Decolonial Meditation

I explain decolonial meditation and guide an integration of breath-body-mind-awareness. There are moments of silence. The principle is oneness, the practice is awareness. There is a deep sense of peace that comes over us when everything comes together.

Transcript

Hello,

Welcome.

I am Elizabeth Philipos and I'm so happy to welcome you to this decolonial meditation.

I'm going to talk a little bit about what decolonial meditation is and while I'm talking you can start to settle in to find your perfect posture where you can let your body fully relax and whatever else you would like to do to set the tone and establish that we're coming into a sacred space,

A sacred time,

The sacredness of our very own being.

So if that's to light a candle or burn some incense or if you have an essential oil that you want to anoint yourself with,

Just a small gesture to let your system know that you've arrived.

This is it.

And so as you're stilling the body,

I'll just say a bit about decolonial meditation.

Now this idea of the decolonial is this moment we're in of the unraveling of systems and structures that have been in place for the last 500 years or so coming into being as modern European colonialism globalized the world.

About two-thirds of the world came under European rule at some point in that 500 years and so it really is the movement of globalization that brings us the world we see today.

Now this is a paradigm founded on separation.

The separation of body,

Mind,

And spirit.

The separation of men from women.

The separation from peoples.

Skin colors from skin colors.

The separation from nature.

And this all got implemented and institutionalized and systematized during these past five centuries or so.

And it's not just institutions and systems but it's a culture.

And this is what I would say brings us together in the material world is that nobody escapes the colonial matrix of power because it is the culture in which we live.

The culture of separateness that we experience all around us.

The culture of hierarchy and exclusion.

The culture of scarcity and greed.

And this is in our bodies,

In our nervous systems,

In our breath,

In the way our muscles respond.

It's in our visuality.

Our whole visual structure is trained in otherness and recognizing otherness.

And a whole package of meaning attached to it.

It's a physiology.

It's a comportment.

It's a thought process.

It's the unconscious.

It's the precognitive.

You see we're conditioned and socialized and cultured before we even have words.

Before we're even able to ask a question we become aware at some deeper levels that there is self and there is other.

Now this is a paradigm of fear.

And fear shapes us in ways that we're not even aware.

So a decolonial meditation is meditation in the service of unraveling that which divides us in the service of that which brings us together.

And so as we sit in meditation and breathe in and out and allow our systems to relax and process and eliminate,

We're dropping into our authentic selves.

An authenticity that's never been colonized,

That's never been disturbed,

That's never been touched by the world.

It's a purity of who we are at the very core and essence of who we are.

And we're reclaiming our sovereignty,

Our sovereignty which is by design in our nature.

We're retrieving our mind from the world,

Retrieving our nervous systems from fear,

Retrieving our awareness from illusion,

Breaking free of the colonial matrix of power.

And when we do that our true nature is to be connected.

Our essential selves are inseparable from each other.

We are nature itself and when we drop into our authenticity this is what we come to realize more and more.

That just as the breath breathes me,

The breath is breathing all of life.

Just as the breath comes in,

As flow and ebb,

The same dynamic of the ocean tides,

It's the same dynamic of birth,

Of expansion and contraction.

It's the dynamic of nature itself.

And so as you're breathing,

Feel into that cosmic life force that breathes you without judgment,

Without hierarchy.

Nobody is outside of cosmic life force.

Nobody's left out.

No creature.

Every single one of us breathed by the same breath.

And so as you're breathing,

Allow that breath to drop into your belly and sometimes that takes a few breaths to get there.

You don't want to bypass the heart or ribs,

Torso.

You breathe into the belly even if it's just a little bit.

You want to feel your ribs expand and your chest lift.

Hear the breath in the back of your throat and as you exhale just feel everything soften and soften and soften as you melt into this moment.

And then inhale again and maybe your belly gets a little bigger,

Maybe your ribs lift a little higher.

You're doing this not forcing anything to happen but allowing yourself to open up.

You're breathing into the belly is one way of triggering the vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve is the base of your brain,

The top of your spine and it is what triggers the parasympathetic nervous system.

This is rest and digest.

The rest and digest is a state in which our systems are able to process everything that we've taken in.

Information,

Stimulation,

Emotions,

Other people's energy,

Everything we've taken in about the world of separation.

Our systems are able to process and digest to assimilate what is compatible and life-giving and to eliminate all that no longer serves,

That isn't nourishing.

So that's the waste products of our system.

Rest and digest is a very vital state to be in as much as possible that we can induce this parasympathetic nervous state.

Gives our system a chance to thoroughly detox and process.

You know what happens when we hang on to things past their expiration date as they they go bad.

They turn toxic and so we're purifying our system simply by breathing into the belly and stilling the body and feeling rather than thinking our way into this meditation.

Take a deep breath in,

Sigh it out,

And allow yourself to be still,

Wide awake to what's real and what's true about you.

As much as possible keep the breath in the belly and with each exhale allow yourself to drop in a little more,

To let go a little more.

What are we letting go of?

Letting go of the impulse to control things,

Letting go of the urge to fix something,

Letting go of our sense of being alone,

Releasing it into this vast expanse of cosmic intelligence.

If you get distracted,

Just very kindly,

Gently,

Compassionately bring your awareness back to the breath.

If the mind is chattering,

So if you can just witness it without getting involved with the chatter,

Get to know your mind from stepping back from it a little bit.

Allow the chatter to just flow past you like you're watching clouds on a breezy day,

Like your thoughts are in helium filled thought bubbles that just float away.

Here comes that thought,

There it goes.

You keep coming back to the breath.

You don't want to get into a fight with the mind and try and stop it from thinking.

It's what it does.

You're not your mind.

You have a mind,

But you're not your mind.

So coming back to the breath,

Coming back to this inner awareness,

Coming back to your authenticity puts the mind in its rightful place in the service of something greater in you.

Take a deep breath in,

Inside out.

And then on this next breath,

Still with your eyes closed,

Just rub your hands together,

Create some heat and you're activating a whole bunch of energy centers and meridians that run through your hands,

Charging up your energy field.

And then place your hands on your heart and take a deep breath and fill your hands with your chest and feel your heart beating and connecting the pulse of all creation.

Here it is right in the midst of you.

And then take your hands again and rub them together and place them on your belly from root to solar plexus and breathe into your hands and feel into the flow,

The creation,

The passion,

Your rootedness,

Your confidence,

Personal power.

Feel into the flow of creation here all by design and then rub your hands together again.

If you have a little essential oil you can rub it in your hands and fill up your senses as you cup your eyes.

Take another moment here in the darkness.

Just keeping in mind all of life starts in the dark.

Every new life comes from darkness.

Every new adventure starts in darkness.

And so as you're in the dark just recognize and appreciate that you get to start again.

You've hit the reset button,

Given your system a chance to clear itself of falsehoods,

Illusions,

All that does not serve.

So appreciate yourself for this.

And whenever you're ready you can open your eyes,

Return to the room,

Return to your body.

Thank you so much for sitting today.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Peace.