Today we're going to be exploring the visceral connection between body,
Mind,
Emotion,
And awareness.
And we're going to do this through meditation called the NEST meditation,
Which is an acronym.
And as we go on,
I'll guide you through this.
But for starters,
Let's just take a moment to really allow ourselves to settle into our posture.
So whether we're on a chair,
A cushion,
Lying down,
First taking a moment to really tune into the contact points.
Feeling the way our sitting bones might be striking the seat,
Our hands might be resting in our lap.
Really noticing the sense of pressure,
Firmness,
Hardness,
Perhaps a tingling or vibration,
Pulsation.
Doing a quick little scan to notice if there's any places of the body that might be tense right now,
Places we might be contracting our muscles.
Parts like the forehead,
The jaw,
The abdomen,
Maybe the shoulders.
Just checking out these different parts with our attention.
And if we notice any muscular tightness,
Muscular tension,
Seeing if we can allow the muscles to release and soften.
And if it seems like there's still just some tension going on,
Really inviting in the quality of acceptance,
Equanimity,
Non-reactivity.
And for the period of this meditation,
Seeing if we can give that part of the body permission to feel as it does.
And to cap off this initial grounding and settling,
I invite you to take perhaps two or three deep conscious breaths,
Using the inhales to expand our tummy and chest,
And then the exhales to relax into a sense of solidness,
Gravity,
Weight.
And then to begin the nest meditation,
The first letter of the acronym is an N,
Which stands for number.
And what this is asking us is on a scale of 0 to 10,
With 10 being crazy stressed out,
Panic point,
Really difficult to be ourselves.
And a 0 being really peaceful,
Open,
Loving,
Really easy to show up as ourselves.
And then a 6,
7,
8 being,
Well,
When I look inside right now,
I have something pretty intense going on.
Maybe that's anger,
Anxiety,
Fear,
And it's really hard to show up in a way I feel good about.
And then a 2,
3,
4 might be,
Oh,
Well,
There's some little minor irritation,
Anxiety,
Frustration,
Confusion,
Doubt,
But it's kind of minor,
Not that big of a deal.
I can still be myself.
And so taking a look inside on this scale of 0 to 10,
0 peaceful,
10 stressed,
And silently giving yourself a number.
And having found at least an approximation of a number,
We'll move to the E of the nest acronym,
Which stands for emotion,
Or also moods,
Mental states,
Feeling states.
And these could be things as basic as tired,
Alert,
Energized,
Hungry,
Thirsty.
Or also when we look at the layer of emotion,
Maybe we notice different things like confused,
Frustrated,
Irritable,
Self-critical,
Joyful,
Grateful,
Delighted.
Or also maybe classic emotions like angry,
Sad,
Happy,
Afraid,
Surprised.
And really anything that clicks for you on the level of mood,
Emotion,
Mental state,
Just take a look inside and see if you can silently label to yourself two or three different emotions or moods you might be experiencing right now.
And whether you found ten emotions or just one isn't super important.
And we'll then move on to the S of the nest acronym,
Which stands for sensation,
Body sensation.
And in particular,
Here we're going to be looking for any connections between the emotions you felt and how they might be showing up in the body.
So for example,
If you were feeling tired or sleepy,
Maybe there's a sense of haziness in your forehead.
If you were feeling anxiety or worry,
Maybe there's a real contraction or tightness in your chest.
If you were feeling joyful or grateful,
Maybe there's just a warm,
Flowing sensation throughout your arms and hands.
It could be anything.
So first,
Just noticing if there's any connections between the body sensations and the emotions.
And if there doesn't seem to be,
Then just look out for the most obvious body sensations.
And whatever you find,
Whether that's the connections or just the obvious sensations,
Really allow your attention to hang out with those sensations for a little bit,
To really feel into them,
Notice them,
Notice how they change,
And really get a feel for their texture.
And this part about the body sensations is really the heart and soul of mindfulness practice,
As the body is so tangible,
Visceral.
It's what grounds us into the present.
And so we're going to take just a little extra time here to really hang out with the body sensations,
Continuing to pay attention to how they change and shift to the qualities of pressure or hardness,
Of tingling or pulsation,
Maybe warmth or coolness.
Seeing if we can almost feel them from the inside out,
Sensing into them,
Becoming intimate with them,
Feeling the body sensations.
And having felt the body sensations,
We'll now shift to the T of the N.
E.
S.
T.
Acronym,
Which stands for THOUGHT.
And the way we often experience our thoughts is sort of like a newspaper article,
Where there's this big long endless storyline running in our head that just goes on from one paragraph to the next,
To the next,
To the next,
And then it weaves into the next story.
And so what we want to do in this practice is,
Instead of treating the thoughts like the big long story,
We'll be looking at them like the headline or the title.
For example,
Say we were feeling a little frustrated,
Maybe the headline is,
I can't believe my boss did that today.
If we were feeling tired,
Maybe there's a headline that says,
I need a nap.
And so take a look inside and just notice the different thoughts flowing through you right now,
And see if you can condense them to a headline,
To just the main point,
Or the primary message,
And silently label that to yourselves.
And then just allow that thought to float through,
And then there will be other thoughts,
And let that float through,
And label the next one,
And just let this repeat for a moment.
And then we can let the thoughts drop away,
And then we'll settle back into our posture,
Just as we did at the beginning,
Noticing the contact points,
The pressure of our sitting bones,
Feet,
Or legs on the surface,
The feel of our hands,
The feel of the air on the skin.
And as we come into presence in a more general way,
We know that those different layers of our experience are,
They're still there,
You know,
There's still emotions flowing through,
There's still thoughts flowing through,
There's still a whole world of body sensation.
And the point of mindfulness practice is never to make any of this stop,
And it's also really not even to change any of it.
Really what we're doing is,
We're using our awareness or mindfulness just to notice what is.
And through that noticing,
We come into a greater sense of choice on how we show up.
And so we're going to take a final period here of a couple minutes of silence,
And you can ground your attention in the posture,
The sounds,
Maybe the breath,
Or whatever else works for you.
But in particular,
Just allow those other things to be in the background,
To be part of your experience.
The whole being is connected.
So taking the final period here,
Just relax into mindfulness,
To be present with whatever's happening.
