When we begin a practice and we attune to our present moment,
We attune to the physical body,
What's happening in our body.
As we're noticing our body,
We're noticing muscles and tight spots and sensations,
Sensory perceptions.
And we also notice energy,
Things that are more subtle body or energetic body.
Could be that open-heartedness in the heart center.
Might be a heaviness there.
There could be a clench of fear in your gut.
We have all kinds of sensations.
We also notice the sensations of breath and the rhythm of our breath.
Generally speaking,
After we've been doing a practice,
Even just for a few minutes,
Our breath is smoother,
Softer.
Probably fuller.
You take some deeper in-breaths,
Longer exhales.
And as we notice what's happening in our body and we let our shoulders release away from our ears and we relax and soften.
And we let our breath become more continuous and smooth,
More ease in the breath.
We are starting to really have a felt sense of what we are experiencing in the moment.
And then we can start to look at thoughts in the mind.
What's going on in your thoughts dream?
And we look at content as well as just the general energetic field.
Sometimes our thoughts are very compulsive.
And we don't have a lot of room between them.
We tend to get swept away into our thoughts.
Other times we can kind of pull back more successfully and watch or observe,
Witness our thoughts as they come and go.
And even though we have a lot of individual variation between people,
But also between times.
Our own thought stream and our own experience in our thought varies widely.
Sometimes we have a lot of calm,
Other times we have a lot of compulsion.
So we all know what that feels like.
And most of the compulsion is driven by the nervous system.
Our strategies for staying safe.
The primitive brain wanting to make sure we don't forget any possible danger.
We might have a negative inner critic going on.
Getting to know our mind can be very helpful.
And we can use our mind for good as well as being carried into negative things.
So just to notice what's the energy of your thought stream right now.
And we could also notice some of the content.
And then coming to deeper and deeper layers of our experience and of the mind-body.
Notice that you're observing your body,
Breath,
And thoughts.
So there's some deeper layer of the mind that's able to observe.
And that this is all arising in a location,
In a space.
So sometimes when we talk about space,
We're talking about that very specific space the body is occupying from head to toes,
Toes to head.
And there's also the space of awareness.
We might notice that underneath the activity and the coming and going,
There's a stillness.
And then all of these layers are here at the same time.
We might be focusing more on one or another.
Let yourself draw your attention back into the layer of stillness.
Everything else can happen on its own at whatever layer it's happening on,
The thought stream,
The muscles,
The breath.
And from this stillness,
Notice that the mind is trying to draw you back into noticing its activity.
From the stillness,
Come back to the stillness as much as you can.
Notice that in this space,
Your belly is softening as you breathe out.
Notice your whole experience.
Let yourself draw your attention back into the layer of stillness.
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