Walking Rest Meditation

In this Rest/meditation we first orient to the now, letting our brain and nervous system orient to this moment. From there we engage in movement, simple walking. We practice the art of learning how to be here in our present moment, While engaging in movement.
As with all of Lisa’s rest recordings , This rest has practical application and can be taken into any part of our day as we entrain our neural pathways/attention to be present.

Transcript

All right, So we're taking a moment to orient with our eyes open, Just letting all of our brain, The reptilian and the prefrontal and in between, All in between, Catalog that we are in non-threatening spaces, No danger. We have chosen to be in this room and we can see the solidity of the floor, The solidity of walls, Ceiling. We can see that there's doors and windows. We can leave at any time. We're in a chair that we have picked to be in. We can see that with our eyes open and then we can feel it with our eyes closed. So let in the eyes closed and start to feel how you're here in this moment, In the actual factual, And feel how just like the walls, The chair itself is also non-threatening. Feel how the chair is stable or what you're upon, Floor or bed. Feel how what you're upon is stable, Is predictable, Solid. Feel that through the places of your body that are making contact with solid. So it could be the bottoms of the feet or I suppose the tops of the feet if you're positioned in that way. Feel the bum, The thighs, Maybe the tailbone or the small of the back or maybe your hands are on something solid. Let your nervous system, Your brain orient and feel the truth of this moment of solidity. There's no threat or danger in this chair. There's unconditionality. Chair four or bed is not going anywhere. Let your nervous system feel the truth of that. Let yourself have a nice long exhalation to feel how this object holds your full weighted body. It holds your inhaling body, Your lifting up body and then it catches your exhaling body. As a matter of faculty as you can, Bring your attention to those places where you feel that solidity the most. Somewhere under you or behind you, Through the tailbone, Through the butt, Through the thighs, Through the feet, Feel the weight of the body landing. You might feel it also through hands or breath. Let your attention marry or stay with that resonance and let your eyes gently start to open. So, If that solidity is perceived and received and experienced through the sit bones, Let your attention stay with the sit bones. The sit bones are more being made in this moment more important than what your eyes are seeing. If you need to close the eyes so that you can re-center the sit bones or wherever your local is, Close the eyes, Re-establish that as the center of your connection, Center of your attention. When you have re-centered that, Let the eyes open. We're dancing with attention at this point. We're dancing with perception. And this is actually opposite to how we've been trained. So, We're used to leaving our bodies once the eyes are open. So, This can be, This can require effort to come back to what's under us that's solid while our eyes are orienting to the space around us. We're kind of looking with a soft gaze. You don't have to look at anything and fixate it on it. We're just kind of letting the gaze be soft, Staying out of meaning making, Just kind of. You can also see the solidity outside of you if you want. We're really inviting attention to stay with the solidity under our butts, Under our feet in some way, In our experience. And then let your body stand. And now our orientation is different. We're going to relocate our attention to the feet. Let the feet find the solidity that's here. Let the feet, Let the nervous system and brain through the feet find solidity, Stability. And experiment a little bit. Press down. Yep, It's solid. We're letting our brain align with experience. The actual factual experience is that the floor is solid. So we can test that and discover that's true. And then feel the truth of that. Stay as simple as possible. Let your body feel the solidity under you, Under your feet. We've done the standing meditation before, So you might, Your body might recognize this posture through neuroplasticity. You might, When you do standing meditation, You might notice your hands as a central point. It's okay to include your hands here. Your hands are here wherever they're located, However they're placed. Your feet are here. Obviously, Lots of, Your arms and legs also, Lots of things are here. Breath is here. Let your attention orient to what's the simplest, Undisputable, Inexperience. And from here, Start to walk very slowly. You might go so micro movement that it takes a minute to move two feet. In fact, I invite you to go really slow to peel each foot off the ground very slowly. Let the one foot land. You'll feel the solidity immediately with that one foot that has landed while the other one is peeling off the ground. Your weight's redistributed with every step. Let your weight redistribute according to posture, According to your relationship with the floor. Let that one foot that lands first hold most of your body weight. Let gravity be a real thing here and your foot feel the solidity under and your other foot peel up to take that step that then becomes solidly fixed on the ground for a moment or as long as you want. Breath is here. You might accidentally hold the breath because this is requiring effort and sometimes when we use effort we accidentally hold our breath. So if you have been holding your breath, Oh yeah, Hello breath, Hello. Ah, Yeah. Letting everything get oxygenated. You can pause the walking at any moment to reestablish connection with solidity. You can close the eyes in any moment to reestablish connection. You could even walk a little bit with eyes closed if you're in that kind of context. You see there's no right or wrong here. We're playing. We're in playground land. We're playing with form and formless. Gravity is formless but we feel it directly in form. We feel it solidly. Our breath is here. We're surrounded by formless. The formless comes in through breath, Releases back out. Our form is playing with the formless in every moment and the formless is playing with the form, Our forms in every moment. Don't get lost in any of what I've just said. Keep coming to the actual factual of your experience of that. There's nothing to think about with regards to it because it's already happening. And I'm going to be quiet now. Keep coming back to this. When you get lost in thought, Just gently bring your attention back to solidity, Back to here and now. And I'll be quiet for a little bit here. Keep experimenting in your pace, In your engagement. No right or wrong here. There's just the playground that you're co-creating with. Keep coming to the actual factual. Keep reorienting to this moment in the actual factual. Feeling the solidity, Seeing the solidity, Experiencing the solidity and anything else that's here. Take your time and slowly coming back to your chair, Just take your time. No hurrying. If you're listening to this later, You can pause this and do it longer. It would be useful to do it another 10 minutes before you come back to your chair if you have time for that. Notice the differences that you experience in your sitting body. Keep orienting in the same exact way to solidity. The way you orient might be different, But we're still orienting to solidity to actual factual. You can play again with eyes opened or closed. Again, Just noticing what happens to your attention, What happens to your relationship with solidity when the eyes are open, When they're closed. Walking meditation, As is any meditation, Or walking rest as in any rest recording, Is designed to learn. It's all about learning. You may not like what you learn, That's okay, But it's still all about learning, Not about perfecting or achieving. So, Kind of noticing what you are learning, What you have learned through this meditation. Be curious. Be curious of actual factual learnings and be curious of judgment learnings and notice the difference. The judgment learnings won't really be learnings, They'll just be repeated judgments or habitual judgments that you're imparting on this experience. They're old, They're not new, But you might be learning something new about how they might be showing up in this moment. And then when you're ready, Come back to the camera here. Can we just please bow to the camera so people can watch the video, I mean, It would better