seat area and other areas and then movement and here we get to discover and experience how opposites can be co-experienced.

We can be experiencing both stillness and movement.

We can feel how the lower part of our body if we're sitting up we can feel how the lower part of the body kind of stays grounded and the upper part moves up and back down.

And as we study these opposites,

These seeming opposites or polarities with consciousness our brain is expanding.

Our neural pathways are expanding and allowing more presence to be here.

If we're fixating on just one component of our existence we will not be able to include the rest of it.

So in this moment we notice the expansion of our experience includes both solidity or stillness and the movement up or the filling of the upper part of our body.

Just consciously acknowledging the arms and the hands however they're situated here in this moment and our spines and our necks,

Our skulls.

And we may notice in a subtle kind of way the entirety of ourselves kind of from a zoomed out lens a little bit or a little bit of a sitting back.

We may notice kind of the entirety of ourselves on some level or we may notice more zoomed in experiences and neither is better than the other.

They're just different uses of attention.

Just letting your attention explore here.

Noticing the different stillnesses and the different movements.

Noticing the thoughts maybe in movement in a fast way or in a slow way.

Just watching,

Just noticing.

The mind maybe having judgments or different references to shoulds or supposed tos or am I doing this right or what are we doing or could be referencing what you had for breakfast or what's for dinner.

It could be referencing yesterday or tomorrow.

So there can be a lot of different territory that the thoughts may dance with and we're just noticing that.

Just like we're noticing the movement of the breath.

Just as we're noticing the experience of sitting.

Not necessarily trying to alter or change or fix any of it.

Just noticing.

And we've not named the space around ourselves yet so now just acknowledging that as well.

There is a space around us that our breath is drawing from.

We draw breath from something that we might call the space around us.

And when our bodies fill with air,

Our bodies take up physical space into that space that is been around us or that is around us,

That is always around us.

And our bodies are in relationship with this space in these tangible ways through breath,

Through sitting.

And just to consciously and curiously include this into our attention.

I want to share this piece of writing and as I do just notice what shows up for you.

There's no agenda here.

Just noticing.

The way home every single time is this.

After my worst failure,

After I am convinced this time I have gone too far and destroyed too much,

I must believe who love says I am.

I am not defined by my erratic behaviors but by something much deeper,

Infinitely strong and constant.

I am a new creature.

Using a breath.

Just noticing what arises for you with those words.

And as I read again continuing to just notice what you notice and being curious of that which comes in and then leaves and that which comes in next and perhaps moves into something else and so forth.

The way home every single time is this.

After my worst failure,

After I am convinced this time I have gone too far and destroyed too much,

I must believe who love says I am.

I am not defined by my erratic behaviors but by something so much deeper,

Infinitely strong and constant.

I am a new creature.

Using your breath with those words.

Noticing what you notice.

And I'll read that one more time,

Again just noticing what comes in you and if possible to not judge but to notice,

To discover.

The way home every single time is this.

After my worst failure,

After I am convinced this time I have gone too far and destroyed too much,

I must believe who love says I am.

I am not defined by my erratic behaviors but by something so much deeper,

Infinitely strong and constant.

I am a new creature.

Continuing to invite your system to breathe through what is emerging for you.

And as I start to bring this time to a close,

Just inviting yourself to,

As you may listen back to this,

Just pause the recording and just staying with whatever is arising for you and also to write down anything that is coming to get to know more that has been revealed to you through these words and through this time.

For now,

Starting to let the body move a bit,

Let the arms and legs come back into themselves more consciously,

Feeling your breath more and slowly when you are ready to let the eyes start to open and taking in the space around you before when you are ready coming back to the screen.