The Trickle-Down

This practice is only five minutes long, so find a quiet moment, and just follow the cues. It is unusual in that it doesn't take you to a place of imagination (i.e. "imagine you're lying on a beach on a warm spring day ...") but brings you back to the body's sensations in a way that allows you to bring its energy to a place of grounded peace. Not only that, but once you get the knack of it, it's something you can return to anywhere, anytime, on your own.

Transcript

This practice is called the trickle down.

And it looks at a really specific aspect of our modern culture,

Which is that we tend to live in a world of ideas.

Now ideas,

Any idea,

Is basically frozen energy.

You know,

If I'm looking at a tree and I'm seeing that tree through my idea of what a tree is,

I've taken that energy and frozen it into a two-dimensional sign almost.

The alternative to living in a world of ideas is opening to a world of energy.

We tend not to feel the self as energy.

We feel the self as an assortment of agendas and things that need doing.

And we are dominated,

Our experience is dominated by this realm of frozen energy.

And it's such a different thing to enter a realm where you feel your energy at rest in the world's energy.

And you can't bring your energy to rest until you can feel it.

And we're,

You know,

We're so unused to feeling our energy that there may even be some confusion about what that means.

Well,

There's the energy of emotion.

And you,

You know,

If you go into the body,

You may feel a little knot of anxiety.

There's energy.

There's energy of thoughts.

Every thought is a form of energy.

There's energy that is restless in the body.

There's energy that's sort of stuck,

A tightness or a holding or a bracing against the world.

All of these are parts of your energy at this moment.

And it is possible to not only acknowledge that field of energy and feel it.

It's possible to bring it to rest on the earth.

So we tend to hold our energy high in the body.

And it's like it's like walking around with this thundercloud in our being,

In our heads,

In our chest.

It's such a different thing to walk around with a sense of clear blue sky above and grounded energy below.

So let's take a look at that.

There's one thing I should clarify,

Which is I speak of the pelvic bowl in this practice.

I speak of the top of the pelvic bowl and the top of the pelvic bowl is just an inch or two below the belly button.

And you can feel the hip bones where they are and how that whole pelvic structure is like a bowl.

And the top of the bowl is just a little below the belly button.

So let's begin.

Again,

It would help to stand for this exercise if you're comfortable doing that.

And if you'd rather sit,

That's OK,

Too.

Whether you're sitting or standing,

Bring your awareness to the breath to begin with.

And feel how gently the body can release to the in-breath.

And release to the out-breath.

And feel how available the body can be to the breath.

And bring your awareness to any stuck emotional energy in the body.

So,

You know,

There may be a little fuzzball of anxiety somewhere.

And allow yourself to feel it.

Allow yourself to locate it in the body as specifically as you can.

So you're feeling its presence.

And as you feel its presence,

You are doing so without judgment.

You are welcoming it.

You are giving it your full acceptance.

Because it's only when you fully accept its presence that you can fully feel its presence.

This is about honouring what's there rather than making it wrong because it should be something else.

And you may notice a jitteriness in yourselves.

You know,

We're so restless in our culture.

We've got this energy like the white noise of our being going on.

And again,

Honour it by feeling it.

Notice it.

If it's there,

Drop your awareness to as subtle a level as you can.

And feel whatever jitteriness is there in yourselves without asking it to be different.

Without needing it in any way to change.

Just meet it and honour it and welcome it.

And notice the energy in your legs.

We dissociate from our legs in this culture.

We treat them as though they're prosthetics and they are the conduits that connect us to the earth.

So feel whatever energy is there as it is.

Just notice that energy.

And bring your awareness to the energy of your thoughts.

So this is different from noticing the thoughts themselves.

What I'd invite you to do is to feel for the energy behind the thoughts.

The energy that drives the thoughts.

And it feels to me a little like peeking behind the curtain to discover the Wizard of Oz.

There is that engine of our thoughts that drives them.

And just to feel it.

To feel its presence.

To welcome it.

To honour it.

And feel any other energy that shows up in the body.

And then feel it all at once.

It's a little like opening your eyes on a star field at night.

And the body shimmers with energy.

And then,

As gently as you can,

Give that energy permission to melt.

And you feel it.

Begin to melt within your body.

And as it melts,

It begins to trickle down inside like water through pebbles.

And you feel it begin to descend.

And it descends from the head.

It descends down through the torso.

It's melting and descending in the legs.

And you feel the first little trickle arrive on the soles of your feet.

And it pools inside your feet.

And those pools grow as the energy descends.

And still you're giving it permission to melt.

And there is a cascade descending through your body.

There is a wash of energy down like water trickling down through pebbles.

And the level of that energy in the legs begins to rise.

The feet fill.

It's rising up through the calves.

And as the energy descends,

It rises further up through the knees,

Up into the thighs.

And still you're feeling any residual energy,

Any energy that is held on.

And you're giving it permission to melt.

You're giving it your love.

And under the influence of that love,

It warms and melts and descends.

And you feel that happen.

And in response,

That fluid energy rises up to the bottom of the pelvic bowl.

And still you're noticing anywhere that the energy is a little stuck,

A little clenched.

And you embrace it.

And you welcome it with unconditional acceptance.

And you suffuse it with love.

And under the warmth of that influence,

It melts and trickles down and descends.

And in response,

That fluid energy rises up eventually to the top of the pelvic bowl.

And notice the spaciousness above,

From the top of the pelvic bowl to the head.

And notice that grounded quality below of that fluid energy at rest on the earth.

And just gently scan the spaciousness of the body.

And notice anywhere that the energy is still maybe a little clingy,

A little holding on,

Not yet quite fully released.

And give it your love.

And feel it soften.

And feel it,

Trace it through the body,

Descending,

Trickling down to join that deep reservoir in the legs and the pelvic bowl.

And enjoy that spaciousness of your being.

And then discover how deeply can you allow that fluid energy to come to rest on the earth.

What is the risk entailed for you personally to allow that energy to come to rest?

And give it permission to come completely to rest on the earth and you feel the weight of it.

At rest on the soles of your feet.

And you allow it to rest more deeply and you feel that energy join the earth.

And it rests more deeply still.

And you feel that energy join the present.

And just feel within your body that luminous paradox of your energy at rest on the earth,

Grounded,

Communing.

And the spaciousness of your body above the pelvic bowl,

Wide open to the world,

Available to all its sensitized currents,

Able to feel it in a new and different way.

As long as your energy remains grounded at rest on the earth,

That teeming life of the world around you can pass through that emptiness and inform you and guide you without ever getting stuck in the body.

That brings the practice to a formal close.

But I hope you'll retain that inner life,

That grounded sensitivity for yourself,

And come back to it in the days and weeks to come.

And that's the trickle down.

Thank you so much.

Reviews

Interesting. I like the perspective.

I was realizing that I was getting stuck in my head, falling back into old stories and patterns of thought. I have been on a journey to resensitize myself to my body and senses, to feel my centre of gravity, the energy of Love—to embody a sense of presence where Life is the centre and Love is the whole. Thank you for bringing me back to my senses.

Love this short and very grounding exercise!

Great teacher and beautifully guided

Finally, a meditation that doesn’t sound so affected.

A lovely simple grounding exercise. Thank you.