Walking Each Other Home - Aug 18, 2022

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.

Transcript

You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You Good morning Good morning,

Logan.

Good morning,

Gene.

Good to see you both.

As always,

I am going to lead our meditation for today.

Kelly's got an appointment.

So I hope to do her justice as I do this.

And also welcome to anyone who is watching us on Facebook Live,

Either in the moment or after the fact.

This is our Thursday morning meditation called walking each other home in which we engage in some embodied practices that help us,

As we say,

Decolonize the internalized supremacy norms within us to help us grow in awareness.

And also help us grow in courage,

Not just to look at these,

These internalized norms,

But also to be courageous in terms of,

Of,

Of acting from the other from the other place from decolonizing and within so that then we can be in action outside of ourselves.

So what I thought we would do today is really bring this into the body and I want to set this up a couple of announcements before I do that.

I keep I keep forgetting.

Next,

Next Thursday,

We will be doing our book group discussion around what the fireflies knew.

It's a beautiful common of age novel by Dr.

Kai Harris.

And if you've not had the chance to read it,

It's,

It's not a big book.

So you could get a good chunk of it,

If not all of it done within the week.

So we do,

We are going through the summer or summer reading list is as highlighting black authors,

Black female authors to be more exact.

So please join us for that next Thursday.

So this meditation really is around something that came up in our affinity group.

Last night,

We have,

You know,

Twice a month,

First and third Wednesdays affinity groups,

And this one came up last night.

In terms of when we hear or see things that cause us internal distress,

Especially as it relates towards racial issues,

What do we do in the moment?

Right.

And,

And,

As you know,

Our practice here has been always to start with,

With the pause.

But what often happens in many situations is that we use the pause to,

To,

To settle our bodies,

But sometimes then we,

We get stuck in the pause and it turns into paralysis.

And then it turns into bypass and which turns into inaction.

And the term bypass and shouldn't be new to anyone,

But just in case it is,

This is,

This is when we,

We take practices,

Spiritual practices or otherwise,

And we sort of use them as an,

As an excuse for inaction.

So,

Yes,

We turn to meditation and then we get stuck in the,

In the stillness and go no further than that.

And a lot of it stems from the fact that we don't,

We don't really settle and confront the discomfort in the body first.

And why this is important is because trauma is trauma is the body's response,

Right,

To pain.

We,

Trauma is not a mental condition entirely.

It's mostly in our bodies,

Our bodies,

Remember the pain,

Hold the pain when we're,

When we're triggered as things come up,

You know,

We watch news headlines,

We see things happen.

And we get triggered,

We feel it in our body.

So,

So,

So today's exercise is really going to be about a practice of,

Of truly,

Truly settling in the body.

How do we settle in the body in any given moment,

So that then we can be clear about what we are feeling,

And then discern how to respond to what we are feeling.

But we can't respond mindfully and consciously until we're aware of what we're feeling.

We are not aware of what we're feeling until we settle in the body.

So,

So this is going to be an exercise in settling the body,

Doing a little discharging of the physical discomfort.

And why that's important is because if we don't discharge it in a healthy way,

Then what we do is we perpetuate harm with others.

We take,

You know,

A resume mannequin from my grandmother's hands,

Cause a dirty pain.

We take,

We take that discomfort,

And then we say and do things consciously and unconsciously and perpetuate the harm to others.

So,

So that's what today's exercise is going to be our meditation and our practice.

It's just going to be one example of how we can settle our bodies and get in touch with our feelings in any given moment when discomfort arises.

So,

Let's jump in to that.

And I like,

I like a little music in the background while I meditate.

So I am going to do that.

And let's see,

Let's bring back up what we were listening to before.

Can you hear the,

Can you hear the music.

Perfect.

All right.

Okay,

So first let us begin by center in ourselves and selling ourselves in our space in the physical space that we're in.

So before we close our eyes,

Take a moment to look around and notice the room that you are in.

Do this slowly,

Do this mindfully.

Notice where the doors are.

Notice where the windows are.

Turn and look behind you see what's behind you.

And sometimes we wonder why,

Why do we do this this is this is because it,

It helps bring a sense of safety to us,

We might be have been in this room,

Zillion times but let's truly notice again,

As if for the first time where we are.

Notice that distance between you and the ceiling.

Notice the floor beneath you,

The,

Either the plushness of the carpet or the hardwood floor,

Whatever it is.

Feel and notice this physical space.

And then allow your body to settle into the chair and begin to connect with your breath.

Breathing easily steadily.

And you may close your eyes,

Or you may leave them open.

If you're deciding to leave your eyes open just find a spot a few inches.

Maybe a foot in front of you and just settle on a soft,

Relaxing gaze.

And let's just simply take a few moments to connect with breath.

You need to shift in your chair again to really become comfortable,

Go ahead and do that.

And just begin in of settling.

Allow your attention to follow the inflow and outflow of breath.

Even more still,

Even more settled.

And begin with a body scan.

From the top of your head,

Just slowly scan the body,

Top to the bottom,

Very slowly.

Notice where there may be any pain or discomfort,

Tightness.

Also notice where there's relaxation and expansiveness.

Slowly down the forehead,

Through your face.

Continue moving down to the neck.

Follow the attention.

And again,

Making note of those areas that are tight.

We'll return to them in a minute.

For right now,

Let's just continue that gentle scan.

Shoulders.

Shoulder blades.

Torso.

Upper arms.

All the way down to the lower arms and fingertips.

Move at your own pace.

Scan the chest.

Downward area.

Hips.

Groin and buttocks area.

Thighs.

Awareness of the knees.

The calves,

Lower leg.

Moving all the way down to the ankles.

Knees.

Did knees already.

Ankles.

Heel.

Toes,

Base of your foot.

Now let's just rest here for a few moments.

Now we will repeat the scan again,

Starting at the top of your head,

But this time at your own pace.

As you scan,

If you notice any moments of discomfort,

Again,

And tension,

And tightness,

And you may have remembered from the first scan where they were,

But as you scan again and you notice,

For example,

If it may be in your shoulder,

Just for the first time you notice that discomfort,

Allow your hand to hover lightly over your shoulder for a few moments.

And then let it rest gently on your shoulder for a few moments.

And if that feels comfortable,

Begin to rub that spot,

Your shoulder,

For example.

Do that for about 30 seconds.

And then gently squeeze that area for a few seconds as well.

Maybe about 30,

45 seconds.

So in this way,

We really bring not just our attention,

But a physical experience to those areas that may be tight,

That may be constricted.

So in your own time,

At your own pace.

Again,

We scan,

Allow ourselves to feel those places of discomfort,

Where there's tension,

Where there's tightness.

And first we hover,

Then we rest our hand on them,

Then we rub,

Gentle circular motion,

Light massage,

Then we gently squeeze and hold.

So at your own pace for a few moments.

Remember to extend the scan all the way down to the soles of your feet.

If needs be,

Reach down to touch,

Massage,

Or squeeze a knee or an ankle.

And for the sake of time,

Let us bring this to a close at this moment by collectively taking three deep breaths.

If your eyes were closed,

Gently open in the eyes.

Return in your full awareness to the screen.

And I invite you to,

At the times that you practice this,

After you've done this exercise,

To make a note of where you felt any tension or tightness.

When I say make a note,

I mean literally write it down.

And do some inner inquiry around when you first perhaps recall where that tension might have been.

For example,

You may have heard something on the news or had a conversation with someone in which there was a trigger and you felt the discomfort then.

Or perhaps as you are doing the inquiry,

Some event comes to mind.

And now that you've done that practice of getting in touch with the feeling and the rubbing and the squeezing was a way of discharging that energy,

Then there's more of a settle-centered place now for which you can,

Again,

Do any inquiry around what you felt and what is yours to do to respond to whatever the event or the situation was or whatever you heard.

Again,

The whole premise is using the practice of settling and coming to stillness to release that energetic constriction,

Discharge that energy in a safe and healthy way so that then there is a conscious,

Settled discernment about what to do next.

As opposed to spending a lot of time in meditation to avoid being in action.

So this is a practice you can employ at any time.

If you immediately can feel where that discomfort in your body is after a trigger,

You can just go straight to that and do the massaging and the gentle squeezing there.

And then do,

Again,

The inquiry and the questioning around,

You know,

What is it exactly I am feeling?

Why am I feeling that?

What triggered that?

Perhaps take it deeper as well.

So if you,

We're going to chat a little bit about it more on Zoom.

So if you'd like to join us in the Zoom room,

If you're watching live,

The Zoom link is in the comments.

And we do have a couple of folks here with us who will join us.

And remember,

We're here every Thursday morning at 10 for the most part.

And please also join our affinity discussion groups,

First and third Wednesdays.

That's where some very powerful discussions and connection and releasing happens.

So thank you for watching.

Thank you for joining.

And thank you for getting your holy on with us.

And in doing so,

Making this a world of love and liberation for all.

And we will see you next week.