Walking Each Other Home - Nov 10, 2022

project_SANCTUS is a safe, brave, online space to discover and be our Holiest self, and in so doing, together, create a world of love, justice, and liberation for all.

Transcript

Thank you.

Welcome to project scientists and our mindfulness practice this week on Thursday mornings.

We go live onto Facebook and every week have a embodiment practice of mine,

Excuse me,

Mindful embodied practice to for our rest for building resiliency for caring for ourselves for caring for others.

And you know when we care for ourselves and we do our healing work,

We then bring a much better version of ourselves out into the world.

So let's start with a collective act of solidarity which is a big breath.

Big breath.

You don't have to change the pace of it,

Of your breathing but take a breath in and then exhale.

And we'll do that a few times.

And with each inhale.

Bring the breath just a little bit further into the lungs.

You can have your eyes open.

You can lower your gaze.

Have a soft gaze on,

Maybe you have a sacred object in front of you or something special or maybe nothing at all and you just have a soft gaze about a foot to 18 inches in front of you.

Or maybe closing your eyes and turning the attention to to the core.

And maybe at some point during this mindfulness practice you may also find yourself.

Gently closing your eyes and paying attention inside.

Continue the breath.

Inhale,

And move it just a little bit lower into the lungs,

Into the belly.

And so our practice this morning is,

It's about opening our heart,

Opening our heart to feelings opening our heart to kindness,

Affirming and holding and wishing well being for ourselves as well as others.

It has been a stressful week,

I was gonna say week and yet it has been stressful for some time.

So our practice today is to de-stress.

While a little bit of stress in life is good.

It helps us build resiliency.

It helps keep our body alert.

A little bit of stress in life keeps our mind alert.

It actually helps us when there's danger.

But I think we've been living too long and too much stress.

So this morning we're going to spend time on the well being for ourselves and for others.

So start by thinking about a person that has made you feel loved,

Cared for,

Or someone who nurtures you or has nurtured you.

Could be when you were a child.

Could be someone currently in your life.

So think of a person bring their face into the mind.

Remember a time when you felt cared for,

When you felt loved,

When you felt nurtured and bring that feeling into your heart space.

Opening the heart,

Opening the chest,

Moving the shoulders back just a little bit.

To allow that care and nurturing and loving kindness to settle into the space in the middle of your being.

And as you feel their presence or see their face.

Maybe you smile a little bit.

Extend a wish of well being to them.

Could be silently maybe there's some words.

But extend a wish of well being by imagining your love,

Expanding out,

Imagining your love,

Like a light beam moving from your chest to theirs.

Or you can just stay focused on that sense of caring and loving and nurturing and repeat phrases silently or out loud,

But directed to the person,

May you be happy.

May you be at ease.

May you be free from suffering.

May you be happy.

May you be at ease.

May you be free from suffering.

Now offer those same wishes to yourself.

Some may find it easier than others.

We may have judgments or criticisms about ourselves.

So take a breath.

Direct your energy to you.

Saying may you be happy.

May you be at ease.

Think of a time a point in your life when you really needed a loving response,

Like around a race related injury and see yourself at that age at that time,

And that place.

Whatever that injury is.

Maybe you were picked on because your body was different.

Or discriminated against because of the color of your skin,

Or closed out of jobs or sports,

Because of your gender.

See yourself at that age at that time at that place.

And again extend that loving awareness and healing support.

So we're going to take a minute and in the still,

In the quiet and repeat those phrases.

May you be happy.

May you be at ease.

May you be free from suffering.

And when you see yourself at that age at that time and that place whenever there was injury.

Just extend those statements as though you're talking to talking to your former self.

Maybe it was just yesterday.

Maybe it was a year ago.

So we're just going to take a couple minutes and continue to speak those words.

Over and over.

May you be happy.

May you be at ease.

May you be free from suffering.

May you be happy.

May you be at ease.

May you be free from suffering.

Just continue that for a minute or so.

You might even want to rock.

Rocking is very soothing.

Rocking is very healing.

Rocking brings us back to our body.

Rocking is very healing.

Rocking is very healing.

Rocking is very healing.

Rocking is very healing.

Rocking is very healing.

Continue to repeat those phrases.

May you be happy.

May you be at ease.

May you be free from suffering.

And now as you continue to repeat them,

See if you can't expand and widen the circle.

Moving from particular friends or loved ones.

People that may be,

You know,

Casually not very well.

Even someone that's having some difficulty.

Let's take a moment and expand by repeating those phrases,

Expanding the loving kindness.

Not just to cover yourself.

Or an individual that came to mind already during our time.

Others.

Take a moment.

And consciously send those messages out.

May you be happy.

May you be at ease.

May you be free from suffering.

And just see how far you can expand that circle of loving kindness.

And if we can expand that circle of loving kindness and And as we transition out of our focus and our energy and our awareness of sending out loving kindness,

Sending out nurturing and caring for ourselves,

For others,

Even for those that are hard to love,

That are hard to like.

So we transition out of that,

Bringing our awareness back to the chair you're in,

To whatever,

Wherever you are,

Whatever you're doing,

Listening.

And let yourself sort of move into and maybe float into feeling yourself as being part of a greater ocean of life,

A greater ocean of love.

And as we bring this to a close,

Let's just simply sit in our expanded awareness.

We can have our eyes closed,

We can have our eyes opened.

If your eyes are open,

Look around your room,

Look around the space that you're in,

Look above you,

Look below you,

To the left of you,

To the right of you,

And behind you.

The expanded awareness of love,

Of caring,

Of wellbeing,

Whatever we may call it,

That you feel in yourself,

For yourself,

And for others.

Notice as you move forward in the rest of your day or your evening,

Just notice how you're feeling now compared to when you started listening.

Notice the sense of yourself.

Notice your capacity to love more than you ever knew you could,

To care for,

And to nurture,

And to really care about and be intentional about the wellbeing of someone else.

Thank you.

May you be happy.

May you be at ease.

And may you be free from suffering.