Close down our eyelids.
Relax the muscles of the eye.
Relax the muscles through the face,
Through the upper cheekbones,
And allow the lower jaw to relax from the upper jaw.
Let the eyes melt back into their sockets,
Moving our focus from the outside world to the inside world.
Find a widening through the upper chest and then a lengthening through the sides of the waist and the sides of the neck.
And then allow the weight of the lower body to release.
Letting go the need to hold on.
And find some movement of the breath as it moves in and fills up your entire back body,
Entire sides of your ribs.
And then exhale,
Allow the warm air from inside your body to move into the outside world.
Again,
Each inhale filling up through the back of the shoulder blades.
And exhale,
Let it out.
And for the next couple breaths,
Just to settle us a little deeper,
I'd like you to try to simply note on each inhale,
Inhaling,
And silently note on each exhale,
Exhaling.
One of the greatest powers that this practice gives us is the ability to be in control of us and not have to be worried about the outside world,
Meaning our needs.
To be poised in the face of chaos,
To be resilient in the face of failure,
To be able to be with all of life's flux as it comes.
And we learned a big core of this is learning to respond to our situations rather than to react.
So through our meditation today,
We are going to learn to be with parts of our physical body.
And then we're going to do a visualization to bring that into our emotional body.
In the Buddhist tradition,
There are three feeling tones that make up the entirety of our life experiences.
And each time we experience them,
We normally have a response.
And those tones are pleasant,
Unpleasant,
Or neutral.
So we tend to cling to what is pleasant,
To run away,
To retract from what's unpleasant.
And we kind of don't even realize that there is this neutral part of our lives.
So continuing to follow your breath,
I'd like you to begin to scan down through your body,
And see if you can find a part of your body that might feel unpleasant.
So it might be a tightness somewhere.
It doesn't have to be an extreme feeling.
It can be maybe just a place where you feel a little bit stuck,
A little bit unease.
Or it might be an unpleasant odor,
Or a taste in your mouth.
And once you find this place,
Notice if your first reaction is to want to fix it,
Want to change what it is.
And instead,
In our practice,
We are going to learn to see if we can just be with the experience.
See if we can just be with the unease that is in our body,
Without feeling like there's anything for us to do.
And allow each breath to send energy to this part of the body.
And almost like you're just leaning on a door,
Allow yourself to lean into the unpleasant feeling.
And remember,
Being able to lean into our physical body will trigger us during our regular life,
When we have negative emotions come up,
Or something that we don't like happens,
And we're able to lean into it rather than want to fix it or run away.
Take a nice cooling breath in and let it out.
Release the thought of the unpleasant in your body.
And we're going to change our focus.
We're going to scan through and see if you can find a part of your body that is pleasant.
And this can be a little bit tougher.
And it might just be that you find the peace and the satisfaction of sitting in your meditation.
And at any time,
If you can't find a feeling,
You can always just come back to your breath,
Come back to the noting of inhaling and exhaling.
And if you do find a pleasant sensation,
Notice if there's a feeling of wanting to grasp at it,
Wanting to really enjoy it more,
To make it more of your experience.
And just like with unpleasant,
Instead of wanting to do anything with this pleasant feeling.
Using the breath as an anchor,
See if you can simply be with the feeling.
And leaning into it.
Take a cooling breath in and out.
Moving on to a part of your body that is neither unpleasant or pleasant.
So there's a neutrality to it.
It could be the heels of your feet,
Your gums,
Some part that is neither unpleasant or pleasant,
But falls into this kind of in between gray area.
And I'd like you to pay attention and just be curious about this part.
Giving some light to something that we don't normally give our full attention towards.
And leaning into this part of our body.
Take a breath in and let it out.
We're going to now affirm all of the parts of us.
To bring them all in together as an expression of who we are,
Of the ups and the downs and the in between.
So silently in your head or you're welcome to do it out loud as well.
Repeat.
I am balanced.
I am centered.
I am whole.
I am balanced.
I am centered.
I am whole.
Take a breath in and out.
And for the last part of our meditation,
We're going to bring to mind something in our actual lives that we can use this work that we've done of leaning in to the unpleasant and just being with it.
We can foresee a situation happening in our life where this could be useful.
I'd like you to think of something that happens in your work or in your life that triggers you into reaction mode.
Maybe it's an angry email that you get that you just want to reply back and tell that person how you feel.
Maybe it's when your son or daughter does something that always makes you super angry and you just want to scream at them and yell at them.
Go to this place in your mind,
Find a trigger point for you,
Something that stirs you emotionally.
And imagine that event happening.
And from this space of being able to respond,
Maybe you start to feel that emotion that you feel when this trigger point happens.
And instead of doing anything about it,
Through the anchor of our breath,
See if you can allow yourself to lean in to the experience and just be with what is happening.
And it's from this place of poise that we can then mindfully choose to respond in a way that's going to best serve all who are involved,
Especially best serve us.
Take a breath in and let it out.
Slowly begin to come back to your body.
Come back to the weight of the body resting on the cushion or the chair.
Back to the feeling of your hands.
Release any thought,
Release any focus.
And whenever you feel complete with your meditation,
You can go ahead and open your eyes,
Come back being able to respond and be balanced throughout your day.
It's always a pleasure to guide you.
Namaste.
