Lighten Up

A brief talk about the ways fear is wired into our nervous systems, and the practice of neurodecolonization as Matthew Yellow Bird describes. Guided meditation, breath body awareness, grounding, transcending, releasing the illusion of unworthiness. Final prompt: come back.

Transcript

That's why it's important to meditate and I think also important to meditate with a kind of consciousness with,

You know,

That's why I call it decolonial meditation.

That it's a decolonial consciousness,

Meaning a meditation with the intention to anchor in our sovereign awareness,

Our ability to discern,

To know truth in the midst of deception and falsity.

And it's not just the falsity of what other people,

You know,

Promote,

Right?

It's also the false beliefs that we have,

Maybe about our own selves.

So if you hate your body,

That is a false belief system.

There's a lot of suffering attached to the world of illusion because it is illusion.

Suffering comes from the fact that something inside of us does know what's true.

We do know about our worthiness.

We do have,

You know,

Inherent dignity.

There is a part of us that's never been hurt and that can't be hurt because we came in with it.

These are the places we go in meditation and that's what starts to decolonize our system.

Not just that alone.

I think it matters to have some knowledge and awareness too,

But that has a lot of inner kind of impact on us.

So I just,

I wanted to tell you just an awareness I had recently.

I remember the first day of school,

So I'm,

You know,

Four and a half,

My dad,

You know,

He held my hand and he walked me into school.

And until that,

The moment we got in the classroom,

Things were pretty happy.

You know,

We're walking to school.

My dad's holding my hand.

It's a good day.

But then I saw the hostile faces when I walked in and including the teacher and I instantly realized,

Oh,

I am not safe.

And it was like a terror got wired in my system.

And I'm pretty sure it happened in that moment.

And then got confirmed over and over and over again.

I mean,

I can know that intellectually,

But it was really recently and it's the result of meditation and the result of a certain consciousness that I started to really connect with that wiring,

The setup of terror in me.

And that connects to this concept that I learned recently also,

Which is neuro-decolonization.

This is the idea that our nervous systems carry the traces of power.

The colonial matrix is in our nervous system.

Neuro-decolonization is doing the work of unraveling the wiring in that whole nervous system,

Brain chemistry that's just firing without me even knowing.

And so that's like a deep inner work of unraveling that stuff that's not separate then from how it expresses in the world.

I want to share that with you and just let you know that partly what you're doing is neuro-decolonization from Matthew Yellowbird.

Yeah,

Let's start.

What we discover in meditation is we discover that part of us that is whole.

Relax and this relaxation is not frivolous.

It is a privilege that we can take a moment out of our lives to just drop in.

Start to notice your breath.

Allow it to slow right down.

Let your inhale be long and slow.

Let your exhale be long and slow.

Let everything be long and slow.

And slow right down and come into this moment allowing everything else to fall away.

Everything else that came before this precise moment we just leave it behind.

It's mostly regrets back there or projections.

We leave everything of what we think comes next.

Leave it behind.

Let it fall away.

That too a projection often of worry.

In the present moment here and now everything is here.

The breath,

This body,

This mind,

Not separate but fully interdependent,

Interrelated.

A part of the whole and wholeness itself.

And so let yourself drop in,

Drop in,

Drop in.

This deepest part of ourselves that's never separate.

Let us your breathing long and slow.

Make sure you're dropping that breath into your belly and so that your belly expands with the inhale and softens with the exhale and opens up all of those channels of your lower chakras and this belly that is the womb of creation of all sorts of things being created all the time right here.

And the energy of our passion and our fiery sense of creative possibilities,

All of it.

Just opening it up with the breath.

Closing your ribs,

Lift,

Your chest expands.

Let it fall apart slowly.

You you you you you you you you you you you you you And if you get distracted just see where your mind goes see see what distracts just to notice and get to know things about yourself and then just bring your attention back to your breath notice any sensations in the body anything that's grabbing your attention or maybe interfering with your stillness let's see if you can just breathe into it maybe lean into it connect with it and on your out breath see if you can soften and break out that energy so that it moves you you and then start to drop that breath a little lower see if you can connect with the earth beneath your feet and an earth star chakra that anchors you here inhale from the earth like you're receiving it's what you're doing the energy the flow of nourishment you know the way the earth holds us one connects us so receive that breath from the earth then I sail back into the earth let yourself just go with it go with that breath and inhale again from the earth this time exhale through your crown into the sky roll your eyes up as you're looking through your crown they're going with that breath up and then exhale or inhale inhale from the sky the showers of golden white light and then exhale into the earth beneath your feet and receive that breath again from the earth and exhale into the sky just receiving all of that light you know light lighting lighting you up lighten up you can continue that sky to earth breath if you want a good thing to practice the next time you're walking somewhere can just become aware of that energy coming up through the ground to meet you and picture your earth star chakra dancing and if you get distracted bring your awareness back to your breath let me take note of what distracts you now let it go like helium-filled balloons all these distractions notice it let it go watch it float away you that's the mystical eye you you you take a deep breath let it out you you you you transformation is afoot take a deep breath in let it out you ah take a deep breath in and sigh it out and just soften take a deep breath let it out let it out let it out take a deep breath in let it out let it out take a deep breath in and sigh it out ah take a deep breath in and sigh it out take a deep breath in and sigh it out ah take a deep breath in and sigh it out take a deep breath in and sigh it out take a deep breath in and sigh it out and still with your eyes closed let's ah rub our hands together and they're a bit warm,

Just place them on your belly from your root to your solar plexus,

Hold your whole belly and breathe and then ah do it again,

Rub your hands together and good time for some essential oil,

Get a little drop and then place your hands on your heart and your high heart to feel into your pulse and then take your hands one more time again rub them together and then pop your eyes,

Just taking a moment one more moment to just be still in the warmth and the darkness and take a moment to appreciate just appreciate and whenever you're ready,

Open your eyes,

Come back