Let's begin.
And first.
Pending to body.
And settling in.
Whether you're choosing to practice seated or laying down.
Feeling body supported by the floor or the chair.
Or the bed or couch,
Whatever you're seated on today.
And those points of contact.
Inviting a surrendering of sorts into those points of contact.
So be it the feet on the floor,
Thighs or bottom on the chair.
Or if you're laying down those points of contact with the supporting service.
And just a general sense of where is there unnecessary muscle tension that isn't needed to support the body right now?
In the spirit of economy of effort.
And allowing simply the alignment of body to provide the support.
And so if you're seated,
This general rising up of spine towards the sky,
Not forced or rigid.
Just finding a balancing point where the least amount of muscle effort is required to be exerted to support yourself.
And recognizing that our nervous system,
In a way,
Begins to tune out constant input.
And so constant muscle tension tends to be missed.
And a common area that we carry tension is in our shoulders.
So maybe a few simple shoulder rolls,
Tuning in to your body.
Whatever tension may be present in the neck and shoulder.
Upper back.
Inviting a loosening and lowering of shoulders on torso.
And I sometimes find it helpful to partner with gravity and.
Letting arms now hang down by the sides of your legs.
And how if we tune into that sense of the gentle,
Polling seems like for the wrong word here,
The gentle feeling of.
How everything upon the earth moves towards the earth.
So feeling how the weight or the mass of our arms invites a gentle lowering of shoulders.
And then placing hands either upon thighs or cupped within lap,
Whichever you prefer in this moment.
And another common area that we carry tension is in the jaw and so inviting a awareness and loosening of jaw.
Lips either gently touching or slightly parted,
Allowing the passage of air.
And eyes either opened or closed.
If you're feeling some sleepiness,
Then eyes open and inviting in the light can provide some sense of wakefulness to mind and body.
Or if you want to lessen the input that our minds need to manage,
Then letting lids lower.
We are such visually oriented beings that sometimes just allowing that visual input to lessen with lowering lids can provide a certain invitation of less for minds to manage in this moment.
Coming back to that theme of surrendering and gravity.
Simply feeling this settling in of body.
There's nothing we have to do in this moment.
And yet sometimes we sort of stay in this go,
Go,
Go mode.
Which generates this residual background muscle tension that doesn't really serve us in any way.
And so feeling how gravity,
This settling into the earth.
Also invites a settling in of mind with body in this moment.
Feeling the physicality of body in this moment.
We are embodied minds upon the earth.
And so often we get lost in that mental chatter.
It's not only noise,
It imposes a time traveling of sorts.
Into the past or into the future.
And how this directing our attention to a sense of body invites mind into this moment.
Sometimes it can help if mind is really turning to do a literal grounding of sorts,
Pressing down into the feet if you're seated.
And feeling the floor.
Press back into the soles of feet.
Literally grounding ourselves in this moment.
And as a way of further arriving into body,
Now bringing attention into breathing.
Where do you feel breathing occurring within body in this moment?
Again,
We don't need to necessarily manipulate our breath in any way.
It's trusting our bodies will breathe as needed,
Providing.
Nourishing oxygen in the moment.
Where do you feel breathing happening right now?
Perhaps down in the belly or in the chest.
Maybe a subtle rising and falling of shoulders with each in and out breath.
Danny Arguetty.
Danny Arguetty.
Tuning into.
This physicality of breathing in this moment,
Further arriving into a sense of embodied mind.
Feeling body doing its thing of breathing in this moment.
And recognizing at some point that mental chatter.
May begin to take center stage once again.
And again,
Commonly we're pulled into the past and the memories are rushed forward into the future with worries.
That's just our mind doing its thing.
And upon noticing that that's where your attention has drifted off.
Just acknowledging,
And you can do a simple labeling process of.
Labeling that acknowledgment with thinking.
Or if you want to come in a little closer on your labeling,
What category of thinking is occurring?
Remembering.
Analyzing.
Worry in.
And noticing how in recognizing that mental chatter and applying the label,
It already creates distancing of sorts,
Not a pushing away,
But a stepping back to,
Oh,
I see what's going on here.
Then gently,
Kindly coming back to this.
Felt sense of body breathing in this moment.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Inviting ourselves to feel this.
Experience of embodiment,
Of physicality.
Thank you.
It's a rather unusual movie from,
I think it was the 1980s,
The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen.
Robin Williams played this character,
The man on the moon,
Who could separate his head from his body.
With the concept of,
Well,
The important things happen in the mind,
In the head,
The body just does those.
Menial things of eating and sleeping and whatever.
And sometimes I think we live our lives like that,
Like this character.
Putting value simply on the product of the mind.
In many ways,
Mind is not just from the neck up,
That there's a experience.
A wholeness that we miss out on.
Okay.
And a practice such as this invites that coming back into our wholeness of embodied mind.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Is we experience our physicality opening up to the wonder of our body and all that it does throughout the day to keep us going and functioning.
Exchange of air and our lungs.
Okay.
Pumping of our hearts to distribute nutrients and oxygen to every cell within body.
Okay.
Okay.
And the host of many other wonderful ways that our body supports us,
Keeps us going throughout the day.
Okay.
Okay.
So often when we're sick,
We're maybe grumbling about the discomfort and the dysfunction of body.
We forget to be grateful on those days.
Pretty much everything seems to be working.
So taking a moment to be grateful for.
Our body is keeping us going throughout the day.
Okay.
Okay.
The other beauty of tuning into body is our body only exists in the one time frame that exists up here.
Now.
Okay.
So throughout the day,
If you find yourself.
Stuck in the mental chatter,
Turning back into body.
Coming back into the space-time of here,
Now.
Thank you.
Now opening your eyes if they were closed and a visual reconnecting with surroundings.
Maybe some slow,
Gentle moving or stretching.
Going from body and stillness to body and activity.
As a way of transitioning back into.
Whatever comes next in your day.
So thank you.
Good to be with you all.
May you be well,
May you be at peace today.
