Breathing Together With A Partner

This guided rest is for two people meditating together. It will invite you to breathe together in a curious way. There is no agenda or anyway, this should feel for you. Building and honoring the connections with your partner. The recording was done in an online setting.

Transcript

And we've got the calves that are pressing into what they're pressing into,

The knees that are bent,

And the thighs.

We're just going to hang out here with the legs,

The crossed legs,

Just as they are.

And we're going to feel the solidity of the crossed legs.

They're pretty solid here.

They're pretty still.

I mean,

You'll be feeling maybe some movement through them,

But generally speaking,

The legs in the crossed-legged position are kind of like the anchor,

Kind of like the base.

And we can just feel that base,

Feel the solidity,

The solidness.

And yet at the same time,

The surrenderedness,

Because in this moment,

The legs don't really have a job.

They just get to hang out here.

They just get to be here without any doings.

So the muscles can kind of soften a little bit if they want.

And then the seat of the body comes in.

The sit bones is also connected to that anchored base.

You can feel the sit bones pressing.

And then right above the seat,

We come into the pelvic floor,

And this is where breath starts to viscerally connect.

The breath moves all the way from the nostrils to the pelvic floor.

In between that space,

There is overtness and then there's subtlety.

In the pelvic floor,

The breath engages but very subtly,

And so we stay very slow and curious.

There is no right or wrong or good or bad here.

We just notice what we notice.

And we feel both the base of the lower body and the movement of the breath join.

And we just keep attention,

Curiously,

Including this area.

We're letting all the differences be,

Us being curious.

We can use imagination here,

And we can imagine with the inhalation filling up that pelvic floor or filling up the diaphragm,

Which if that's a little easier,

That's above that area and filling with inhalation and then releasing out with the exhalation.

Again,

No agenda,

No supposed to,

No right,

Wrong,

Good or bad.

We're just playing here with filling and releasing.

And if you're not used to this area of the body,

It might feel a little awkward,

A little disorienting,

A little uncomfortable,

And that's okay.

Just letting it be whatever the quality is.

We're not looking for quality.

We're just noticing the experience,

And you don't have to like it.

So if you don't,

You're off the hook with that.

Just continuing to notice the facts of the belly involved,

The pelvic floor involved in this aspect of the breathing.

And then letting your attention come to your backsides.

Here you might start to notice the contact of your bodies,

But you might not,

Right?

So this is all contextual.

There is no right or wrong or good or bad.

So you might notice contact in the lower part of the body,

But you might not,

And I can't tell from where I'm at where your bodies meet.

So you stay with your own context of experience,

Just noticing what you notice,

Noticing your own tail bones,

Your own lower backs.

They may or may not make contact with each other.

Letting attention come up a little bit to that lower mid-back,

You can start to feel the back ribs in yourselves and maybe connecting with each other,

And again,

Maybe not.

So just noticing these lower,

Excuse me,

The lower ribs will start to be engaged with the breath in the mid-region,

And just like the front ribs also will be engaged.

And you may feel that movement in different ways.

Again,

Not trying to match each other's breath,

Just noticing your own engagements.

Relationships do not have to be the same.

We can notice the relationship of variation and still have connectivity even amidst that variation.

So staying turned toward your own ribs,

The front ribs,

The back ribs,

The side ribs in that mid area,

Just watching them expand and release.

What is the breath doing its job,

And your job is to watch and to notice.

Just be aware of if you are trying to control anything in this moment,

And that's okay if you are.

That's really normal as human beings.

So if that's coming up,

You can check being human off your list,

And then come back to watching and allowing whatever happens to be happening without,

If possible,

Without trying to control it.

So we've got the lower part of the breath included,

The mid part of the breath included,

And those different ways that that breath interacts with the body organically,

And then we just gently move up a little higher,

A little more into the chest area.

And it's the same.

We've got front ribs,

Back ribs,

And side ribs.

So just noticing your own ribs moving in whatever way that they are,

Without agenda.

Watching the thoughts,

Watching the images,

Watching your own narratives,

And just letting them be,

And gently including attention into the breath,

Back into the breath,

Back into the movement of breath,

And just watching that movement,

Being a participant of that movement.

Now your own movements may start to interact with each other,

Again,

Discordantly,

So to speak,

And just allow that to be.

If one of you is inhaling while the other is exhaling,

Just let that be.

We're not trying to achieve anything,

We're just noticing.

Letting that connection,

The felt connection,

Be as it is in its organicness.

Noticing your own judgments,

Noticing your likes and your dislikes,

Noticing your own mental territory or terrain,

And then if possible,

Coming underneath that mental terrain to the terrain of the ribs,

Of the chest.

Moving up a little bit higher into the upper chest,

Up into the collarbones,

Into the space of the armpits,

The shoulders,

Letting your breath massage these areas also.

Getting into these areas and releasing out of these areas with the breath cycle.

We're going to take a moment to include the arms,

Also the arms down to the hands,

And just noticing that we start at the shoulders,

You'll notice the subtle movement,

Or an overt movement with the shoulders.

Maybe you'll feel that movement into the arms,

But at some point the arms will become a little bit more still.

So we're kind of moving away from this movement of the core of the body,

Is in this movement with breath,

And then we include arms,

And you'll notice the arms are in less movement.

They're probably heavier and just,

They too get a break from doing much here.

The hands are where they are in context.

So no right,

Wrong,

Good or bad,

Just the context of the positioning the fingers and noticing what you do,

Temperatures,

Textures.

So we notice this juxtaposition of stillness with the limbs and the movement with the core of the body,

And they happen simultaneously,

Stillness and movement.

The thoughts may also be in movement,

And that's normal.

Just noticing that and coming back to the fluidity of the breath.

Not the felt sense of fluidity,

Perhaps,

But the factual nature of breath is gas.

It comes in and out,

And it flows,

And it may not feel fluid in the body.

It may feel,

The body may feel contracted in certain areas where the breath moves through,

And we're just not trying to change that in this moment,

Not trying to have a certain experience of breath.

We're just noticing that factually breath itself moves through,

Just like water moves through a creek with rocks in it.

The water moves around the rocks,

And our breath may move around or adapt through blockages in our bodies.

We just let all of that be.

When we come up to the beginning of the breath,

Into the nostrils,

And feeling into the space,

The space of the cheeks and the jaw,

The mouth,

Noticing if there's any holding or tension in this area,

And letting the jaw or the embouchure unhinge or go slack,

Letting that soften in there.

And then just noticing,

Just watching the softness of the air enters in and out of the nostrils.

And we just curiously hang out here for a little bit,

No expectations,

No agenda,

But to notice curiously the air coming in and in the nostrils and the air flowing out of the nostrils.

And staying with your own experience of temperatures and textures and likes and dislikes as you feel the air come in and back out.

If the mind comes in,

Just notice that,

And then just gently come back to the air,

Noticing the air coming in and out.

Watching the terrain of the nostrils.

And from the nostrils,

I want you to notice,

Generally speaking,

Or kind of a wide lens of the rest of the breath.

So the bulk of your attention will stay in the nostrils,

But some of your peripheral attention will notice underneath the nostrils there is a body that is in sync with this breath in its own way.

The nostrils stay fairly still as the air moves in,

And that air that has moved in moves the rest of your body below.

And we just watch.

And from here,

I want you to notice each other a little bit more.

Again,

We're not trying to change anything.

We're just now including more of each other very curiously,

Without agenda.

Noticing temperatures,

Noticing different qualities or textures with each other,

Noticing the way that your bones participate with each other's bones in their own unique ways.

Being aware of agendas that might pop up,

And as you notice them,

Gently invite them to be soft,

To soften,

And come back to what is simply here in this moment.

And from here,

I will invite your backs to surrender a little bit to each other,

And just watch to see what it's like for this invitation to lean more into each other.

You do not have to.

You can stay with your own agency and your own choosing to lean if it feels right,

And if it doesn't,

To not do that,

And really honoring what feels right for you.

Maybe you experiment a little bit.

So take some time here.

We'll take some time here to just watch the form and trust the form's engagement and participation here with leaning back or maybe leaning forward as need be.

Again,

There is no agenda or supposed to.

And acknowledging and honoring the parts of you that feel like they want to lean back,

To lean back,

And honoring the parts of you that do not want to lean back to not lean back.

So you're really being conscious with your ourselves here.

I'm just giving yourself,

Continue to give yourselves permission to be connected in the ways that you are and not connected in the ways that you are.

And if there are ways that you want to connect more,

Just slowly and gently explore that and follow that,

Really honoring how your partner responds.

So really taking ownership of your own inclinations and honoring the inclinations of your partner,

Whatever they happen to be.

And silently to yourself,

I want you to just name what you are appreciating in this moment and just pause with that silently with yourself,

Just letting yourself name that,

Name what will give space to the opposite.

So for now,

Just noticing what you do appreciate about this moment or even of this kind of experiment.

And then to also acknowledge what has been challenging either in this experiment or is challenging in this moment and just staying with that for yourself for a moment.

And I'd like you to gently again to yourself thank your bodies for being here in this experiment,

Your own bodies,

First of all,

Just thinking your own bones and muscles and flesh for being willing to do this.

And then thanking your partner's body for being willing to be here doing this with you in whatever way,

Just exactly as it happened,

Just thanking this other being behind you for being there in that way that they were.

So we are both honoring ourselves as we are,

And we are honoring our partners as they are.

And letting the breath be included in this honoring of both your own experience and your own resonances.

And letting the breath be here and honoring the other,

The one behind you.

And letting your breath honor,

Honor this being behind you,

Feeling your breath honor,

Honor the being that you're connected with right now in whatever way feels right for you.

And just trusting the breath to do that work.

And I'll just take another moment here before we transition.