What Are You Carrying?

There's a difference between engaging and taking responsibility and carrying the weight of the world. This is not something we can carry on our own. If we're noticing a heavy burden, we could release that for an immediate sense of relief - I'm not going to carry that right now. I might drop that burden for 10 minutes while I rest. After reflection, I might choose to let parts of it go forever or I might find different ways to engage.

How am I carrying what's happening in my life, the weight of the world, the weight of my life? How much of what I'm carrying is mine to carry? How much of that do I have to carry alone? How and to whom can I reach out to carry it with a partner, friends, or in the community?

Transcript

What are we doing?

I think that's a question a lot of us are asking ourselves right now and I know I am.

It's like all of the things that I'm doing in my life right now.

What is it that I'm doing with my time?

Who am I spending my time with?

What is my internal environment?

Am I excited about what I'm doing?

What is juicy?

What is kind of run its course?

When things really change and the old doesn't seem to be as likely,

What we hoped to be happening right now isn't happening,

Then that can be an opportunity to double down but also to reflect on am I doubling down on the right things?

What have I gotten into a habit of doing?

You know that happened after COVID,

I think for many of us who all of a sudden all of the things that used to be what we did were no longer available and are not in the same way.

And then we get to just pause and reflect and realign,

Reassess.

Notice what's here,

What you're bringing in.

These practices are all based on somatic mindfulness,

So what's happening in your soma,

Your body.

Notice if there's a predominant energy,

And notice if anything's sparked from what I was saying about how are we spending our time.

Is it juicy?

Is it exciting?

Have some things run their course perhaps?

Is it that's coming to mind for you and how does that feel in your body?

Our body communicates with us through energy and sensation is primarily non-verbal.

With somatic mindfulness we can tune in and notice,

Ah,

I have been feeling this pervasive sense of whatever that might be.

Let me take a few breaths if that's comfortable.

You might notice the flow of air in your nostrils.

Notice the pace,

The rhythm.

Are you holding your breath?

Are you breathing that deep,

Smooth,

Continuous diaphragmatic breath?

Are you breathing in enough airflow to nourish the tissues in your body with oxygen,

Or is it a bit skimpy?

When we become aware,

Then we're able to make some adjustments,

And often our body just does that.

Oh,

I noticed that I'm breathing kind of shallow,

So I might breathe a little bit more deeply,

Or I could smooth out my breath a little.

Notice your body.

Is there any part of your body that is attracting your attention?

There might be physical,

Could be energetic sensations.

Do a scan through our body like that and take our attention right to the area that seems a little tight or where there is a sensation.

Take care of some of the obvious.

Our shoulders up around our ears.

It's hard to relax and breathe.

We might move around a little.

Let things soften.

Let ourselves be supported by the back,

Whatever's behind your body.

For me,

One of the things that always happens is that I notice my breath,

And I feel very comforted just by the deepening and smoothness of the breath.

And on the exhalation,

My shoulders soften,

My back softens,

The whole body starts to settle.

And if that's not the case for you,

Which it's very common not to find the breath comforting,

If we've had a lot of stored trauma especially,

What else might be coming or regulating?

So it might be that as I'm talking,

You're looking around the room,

Really taking in the present moment,

What's happening in the space you're in right now.

There's really no right or wrong way,

But there are more conducive ways for each of us that we could tune into that.

Notice the back of the head,

Neck,

Shoulders,

Upper back,

Mid back.

See if you could let any burden slide off your shoulders and let them release down through your arms and hands,

Fingers and fingertips.

There's a difference between engaging and taking responsibility and carrying the weight of the world.

That's not something we can carry on our own.

Anything that's a bit too heavy,

We could do that in an immediate sense,

If I'm not gonna carry that right now while I'm doing this practice,

That would be helpful.

Maybe I'm gonna look into that a little bit more.

How am I carrying what's happening in my life,

The weight of the world,

The weight of my life?

Could I move around a little or release some of that?

Much of what I'm carrying is mine to carry.

How much of that do I have to carry alone?

And how and to whom can I reach out to,

To carry it with partner,

Friends?

And then collectively,

We have this collective experience,

Literally shouldering our responsibilities in community is very different than going it alone.

And what could we do to bring a little bit of ease into that just for a few minutes and perhaps spreading out into our life as well?

You might bring your shoulders up on an inhale,

Soften on an exhale.

Let's spend a few minutes doing some releasing and assessing what's happening,

What am I carrying?

Also notice what are the thoughts in your mind?

What am I carrying?

Sometimes we lighten the load by sharing that.

Sometimes by letting go of things that aren't ours to carry or maybe not in the way we have.

We have a lot of conditioning and beliefs that factor in here as well.

Bring your awareness back to your whole body,

Head to toes,

Head to heels.

What are you carrying in your mind,

Your thought stream right now?

Soften the forehead,

Eyebrows and eyes.

Notice the energy of the thought stream.

Sometimes it's really quiet in a still way.

Sometimes it's kind of sluggish or frozen.

Sometimes it's quite compulsive or frantic.

So for a few minutes as we're softening the muscles of the forehead,

Notice what it is that you're thinking about.

And this might be in relation to what you're carrying.

It might be in relation to,

Is my life interesting to me right now?

Do I have enough juice,

Enough loving,

Enough excitement?

It's hard to bring in love and excitement when we're worried.

Let's sit with that for a moment.

What are you carrying in your mind,

In the thoughts,

In your brain?

And we could try out letting it go.

Okay,

I see that I'm carrying a lot of worry about this particular thing.

It's not something I've been able to shift very much.

I'm going to let that go for a while.

I can see I'm spending a lot of energy.

I'm being depleted.

What would it feel like or how could you imagine putting that aside at least for a while?

Notice your whole body as you're doing that,

Entertaining some possibilities perhaps.

Notice if your forehead is nice and soft or if it's kind of gotten a bit engaged again.

And then we bring our attention down into the mouth,

The jaw,

The faculty of speech.

There's an obvious metaphor here of tight jaw and holding in.

Just because it's common doesn't mean it's not powerful.

So if you could relax the hinges of your jaw,

Unclench your teeth,

Soften your tongue.

Is there something that comes to mind that you want to say or that you want to stop?

Sometimes we're holding things in like anger or setting a boundary.

Sometimes we're fawning and maybe we would like to put a pause on that.

What is the energy of speech,

Your tongue,

Your throat,

Your jaw?

And when we entertain possibilities that can feel a little scary,

So we could acknowledge that our mind might go right into,

Well,

If you do this or don't do that,

Then this and that.

We could take a breath and relax our shoulders or we might stand up,

Move around or whatever would be helpful.

This is not something that we need to fix or figure out in a 25-minute practice.

Especially if we're making big changes or a number of small changes leading to a big change,

We could take our time,

Come back to this again and again.

What are the obvious things that I'm carrying and what is the more subtle?

What might I open into as a possibility if I let go of some of this other stuff?

And that might also feel a bit scary.

Notice your forehead,

Your jaw,

Down into your throat,

The sides and back of your neck,

Shoulders,

And then let's go to the chest and the stomach area.

What's happening now with your breath?

How is it that your body is moving?

And if this is not a place where you want to focus right now,

Then change your focus,

Focus on something else.

And if it is,

Let yourself breathe as fully as you can without too much effort.

Bring in an abundance of oxygen.

We need fuel if we're going to engage with our life in a more exciting way,

Especially.

So take in an abundance of air and then release and let it all out.

In a more exciting way,

Especially.

So take in an abundance of air and then release and let it all go.

We don't need to hang on to the old stuff.

You could sigh or grunt or hum or make some noise or be quiet.

Let yourself go where you need to go here,

Whatever you feel.

And if during this inquiry,

You had a spark of some knowledge or intuition that,

You know,

I'm holding on to something that is not mine.

I'm going to look into that over the next days and weeks and months.

Or maybe you had a spark of something like,

Ooh,

What if I could?

Let yourself feel that in your whole body from head to toes.

And your nervous system might come in with putting on the brakes.

Well,

I don't know,

That's a bit risky.

And we could allow that nervous system to have its better safe than sorry intervention.

But we don't have to follow that.

We don't have to believe that's the only way.

Experience in your whole body,

What if I could bring this new thing in that would really give me energy or really allow me to contribute in a different way?

It might be a kindness and compassion practice.

Could be anything.

Then come back to noticing how everything's doing.

How's your mind,

Your brain,

Tension in your body?

Are you more relaxed?

Our body's very habitual.

There might've been some tension came back in.

What is it that maybe inspired you to delve into a bit more deeply?

What needs to shift?

Reviews

Always so beneficial. Sometimes I don’t know I need to hear these until I hear them but something always resonates strongly with me. Thank-you!

I love your pure Lyrical voice Delivering such lovely and beneficial guiding messages 🙏✨ I have shared this piece with many family and friends, and they said it was the perfect reset for rough days. Peace and joy to you💜☮️

I’m so grateful to have found your meditations here on IT as they’ve really resonated with and helped me when I feel like I’m back in an unhealthy pattern in my nearly 4 decade relationship with my husband again. All the things that you’ve thrown out for our considerations or questions to ponder are things that I’ve been thinking about or “hearing” in my mind as of late, again. I’ve done lots of trauma work over the years while my spouse has mostly creatively avoided it out of his own fears from his traumatic past (his words, not mine), and I’m tired. Tired of waiting and putting my life on hold. This meditation has reminded me of my own empowerment and fears as well that I’m ready to face because life is both too short and precious to feel like I don’t have a choice as to whether or not I want to keep struggling forth. Namaste 🙏🏻 ✨💫💜