Think about interbeing.
Thich Nhat Hanh,
A beloved Buddhist monk,
Coined that phrase,
Interbeing.
It really speaks to our interactions and our interconnections on so many levels.
So one of the levels is our own body,
Our own mind-body.
And in the West we've had this separation between our thinking brain,
Our cognitive mind,
And our body,
And that's actually not how it works.
We're actually very connected,
But we might not know that.
80% of the messages between our brain and our body are coming from the body up to the brain.
And then the brain interprets them,
Our nervous system interprets them.
So a lot of this is unconscious autonomic processes,
As well as this ongoing perception of threat,
Safety,
Connection,
Disconnection.
One of the really beautiful things now about knowing so much about the nervous system and how to work with connecting is that we can do practices that help us to heal that mind-body split within ourselves.
So that's really a prerequisite to fully feeling into our interbeing with ourselves,
But with other people,
With the trees,
The air we breathe.
So let's just tune into that for a moment as we're getting started.
I'm here in a body.
My body is in a location.
And in that location,
I have sense perceptions.
I have thoughts about it,
For sure,
As well.
So if we think about where we're at,
Where we're located,
And then we use our eyes as well to notice,
We don't consciously use our senses.
Our senses are just there.
They're always bringing in information.
If we look around,
What we're doing is we're signaling our nervous system,
Our unconscious perception of safety.
And then we also can do this as a practice.
So what is my experience right now of interbeing?
There's my own mind-body.
That's a big practice on its own.
And there's my thoughts about how we're all connected on some level.
One of the ways we're connected is through these ones and zeros that are flying through space.
You can see my face.
I can see what you're chatting.
I can see your little icons going along the bottom of the screen.
And I know that each of those represents a person.
I know that behind each one of those icons,
There's a person.
And there's so many different experiences that we have.
So each of us has a commonality of experience.
We tend to have a lot of habits in our perceptions and in our bodies.
So if you were to pay attention to your body right now,
And just notice your feet,
Your seat.
Notice what you're seeing as you look around.
It's very familiar.
And then if we were to approach it from a little bit of a different angle,
We could also notice how is my body interacting with the environment that I'm in.
So one is the air on our skin.
We have sense perceptions of that.
If you're feeling warm enough,
Just the right temperature,
That's something.
If you're wearing itchy clothes,
You're going to have a sense perception of that.
This is kind of a neutral material,
Not itchy,
Not soft and yummy.
If I have a soft,
Velvety kind of a texture under my fingers,
Then that feels different.
And I'm very confident that the environment that I'm in right now is safe.
There's no big hurricane happening here right now.
And when there was a month ago,
I wasn't really thinking I was going to die,
But I was.
My nervous system was like,
Whoa,
I don't know for sure about this.
This could be dangerous.
So we have all of this interaction with our environment.
And one of the ways that we take in the environment is through our eyes.
We see what ends up as colors and shapes.
Another way is that we breathe the air in the empty space in front of our nose into our body.
So if you were to pay attention to your breath for a moment,
Quite often we attune to the rhythm,
The pace of our breath.
We notice,
Am I holding my breath?
Could I take a deeper breath?
Get a bit more air going through my body?
Put more oxygen.
And then if you were to bring your awareness into the space that your body is occupying,
There's a channel that goes from our nostrils and through the back of our throat into our lungs.
And then it spreads out like the estuary of a river into all of these smaller things that can breathe in the air,
That can take the oxygen,
That release the carbon dioxide.
So if you were to just pay attention to that for a moment,
That's one of the ways that we interact with the environment that we're in.
We breathe it in literally into our bodies.
And it changes when it's in our bodies.
It warms up.
So by the time we breathe out,
We're not getting that cool sensation in the back of our throat anymore.
It's warm.
And whether we're thinking about breathing or not thinking about breathing,
Our body's doing its thing.
It's taking the oxygen,
Returning the carbon dioxide.
And if you were to think about the nearest plants or trees,
Grasses and weeds and trees,
Other kinds of plants.
So that's what they breathe in.
They breathe in the carbon dioxide that we expel and they also bring in,
They take in the sunshine.
So if you were to just think about,
Or maybe you're out in the sunshine,
Think about standing in the sun with the sun on your face if you're warm.
And then if you're cold,
What does the sun feel like on your face?
These are ways of body-mind or mind-body connection within ourselves,
But also in the environment around us.
So be aware of your whole entire body from head to toes.
Notice your body,
The sense perceptions,
The sensations of pain or softness,
Maybe of digestion.
There's a little bit of a sensation as we blink our eyes.
As we move our tongues around in our mouth,
We swallow.
And notice that the effect that we have on each other is also in this,
Could be in our awareness,
Or maybe we're not thinking about it or paying attention to it.
Right now,
I'm talking about interbeing and the ways that we're connected,
Hearing my voice.
I had a really harsh kind of a voice,
You'd have a different response.
If I was feeling really anxious about something and not very well regulated,
We pick that up for people.
We're just really kind of sitting with this.
What is it like to be in relationship with our own mind-body,
But also all of the people,
The trees,
The plants,
The air,
In relationship within our environment that we're in?
We can just notice this.
And we've evolved from a tribal people who lived in 30 to 50 people communities primarily.
Some still live in those and some live in big cities.
We live all over the world.
And for some technology,
Now we can connect with each other in a way that wasn't possible before.
Of course,
If I was to bring to mind some of the negative things about that,
We learn more about different people now who might feel dangerous to us.
And we see it on video,
On the news,
And our nervous system takes that in as alarming because in all of the evolution of the human beings,
Every time we saw a visual threat,
It felt like it was immediate because it was in our area.
It was in our immediate area.
Now it's not.
Now it might be somewhere else in the world.
And yet we still have this nervous system that responds to things like that.
And this is an unconscious process.
We are all so linked.
And some of that is great.
And some of that makes us scared.
We could notice that.
And if you bring to mind people who are really calming for you and who you feel really connected with,
Notice what that feels like being connected with trees.
And I'm sure when I'm just saying that or people who are reading that have a response as well.
For many of us,
Nature was at least one place where we felt safe.
And it might have been the only place if we had difficult relationships with the people around us.
Sometimes a pet or a tree or how we anchored into feeling included or safe.
Let's really bring that to mind for a bit and notice what it feels like in your body as you really focus in on other people or spaces or experiences where you felt safe.
Use all of your senses,
Bring it to mind.
Let yourself see what are the visuals.
They might be like an image,
Might be a video clip.
And let yourself feel that in your body as well.
Notice what happens to your shoulders as you're thinking about someone that or something or some place where you feel soft and relaxed.
Notice if you're clenching your teeth,
If that changed,
If your breath got a bit smoother.
What a powerful mechanism this is.
Physical body and our breath can change just by what we think about or what we bring to mind.
And this feeling of I'm not separate from nature can be really healing,
Especially if we have the feeling of,
I don't feel connected to other people or I don't feel safe with people.
We kind of break apart or disconnect from ourselves as well.
And then somehow we were inspired to find connection,
Especially when we were children,
When we're having those experiences,
But the same now as adults,
If you're an adult.
That's something that we can do in our body,
In our senses as well.
We can tune into this experience of feeling connected.
If you were to tune back into the space that your body is occupying,
Notice the outside edges.
We know that through sense perception.
You might feel the air or the clothes on our skin.
It's a certain sensation.
If we put our hand on our heart,
Let's touch our face or our arms or legs,
We can feel that we know where the edges of our bodies are.
And then if you were to bring your attention into the specific space of your heart center,
That's not really the physical heart that's just to the left.
It's a physical organ and it has a physical job.
It pumps blood.
To bring your attention or your awareness to your heart center,
Your emotional or spiritual heart center,
That energy center in the center there of the rib cage.
And notice what's here.
Notice how you know that you're in that location.
We have proprioception and interoception.
We have all of these sections.
Bring your attention into that awareness of your heart center.
And we know where it is.
It's in the middle of our body.
And there might be a certain sensation.
Might be more of a vibration or awareness of space.
It can happen in different ways.
Just to bring your attention to the heart center.
And then without losing the awareness of your heart center,
Expand your awareness a bit so that you're aware of the space above and below your heart center.
Above the heart center,
We're getting into the upper part of the chest.
And then notice without losing track of the heart center,
Notice the space in front of your heart center that's still in your body.
And notice that as you're breathing,
You're probably feeling at least a little bit of motion in that area in front of your heart center.
And then notice the space outside of your body in front of your heart center.
Notice that we can be aware of that too.
You're aware of your heart center.
You're aware of three or four inches or whatever that would be in centimeters in front of your chest,
In front of your heart center,
Outside of your body.
Notice the back as well.
Can you be aware of the back of your heart center?
A sense of being just behind the heart center in the body still,
And then behind that as well.
So notice if you can maintain awareness of your heart center and then of the space in front and behind of your heart center.
And notice if you could expand that awareness to include the room that you're in.
You're aware of your body in this space,
The space of the room.
And then notice as well that we're doing this practice,
We're all hearing these same sounds.
I see there's 92 people here.
So 92 people are paying attention to their heart center or having different experiences.
We're all having the same sounds coming into the ears.
See if you can bring in the awareness of the other people all over the world.
And notice that that's a little bit different than noticing the space an inch or two in front of your body.
It's on a different level in a way.
So we're not thinking about it so much.
I mean,
There's some thought involved.
Just experiencing it.
There's 92 people that are feeling into their heart center and noticing that we're doing this in an interconnected web of energy.
And there's some computer technology involved too.
And every one of us is breathing in the air,
Warming the air in our lungs and then breathing it out.
We all have experiences of feeling connected with trees and nature and people and pets and experiences and places.
We all have thoughts coming into our mind.
We all have an experience in our nervous system.
Staying connected and focusing in on interbeing.
And we can interbe through time as well.
Thich Nhat Hanh was on this earth in a body.
He was saying some words that were sound vibrations that were captured by technology,
But also people that were in his immediate vicinity were hearing the words and feeling the energy of that from him.
Let yourself feel all of the different levels.
Also just let time and space move a bit into the background.
Focus on interbeing.
And we're not losing track of ourselves or of our own mind body.
We're just expanding our awareness to include all of us here together doing this practice,
Tuning into our connection.
We all have our own physical experience.
We all have our own memories.
We have a softening in our body when we think of something that's connecting and safe,
Beautiful.
Maybe we could bring in a beautiful piece of music.
We have these obstacles and we have these things that help us to realize in this moment our connection.
If you were to bring in other beings,
Whatever that might bring to mind for you,
Certainly other people,
Other human beings,
Other animal beings,
Other tree spirits,
Oxygen,
The earth,
The force of gravity,
We are connected in this world that we live in,
In the bodies that we live in.
Right now we're expanding our field of awareness from the heart center,
Our own emotional spiritual heart center in our body.
Without losing track of that,
We're letting our awareness broaden or expand.
And there's so much in our world that's difficult.
And so many people that don't feel safe and so many people that feel like a threat.
And yet there's this too.
Everyone is here.
108 people right now are connecting in this way.
You come back into your own body,
Noticing again your body and your breath.
Notice the sense perceptions,
The air as it moves into your nose.
And we know,
We may have an image of it,
We have some sensation,
But not exactly direct sensation.
Or the air as it moves into our lungs,
But our body knows about that,
Even if we don't have a thought about it or a perception exactly.
We're bringing this air into our lungs and it's nourishing the bloodstream,
Nourishing the body,
We're aware that we're here in a body,
That we're here together.
