Walking Each Other Home

Through mindfulness practices, focusing on antiracism, we increase our emotional resilience, recognize our biases, and make real our common humanity. "Walking Each Other Home" is a guided embodied meditation practice.

Recorded - Jan 19, 2023

Transcript

Welcome to Project Sanctus,

Walking Each Other Home.

It is our embodied anti-racism practice,

Our mindfulness practice.

So once a week I stream live to Facebook,

A short time,

15,

20,

25 minutes to do an embodied practice,

To do an embodied practice that brings us into the space of being settled,

Of being grounded,

Of allowing us to engage with difficult conversations,

Engage in challenging situations about race,

About systems of oppression,

But to engage from a place of more coherence within ourselves.

You know,

We've learned in our culture to disconnect at the neck,

Right,

And to not have the mind and the body connected,

But rather just with the mind,

With the mind,

You know,

Something happens,

We're triggered,

And the amygdala is hijacked,

And we're off and running through fear,

Through anger,

Through resentment,

Through previous experiences of woundedness and trauma.

So our embodied mindfulness practices allows us to shift out of that hamster wheel loop.

It doesn't mean we won't get triggered,

It doesn't mean the amygdala won't,

You know,

Hijack us,

But it allows us to build the resilience of the body to have experiences of calming the mind and coming back online,

Literally,

Because once we're triggered,

We're kind of offline,

All bets are off.

So our embodied mindfulness practice is to engage in doing the opposite,

And mindfulness is the practice of starting where you are from wherever place you're at.

So let's begin with breath.

Let's begin with breathing,

As we always do.

And you can close your outer eyes,

Or you can lower your gaze,

Or fix your gaze on something,

So that your attention is just in one place.

And remember that if closing your eyes,

And when someone says close your eyes and go within,

If that doesn't feel settling for you,

Or centering,

Or safe,

Then don't do that.

Our practice is to support you in being present,

Being safe and grounded in your body,

In the midst of stressful or conflicted experiences in the midst of or in the wake of,

Right after.

And we're still kind of,

You can still feel the body kind of resonating and,

And,

You know,

Vibrating,

And maybe no one can see it,

But inside you can.

So our practice today is,

Is inspired by the five anchors from Res Momenicum,

In his book,

My Grandmother's Hands.

And so we're going to do a,

Where it's inspired by that.

And the anchors are,

There's five anchors,

It's to help you really experience your own capacity,

Really experience the power of your body,

And the power of your mind,

Once you're grounded.

And by power,

I'm not talking about power over,

I'm talking about a settled,

Grounded,

Centered power with,

So like power with self,

And then,

You know,

Strengthening.

Strengthening is a good word,

So that we can respond to the circumstances,

Not through fear,

Not through anger,

Not through resentment,

But rather with wisdom,

With strength.

And that doesn't mean we go all kumbaya,

Peaceful,

But it's centered and settled,

And from the wisdom of your higher self,

From the wisdom of compassion,

From the wisdom of strength,

From the wisdom of,

You know,

Of knowing.

Sometimes knowing is,

You know what you know,

But you can't describe what you know.

So let's come back to the breath,

And in whatever way that is soothing to you,

Right?

Soothing,

Sometimes it's rocking.

I find rocking very soothing.

It's a powerful practice,

Rocking.

So rock with me for a moment.

Breathe deeply in and out,

And let's just rock and breathe.

And we're going to do this first anger is soothing the mind,

Calming our heart,

Settling our body.

So we want to do what helps us slow down.

Imagine,

You know,

When you take a walk.

Imagine when you just take a very long,

Slow drink from a mug,

Say of your coffee or tea or hot water with lemon,

But a slow drink.

Do what helps you slow down,

Which is why we rock.

And right now,

As you're rocking and breathing,

Notice the sensations and the vibrations and emotions that are in your body.

I know for me,

I'm experiencing some,

There's some tension in my chest.

The last three or four days have been quite emotionally charged and acknowledging those emotions of anger,

Of resentment,

And not trying to do anything with them,

But just to notice and where in my body am I carrying it?

I woke up this morning with my shoulders a little bit sore.

Some of that was from physical therapy,

But I also know some is when you carry the weight of the world,

For some people,

They feel it in their shoulders and I can feel them tense and I can feel the vibration.

So just bring awareness,

Say to the bottom of your feet,

And what do you notice there?

What sensations do you have of you're sitting on the chair,

Of your backside and your thighs?

What sensations are within your body with the tongue against the roof of your mouth,

The air on your skin,

Or even as you breathe the air coming in through the nose or the mouth?

So pick a few places in your body and name the sensation.

Is it cold?

Is it tight?

Is it relaxed?

Is it sore?

Is it contracting?

Take a moment in the quiet and pick a few places of the body.

I mentioned a few,

But now name the sensation and with each sensation there are thoughts that we hold about the sensation.

There are emotions,

Feelings that emerge or even reactions.

I could feel the reactions coming forward and wanting to engage that reaction,

But rather than running off mentally,

Physically,

Emotionally,

Like rather than distancing myself,

I bring my awareness back to my body and those sensations.

So as I mentioned the tightness in my chest,

Some of the thoughts I have about that is I'd like it to be gone now,

Please.

I feel a little afraid of it,

A little exasperated.

I feel annoyed and I still feel some anger.

It was very strong,

Powerful anger a few days ago and I could tell it's still lingering.

So I don't disconnect from what I'm feeling from the anger,

The tightness,

The resentment,

The exasperation,

The fear,

The anxiety,

The anxiety,

The tightness,

The resentment,

The exasperation,

But rather I accept the discomfort and just be with it.

The mindfulness practice is not to run from what we don't like,

But to engage it.

Remember mindfulness is to start again right where you are.

So I start right where I am and just be with the discomfort,

Be with the emotions,

Notice the sensations in the body and name them.

If I name them,

I can be in conversation,

Right?

It may sound a little silly,

But when I know a person's name,

I can be in conversation.

When I have a name for the sensation in my body of tightness,

Of trembling,

Of relax,

Of tension,

When I can name it,

I can be in conversation.

Just as I sit with it,

As I be mindful and in every moment start again with,

Oh,

There that is.

I feel this in my chest,

My shoulders.

This is what that sensation is.

These are the emotions I have.

As I do that,

I can notice the shift.

I can feel the shift.

It's almost like having a clenched hand and slowly unclenching.

And if I feel the urge,

Right,

Or the impulse to start analyzing it,

To start pulling it apart cognitively,

I pause,

I breathe,

And I come back to the sensation.

The mind will generate strategies of what to do,

Of how to avoid this,

Of how to move away.

It's a white pattern.

It's what we've been taught.

It's how we've been socialized.

There must be something to do to make this stop.

Instead,

Bring the attention back to the breathing,

Back to the sensations in the body,

The feelings,

And let the thoughts float by.

And just stay present to that place of discomfort as you just be with it.

There's an experience that is unfolding.

And if being with a discomfort and the tension really becomes too much,

Then just focus on the breath and go back to rocking.

We do not need to overwork ourselves.

But as we sit with the sensations in the body and the emotions,

Notice that it's probably got some uncertainty and maybe some thoughts of,

I don't know where this is going.

And the beauty of the mindfulness practice is you don't need to know and don't try to know,

But start again right from where you're at.

And slowly as you just pay attention to the physical sensations,

Whether it's the feet,

The backside,

The chest,

The shoulders,

The head,

The knees,

Just give it attention,

Name the sensation,

And then be in conversation with it.

There's nowhere to go.

There's nothing to do.

No need to change it.

And as you find yourself reacting to it,

Remember that every new moment is a new opportunity.

That's what mindfulness is.

Every new moment is an opportunity to come back to the here and now to breathe and to rock and to just settle the body.

There is nothing to fix.

Notice the urge to want to change the discomfort,

Breathe through it,

And just be present.

Very often this practice is something that we do after we've been in a stressful situation or after we've been in the heat of some conflict.

And that energy gets stored up in the body.

And so for our physical and our mental and emotional well-being,

It needs to be discharged as soon as possible.

Mindfulness practice is a way to discharge.

Some more powerful forms are any kind of moving,

Walking,

Dancing,

Physical labor.

If you garden,

If you have housework,

But follow your body's impulse to move.

Follow the body's impulse to want to move.

It's almost like a shake it off because our body is not a coffin.

We don't bury our pain in our body,

But rather we put it somewhere else outside of ourselves,

Which doesn't mean on a person,

But do not let your body be the coffin where you bury the trauma,

You bury the pain,

You just in the discomfort of bodily sensations and emotions and embracing and owning those in that discomfort when we just try to get away,

We're burying it.

And your body is not a coffin for your pain,

But it lives somewhere else.

But it live in the movement of dancing or sports or singing,

But it move in,

In,

In,

In the singing,

In writing,

In an art form,

Let it move in,

In silliness,

Let it,

Let it move in whatever impulse you have outside of you to release,

To discharge.

So take a couple more deep breaths.

Body centered practices are part of a roadmap for healing,

Not just individually,

But collectively.

Body centered practices are a roadmap for resolving our trauma,

For bringing forward our pain,

Bringing forward our discomfort.

And we can return to the body centered practice at any moment of any given day,

When we find ourselves,

Our amygdala kind of hooked,

When we find ourself in a heated and emotionally intense situation.

So that's the invitation to,

In mindfulness,

To return and start over in this moment so that you can settle and be soothed,

Feel safe in your body,

Feel safe in your body and open pathways for greater healing.

Thank you for joining me today.

Make a glorious day.

Make a glorious day.