Connecting With Our Breath And Our Emotional Space

We start finding our comfortable position by slowly focusing on our breath, or any part of our body that is nuatural so we can relax even more. We scan our body searching where the emotion take space in our physcial body and zoom into that spot. We open up to any feeling we experienc by accepting them. We avoid getting involved with the mind, as it has lots of stories to tell. We use our anchor to keep distance.

Transcript

Today,

We're gonna explore to work with the emotional space in our physical body.

And this is good for all of us in this difficult time that we're all dealing with right now.

So in order to do this,

We need to go through some steps.

So this,

What I propose is this starts at the beginning to just connecting with our breath and just relax a little bit.

And then we will try to find our own neutral anchor.

And for each of us is very different that anchor.

So that anchor would be available for us at any time that we feel like to need to come back to it.

And if we need to feeling like we're getting overwhelmed with our emotions,

Or we don't want to get into too many details or deeper,

So we can come back to that anchor.

So let's just come sit nice and comfortable.

Whatever comfortable position is for you today.

It could be sitting or lying down.

And listen,

I'm gonna close my eyes,

But if you feel like you don't want to close your eyes,

That's perfectly all right.

I just feel when I am closing my eyes,

I turn my intention and work.

So let's just find that comfortable position.

And so I invite you to just connect with your breath,

Sitting comfortably and just relax.

And see maybe you can just feel what the sensation is for you right now.

It could be the sensation around your nostrils that you're breathing.

Or maybe just globally the entire body,

You feel like your physical body sitting nice to relax.

Whatever way works for you to sit comfortably and connecting with your breath.

Perhaps it could be in your auditory system.

Perhaps you can hear the sound of your breath.

Just choose one local space that you can hold your attention to it and just relax.

You're trying to just zoom into that spot that way relax,

Allowing the body just to rest here.

Just notice your breath.

Sit comfortably.

We are not thinking of any experience that we have,

Just focusing on that breath.

Now I'm going to ask you if you can add a little bit of effort into your breath.

Are we going to try to do a natural inhalation?

Maybe a slightly longer exhale,

Very slight,

Very gentle.

More force.

Sometimes it might be helpful to count.

Maybe you can inhale for the count of three.

Maybe you exhale to the count of four.

Maybe you invite the breath to lengthen very little.

If you find that we can extend it a little more,

Then we just go very slowly.

Maybe at some point we can double that length of exhale.

Just focus on that.

Let's relax the face,

Shoulders as we're focusing on our breath.

Sometimes when we try to change the pattern of our breath,

We might feel a little bit dizziness or force in our breath.

And if you are feeling any sensation like that,

Just go back,

Take a break,

Relax,

And go back to that smooth,

Natural way of breathing.

Just allowing that exhale slowly to lengthen.

Now we're going to release that long exhale and come to our natural breath.

And just notice how you're breathing.

And now for some of us,

This breath might be just the perfect anchor to come back to it.

Let's find another spot for our anchor,

Our feet.

We're looking to find any awareness,

Sensation in our feet.

It could be cold,

It could be warm.

Maybe you notice that they're both presence.

You might notice a sensation of pressure if you're contacting with something else.

Just paying attention to your feet.

That is your,

Another maybe neutral spot that you can use as an anchor.

Just paying attention to your toes.

And if there's any tingling sensation,

Or it might be very neutral,

More sensation.

Now if you feel some discomfort in your feet,

In your toes,

So maybe this is not the anchor for you,

The neutral spot to go back to it.

So we can find another part.

Maybe we can take our attention to our hands.

Maybe it's another place that is a neutral anchor for us to get back to.

So we're gonna conduct the same investigation and let's see if there's any heat,

Any coldness,

Any heaviness,

Tingling,

Or any movements,

Waves in your hands,

In your fingers,

Any pressure.

Just notice if there is anything there.

And see if your hands become passive.

Maybe they're neutral.

Maybe you can come back to your hands.

That would be another anchor for you.

If that is not available today for whatever reason,

You can also choose the area around your ears.

See if you can connect to the sensation around the ears.

Same thing,

We conduct the same investigation.

For some of us,

It could be quite challenging to connect with this area.

It's almost like it doesn't exist or we don't have ears.

But they're there.

Usually there are not lots of sensation to detect.

But again,

See what you can feel,

That they're on the sides of your head.

This could be another place,

A neutral place,

Your anchor that you can come to it when you don't want to get into many details and get stuck into your emotions.

So keep one of these anchors in your mind,

Whether it's ears or hands or feet or even the breath,

The nostrils.

Because anytime there is lots of emotion coming out,

So you can always have an option to turn toward your anchor and use it as a tool to turn away.

Using that choice moment to moment,

It keeps us getting more relaxed and not getting stuck into our emotions.

If we can manage to hold our feeling,

Thought into that anchor and not go into the details and narrative or stories,

This will keep us very distanced from all those deep emotions.

So now we're ready to turn to our emotional space.

So let's look in our physical body and see where we're holding that emotions.

Take a moment.

This might be challenging and confusing to find where we hold our emotions feeling.

Where are our tightness spot in our body?

Now if you're not sure,

You can always guess and take our attention to our body and see where we're at,

Where we are emotionally.

Maybe we have a very clear signal,

We know where it's coming from or maybe we don't.

So let's try to go deep into the central line of our body.

We may find or sense our jaw.

Pay attention to the throat and see if there's any tightness there.

You can always do body scan.

See where the center is,

We normally hold lots of emotional tension here.

And see how our neck is doing,

Shoulders.

How about our chest?

Are we holding any emotions there?

Our heart?

So let's see if we can just connect to that physical sensation in whatever tight spot is in your body.

Whether the emotion is pleasant or unpleasant or maybe neither.

We're going to open to that feelings.

We are not here to get rid of any feelings.

We are not trying to generate a feeling of peace and harmony.

We just want to connect with where that it is right now.

No pushing,

No holding.

Sometimes this is very hard.

When we're dealing with challenging emotional feelings,

Would this just observe and see if we can feel that emotional space?

We just need to be patient and see if we can find those challenging emotions.

If we feel like we have found some sensation of emotion and they're expressing in this moment.

So we hold our attention in that moment,

In that place,

And we zoom into it and see what the sensation are expressing right now.

So as we zoom into that part of the body and we're going to do the same investigations and we're going to ask questions,

How much space this is taking space in my body?

Is it big?

Is it very large?

Is it small?

Is it very deep or is it flat?

How does it feel like it in your body?

We're trying to have very friendly opening approach.

And this sometime it's very hard to do as might arise emotions.

So all we're going to do right now,

We're going to just open and accept with very friendly feelings.

Then we're just looking at it,

Whether it's deep or light.

We're going to see if there is movement or flow into this tight spot.

Is it a throbbing?

Is it changing shape or spreading or is it shrinking?

You might feel if there's some tightness or some tingling,

That's fine.

Just accepting,

Friendly accepting everything you're feeling right now.

You might even feel a little heat or coolness.

As we getting deeper and deeper into this emotional feeling,

Just keep in mind that the mind is very powerful.

Might tell you stories and get you going into narrative and into too many details.

So avoid getting a tang to all those details.

And we don't want to get into that narrative and stories.

Although it's very easy to do that.

So this is where we come back to our anchor.

We are just paying attention to the sensation,

To the emotional that takes part in our body.

We want to notice it,

Acknowledge it,

Be friendly with it.

But then keep a distance from it and make sure you're not getting into all the stories and come back to that anchor.

Maybe your feet,

Hands,

Maybe your breath,

Or maybe around your ears.

And we do the same thing if other thoughts jump into the mind.

So we're going to anchor any thought that attached to that emotion feeling and come back to that anchor,

That neutral spot.

As we practice this technique,

We might notice that some of this thought that might come as nagas and generate their own emotion,

Or maybe our reaction to them creates some more emotional.

So this is where we can learn how to let go.

And it's an opportunity for us how to let go of these emotional thoughts that they're coming and going.

So we're always going to come back to that neutral spot in our anchor.

So we're not going into the depth.

I want to accept them.

We don't want to question why they're there.

It's just an opportunity for us to learn where our emotional in our body that we sucked in sometimes or we go into many stories.

And it's very easy to do that as the mind is always going into too many thoughts and bring us unpleasant emotions that we keep in our physical body.

So we're going to come to our silent meditation for about five minutes.

And you can use your anchors to keep your mind clear and not going into the stories and narrative.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.