Unconditional Presence

Learning to truly be with our experience as it is, means allowing it to be without trying to change it, fix it or make it “better”. You are enough as you are and this moment is enough as it is. Understanding this allows us open to the natural change, growth, and transformation that comes from such unconditional acceptance.

Transcript

So we're starting out here,

Just taking a moment to settle in.

Just becoming physically in place.

We can consider this first minute or so just a bit of a warm-up.

In fact,

You might consider the whole practice a warm-up.

We'll just start by letting go of any unnecessary tensions,

If we can.

Letting go of the compulsion to move voluntarily.

Doesn't mean we're holding ourself frozen or perfectly still in any way.

Just letting go of the reactionary compulsion to fidget and move.

Just going to become aware of feeling of stillness without forcing it.

As we become aware of stillness,

We also become aware of that which interrupts stillness,

Which is movement.

All the involuntary movements,

The slight adjustments of our body just to stay upright.

We're going to be letting go of our social mask.

Let go of the need to look or be any particular way.

Let go of the need to present yourself to others or even yourself with some particular facade or mask.

Let go of putting on a brave face.

Let go of being fine.

Let go of having to be strong and let go of any compulsions towards the opposite.

You don't need to be anything other than what you are.

You don't need to feel anything other than what you feel.

And so now start to become aware of whatever you're already aware of.

My words alone might very well trigger you to just become aware of something that was already there.

Now there's just a bit more of a focus on it.

And that focus might shift and allow it to shift.

We're not trying to control anything.

We're letting go of control as much as possible without trying to control control.

Now I'm going to invite you and it is an invitation to bring your attention to the center parts of your body.

Your chest and your abdomen,

What you might call your heart center and your feeling center.

And I want you to become particularly aware of the physical sensations.

And this isn't to say we're trying to ignore anything else.

We're allowing everything in.

We're allowing whatever is here to be here.

Whatever enters our awareness to enter our awareness.

We're just highlighting these particular areas,

This heart and stomach or our guts where we often feel a particular amount of energy.

I mean that in the very direct experiential way.

It's the movement of energy through your body,

Sensations.

And with that,

I now want you to start to pay attention to what you're feeling.

Letting these physical sensations relate to what you are aware of in your emotional world.

How do they connect?

And stories and narratives and conceptual thoughts will arise and that's okay.

There's nothing wrong with that.

You're not doing anything wrong.

But we can allow ourselves to let them come and go on their own.

Perhaps we'll at least try not to invest in them any further.

We'll let go of the story,

But come back to the feeling that any story might inspire.

And if it hasn't arisen already,

I'd now like you to bring to mind something you're having difficulty with right now.

And many of this will be simple day-to-day experience that we're undergoing.

But what is it in particular that you are struggling with?

Is it loneliness?

Is it anger?

Frustration?

Jealousy?

Grief?

Something you're having difficulty with.

I'm gonna start by just acknowledging.

Acknowledging that we already feel it and and perhaps this is challenging and there's resistance to even acknowledging the feeling.

And that's okay.

We can also hold our awareness around that.

That resistance.

Just acknowledge the resistance to feeling.

That too is okay.

It's okay that you're not okay.

We're just sitting with it.

Other difficulties will arise.

Other feelings will arise.

They didn't all be unpleasant either.

We're just trying to stay with the flow.

The flow of energy.

What we might call emotions.

The ones that stick out with an obvious tone or word.

Oftentimes this energy is ineffable.

Indescribable.

Only the feeling itself can speak for itself.

And so we're letting ourselves relate primarily through the body.

What's it feel like?

What is the feeling of this thought?

What is the feeling of this story?

The core physical sensations.

Pleasant.

Unpleasant.

Neutral.

And we're simply bringing tolerance.

That's all we're doing right now.

Just tolerance.

We don't have to pretend it's pleasant.

Or that we're calm.

Or that we're having a good time with it.

We can simply experience it as unpleasant.

Or neutral.

Or pleasant.

However it comes.

Just letting it be.

In fact your only job here right now is to just sit.

That's all you're doing.

It's all the effort you need to exert.

Whatever effort it takes just sit.

In this way we invent nothing and we deny nothing.

There's no way we should be.

There's no other experience we should be having other than this one right now.

This moment is exactly how it's meant to be and you are doing everything exactly as you should be.

You cannot fail.

There is no way to fail at this.

And if you feel like you might be able to start working a bit deeper with this you can start to open up to allowing the feeling in a bit more.

Allowing it to course through.

Allow your body to open up to it.

Allow the tensions that are subtly holding against it.

Allow them to melt away.

Allow yourself to just feel it a little bit deeper as you continue on.

You might then be able to open to it.

This is like having a new neighbor at first.

Their presence is maybe unpleasant,

New,

Chaotic.

A lot of change and you liked your previous neighbor and over time you start to become more familiar.

You reach out.

You start to tolerate their idiosyncrasies.

Maybe they're a little bit obnoxious.

You allow it.

Tolerate it.

Bit by bit you start to get to know this feeling neighbor and you start to appreciate the uniqueness of this feeling.

The uniqueness of them.

The particular gifts they have to offer.

Maybe what you saw as obnoxious at first is a wonderful refreshing directness.

Gradually you start to befriend them.

Over time we can learn to even embrace them.

To be grateful for this intensity of experience.

Whatever it is.

Resistance to a feeling.

Frustration with a feeling.

The frustration itself.

Deep,

Deep grief and sadness.

Anger.

Can we open to them?

We just allow them to be without getting involved.

Maybe there's some wisdom there and if there's a point it's not happened already where you think to yourself I can't bear this for another moment.

You already did.

That moment has passed.

You bore it.

And that's proof you can tolerate,

You can bear so much more than you give yourself credit for.

And if there was a time when you had to take a break that's okay too.

You bore so much more than you had in the past.

Our mind keeps coming to the narratives,

Stories,

The endless stream of thoughts racing through our minds.

That's okay.

See if you can allow yourself to tune back into the feeling as well.

The energy.

That's what's hard to hold.

The energy.

The intensity of the experience.

Whether it's love or fear or sadness.

There's an intensity there.

It's undeniable.

And we're learning to hold it.

To be open to it.

To be vulnerable.

To be with our experience like we would be with a dear loved one who is also in pain.

All we have to do is be present.

We don't need to fix them.

And we don't need to fix ourselves.

We just need to be present unconditionally.

Nothing can break that unconditional presence.

Coming back to the feeling.

Acknowledging.

Allowing.

Opening.

Entering.

Letting yourself delve deep into the experience of the emotion.

And the emotions as they change.

As they will.

We don't need to change our experience.

There's nothing wrong with it.

If you feel pain there's a reason.

A good reason.

You don't need any justification to feel the way you feel.

Just keep going back to that feeling.

Soon we're going to come to a close on this particular sit.

Before that if you care to I'd like you to place a hand on your belly or your heart and just feel that sensation.

You might give yourself some self-soothing or you can do it with stillness.

Just notice what happens when you simply place your hand upon yourself.

Like placing it upon a dear friend.

Dear friend who's suffering.

As we all do.

That's always needed.

Just a gentle hand.

And here we're going to remember that the reason we suffer and the reason we don't want to suffer this resistance to suffering itself is a reminder of how much we already love ourselves.

Even if we can't feel it.

Even if we're not able to open to that right now.

The mere fact that you do not want to suffer is self-love.

The fact that you feed yourself,

The fact that you sleep,

Your simple presence here today is a reminder that you have no self-love to cultivate only to remember.

Only to be reminded that it's already there.

Clouded.

Like the sun in the sky.

Clouds may obscure it.

It doesn't mean the sun is gone.