In this guided meditation,
We will be working with cultivating an attitude of equanimity or acceptance with our somatic experience.
Somatic experience includes any physical sensation.
We can have physical sensations that have an emotional flavor to them or sensations that are just a body experience with no particular emotional flavor.
We'll include any of those in our exploration today.
So I invite you to begin by settling into a comfortable but alert posture.
It could be seated or lying down or if you need a little extra alertness,
You could even do this standing up.
So find that posture now and take a moment or two to really settle in.
You can have your eyes open or closed,
Whichever allows you to be more comfortable and alert.
Now,
I invite you to take a nice slow inhale and imagine the crown of your head lifting up and away from your shoulders.
As you exhale,
Perhaps imagine your shoulders and the rest of your body dropping down,
Relaxing into whatever is supporting you right now.
In working with equanimity,
Starting with posture is really great because there's a correlation between a calm body and being open to your experience.
There's a lot of wonderful synonyms for equanimity,
Openness,
Receptivity,
Those are a couple that I like.
And so see right now as you check in with your posture,
Can you adopt a posture of openness,
Of stability,
Of equality?
Now,
This is a good place to check in and see if you're bringing any expectations to this session.
Expectations are kind of like equanimity repellent,
They're like an anti-equanimity device.
Very often if we're feeling struggle,
We're holding on to something or really pushing away against it.
It's because we have an expectation that something should be different than it is.
So before we go any further,
Let's check in.
Check in and see if you have any expectations about what your experience is going to be like during this meditation.
Maybe expectations about my teaching,
About your own skill level,
What your equanimity will be like.
And see if you can let go of any expectation and instead try and touch base with an attitude of complete openness and curiosity.
Perhaps like you've never meditated before and you're just open and interested to the idea of what you might find once you do it.
When you're ready,
I'll invite you to just feel.
Narrow your attention just to your body.
It could be emotional or purely physical sensations.
And you'll just notice whatever body sensation becomes front and center in your awareness,
Note that it's become front and center.
Label it,
Feel,
If you like to use labels.
And then stay with it for a few seconds.
Now you have options.
You might find it's easier to rest your attention across your entire body.
Or you might find it's easier to just let your attention be drawn to a specific narrow sensation.
Perhaps just the torso,
The hands,
Allowing whatever seems to naturally happen to happen.
So just feel.
And you might notice that your attention is drawn back to the same sensation.
It's very stable.
Keeps returning,
Focusing on one aspect of your physical experience.
See if you can be open to that.
On the other hand,
Your attention may be moving between sensations.
See if you can be equally receptive to each new sensation,
Willing to let go of the previous sensation without judgment,
Without any assumption of what the next sensation will be or where your attention might move next.
Cultivating equanimity with our experience of just feel.
Next.
If you get distracted,
Find that you're pulled into visual or audio sensation,
See if you can notice as you return your attention any assumption of should.
Oh,
I shouldn't get distracted or I should be able to maintain higher concentration.
See if you can let go of the should and just let your experience be what it is.
Can you see something?
As you continue to just feel,
You might see if you can bring a sense of softness to your attention.
Still being clear about the experience that your attention has been pulled to,
But being soft,
Not gripping it,
Not trying to control it.
The same thing is true if you notice distraction,
See if you can bring a softness to your effort to return your attention to physical experience.
Can you hear me?
.
Continue to just feel.
Continue to open to your experience moment by moment just as it is.
Letting go of expectations as they might come back up.
Just being here and now in your body.
.
.
.
.
.
