Arriving In The Unknown #1 - Walking With Contentment

This meditation is part 1 of a 2-part series called Arriving in the Unknown. Here, I focus on the yogic principle of santosha, or contentment. Through a walking meditation (that can also be done lying down), we increase awareness of relationship; support in gravity and levity; agency and choice; balance vs imbalance; and the sensation of surrender to the flow of life.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

The following is a guided meditation by Renee Seals,

A somatic movement educator,

Energy worker,

And astrologer.

This meditation is intended to help support your embodied meditation practice.

If in the recording you are prompted to do something that doesn't feel good for your body,

Please adapt and modify to make it work for you.

Please also note that the content of this meditation sometimes explores deep and subtle states and memories,

And sometimes guided visualizations.

You are encouraged to work with discernment as you practice with them.

If any of the guidance Renee offers feels too activating or uncomfortable,

Please listen to your body's knowing and pause the recording until a later time if you wish to return to it.

These guided meditations range anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes and do not require any supplementary equipment to participate.

We hope you enjoy.

Hi everyone,

This is Renee and I'm here today to do a walking meditation with you.

So if you don't mind or if you can,

Listen to this meditation while you go take a walk somewhere.

And anywhere is good.

Your neighborhood,

The city,

Out in the woods,

Have some good headphones and let's get out into the world.

I know that some of my listeners are not walking right now or might choose to not walk and that's totally fine.

You can roll with this one if you use a chair.

You can also do this meditation at home but lying down,

So I'd suggest lying down rather than sitting,

And using the guided imagery to connect to your body.

And we're just going to kind of be thinking about the connection between the legs and the spine.

So there might be some neuromuscular relationship that you can build just lying down on your bed.

I had one more thing to say and I can't remember what it was.

So with that,

Go ahead and pause the recording and make any kind of arrangements you need to make and then when you're ready,

Pick it up again.

Okay,

So today's meditation is a walking meditation and what we're going to be doing is actually thinking about contentment.

This is the first of a two-part meditation series on arriving in the unknown.

So we're in a time right now when a lot of things are unknown.

And I should have said,

Go ahead and start walking whenever you're ready.

So a lot of things are unknown.

We're not in so much of a different place than humans have been at any other time because the future is always unknown.

But we definitely are facing conditions in our world politically,

Socially,

And environmentally that bring up a lot of questions for many people about what our future is going to look like.

And we can't know.

There's no way that from the place that we are right now,

We can see into the future.

It's just not part of the package that you get when you sign up to be a human.

So one of the things that's happening with all of this unknown is just increased levels of anxiety for a lot of people.

And now I'm just going to shift into some walking meditation and I want you to feel your body and feel the way that you're moving and take some deep breaths in and let your belly fill with your breath.

So I was just talking about a mental and emotional state that we can get in.

And listening to me,

I just want you to notice if there's any residue from what I was saying in an emotional realm.

And I want you just to ground it into your body.

So as you sense your body,

Feel the way that your weight can shift right to left or direct your attention into right and left.

Feel the relationship that you have between the tips of your toes,

Your hip joints,

And the central axis of your spine.

Feel the way that your breath can expand into your lungs,

Fill all of the soft tissues of your body,

And that you can easily give your weight into the support that you feel.

And that's the ground underneath you,

Any structures that you're standing upon or touching right now.

And then just continue kind of letting yourself slip in and out of listening to what I'm saying.

And sensing your body.

Sensing your body as it moves.

And I love walking because it's rhythmic and it connects the right and the left sides.

And it is a contralateral motion.

So you might notice that as your left leg swings forward,

So does your right arm.

And as your right leg swings forward,

So does your left arm.

And that movement is really integrating for the hemispheres of the brain.

It's a very balancing movement.

So the invitation is just to keep coming back to a very simple awareness of walking.

A very simple awareness of your breath.

And a very simple awareness of your relationship to gravity.

And the drop down into gravity and the push away or the rebound.

So in the unknown,

There can be a lot of anxiety.

And this is the stepping forward moment.

This is when we're actively leaving support that we have previously known.

Leaving systems and structures that for a long time have worked well enough.

You know,

We stepped into something.

We've built foundations upon them.

And the nature of life is to change.

So part of being in a flow with life is allowing and accepting the unknown.

There's always the need to change.

And you can feel that right now as you walk.

That there is a meeting of one foot into the ground and there's a weight shift.

And for a moment,

There is a balance.

And then that balance shifts.

So sometimes we think about,

You know,

Oh if I could only find balance or if I could only achieve some state,

Then things wouldn't feel so scary.

However,

That's making an assumption that life is not what it is.

That it's something that is not changing and that's not what we want.

That life is not changing and that doesn't move.

So can you feel in your body that there's a necessity to keep moving?

Can you feel how delightful it is to enjoy the weight shift from your heel through the bones of your foot,

Through the arch of your foot,

Into the mound or the foot?

And as you kind of push off with that foot and your big toe leaves the ground,

Then all of a sudden your foot takes flight and it's suspended in air.

So if you're an adult,

You know,

And you've been walking for a while,

You probably have long since forgotten how miraculous this is that you're doing this movement.

But at one point in your life it was truly miraculous and there was a lot of joy as well as frustration in figuring out how to do this,

How to get support underneath one foot so that another foot could leave the ground.

And just feel the way that things now make a little bit more sense.

Feel the way that from the root of your belly there's a connection all the way down to the tips of your toes.

So our walking muscles begin right up underneath our lungs.

And as you breathe you can feel the flow of your breath down into the base of your lungs and all the way down your legs and into your toes.

And then you can feel the rebound step of your foot in the way that just even a slight reach through your toes,

Whether you're walking or lying down,

Can reverberate and travel up through your spine into a release of your head.

Okay,

So that unknown moment when one foot leaves the stability and moves into the unknown and then the trust that we have that we're going to land,

That amazing trust that wasn't always something we took for granted and maybe isn't now.

So any of you that have experienced difficulties with walking for some reason or another,

You know that there is a lot of trust that is needed to place one foot in front of the other.

So feeling however that resonates with you and your body right now and just sending gratitude into not just your legs and feet but all the parts of you,

Physical and non-physical,

That have ever taken a step forwards emotionally,

Mentally,

In a relationship,

As well as in your body.

And then feeling your breath.

All right,

And now what I want you to do is just to look around wherever you are right now and see something.

It doesn't matter what it is.

Just notice something and pay attention to it.

See what color it is.

See what shape it is.

Appreciate it.

And by appreciate,

I don't mean you have to love it or think that it's awesome,

But recognize that whatever you're looking at has a history and has a past.

Maybe think about where did that thing come from.

If you're looking at a tree,

Wow,

That started once upon a time as a seed.

If you're looking at an automobile or a man-made structure,

Thinking about the minerals and the elements that have combined through the work of many hands and minds and machines to become this thing that it is right now.

So appreciate that there has been a process of arriving for everything that you're seeing.

And just keep walking and as you walk,

Feel the base of your body.

Feel whatever part of your body is in relationship to gravity.

Feel the way that you are supported from underneath.

Feel your breath.

Feel the relationship from your toes all the way through your spine and into your head.

Remember that at one point you were just a seed.

You were just an egg.

You were a collection of cells and you've grown into the being that you are now.

And everything that you're seeing,

Everything that you're regarding right now,

Has an origin story.

So as you see the origin of your body,

As you see the origin of your body,

You're seeing the origin story.

So as you see what you're seeing,

And it doesn't matter what it is,

Maybe other people,

Animals,

Nature,

Not that we're not nature,

But you know what I mean,

Metal,

Vinyl,

Plastic,

Rocks.

Remembering that everything you're seeing was at one point empty.

Was at one point non-existent.

And then things started to come together and form.

And if you're looking at a tree,

Remembering,

Wow,

You know seeds are developed from trees.

So this tree that I'm looking at came from another tree that somehow gave its life energy into making whatever pod or seed that was then dropped,

That was carried by the wind,

That was buried in the earth,

That was softened by the rain,

Nourished by the soil,

And given all the conditions that it took for it to grow,

To reach to the light,

To make whatever shape it is making.

Isn't it amazing how the material forms that we take for granted now weren't always here?

And then come back to your walk and just feel the way that you're walking and feel the way that you're breathing.

And if you're walking or if you're lying down,

Feeling the contralateral pattern.

And if you can,

If you feel comfortable and you want to stretch one arm up and stretch the other arm up or both arms out,

And if you're walking really to swing your arms and to feel the way that this kind of buoyancy in the upper body and the allowing of movement in your ribs and in your spine serves your walking.

And think about,

You know,

The joy of walking.

You learned to walk.

You learned to walk.

It is a miracle.

You can move your body and it feels whatever it feels like.

So you're having this experience and you're breathing and feel the relationship now of your upper body to your lower body and whatever side of your body is heavenwards to whatever side of your body is earthwards.

The way that the light buoyant structures of your body are supported by whatever,

You know,

Stable material forms there are underneath you.

There's something to stand on,

There's something to lie on.

Gravity can be a supportive force.

And then we're going to feel the levity in our bodies,

The place where there's space,

The place where there's movement and play and flow.

And now whatever you're looking at,

I want you to imagine all the things this thing could become.

If you're looking at a tree,

You don't know which way wind is going to blow,

What animals are going to make their homes,

What obstructions there might grow to block light,

Which would affect growth,

Or what destruction might occur to allow more light in.

That if you're looking at something metallic or plastic or glass,

That these are substances that might have a longer lifespan than our bodies,

But they're also at some point going to deteriorate.

They'll be worked on by the elements of water and air and heat.

Gravity will have an effect and their substances will start to break down into molecular levels,

Into particle levels.

They'll be carried off into the wind,

Into the water,

Into the earth.

And nothing that exists now didn't already exist in some form before.

Even the synthetics,

Which is quite amazing.

We work with the materials that we have at hand and bring them together in different ways,

But there have been other times on earth when we've had increased carbon emissions,

When there have been movements between elements,

Creating excess in some places and deficiency in others.

So this flux and solidity of one thing becoming another has happened as long as we know that anything has existed.

So as you're looking at whatever you're looking at,

Can you remember that you don't know what its future is?

But you could imagine all the ways that it will be affected.

And as you walk,

You might just notice what kinds of choices you're making and how you bring your weight into whatever foot is landing.

So sometimes we're not aware of how we're walking and as soon as we bring attention,

We might notice,

Wow,

I have more weight in one foot than the other or I have more weight on my inner foot than my outer foot or,

Gosh,

It feels like I don't push off the ground at all,

But I lift my foot from my hip.

So notice the choices that you're making as you let one foot meet the ground at a time.

So can you feel the way that weight comes into your heel,

The way that it spreads into the bones of your outer foot,

Into the little toe side,

The buoyancy of your arch as weight comes into the big toe side and the ball of your foot and the muscular action of your toes as they push off the ground to take that foot into flight again?

Being intentional with how you step and just feeling the way that your weight comes down and,

Of course,

If you're lying down and imagining this,

Imagine it.

Imagine placing one foot in front of the other,

Just how your weight is passing into the earth below you,

Noticing the choices that you make very subtly,

Probably without thinking about it,

Trying out new things and let yourself off the hook because there's not a right way to walk.

There's just an awareness of walking right now and breathing and enjoying the feeling in whatever ways you can enjoy it.

Feeling the swing of your arms,

The relationship of the earth all the way up to your head,

Of your breath all the way down into the earth.

And then looking at all of the things around you,

Whatever it is that catches your eye.

And if you can,

Just holding this awareness of,

Wow,

That thing started from somewhere and it's going somewhere and I don't know where it came from or where it's going but it is here right now and I'm just going to greet it.

It's like,

Hello,

Car.

Hello,

Box of stuff.

Hello,

Tree.

Whatever it is that you're looking at,

Give it a name,

Acknowledge it,

Give it a name,

Acknowledge it,

And see if in this moment you can just appreciate simply that it's here.

That it's not about wishing anything were another way,

Not about judging what it is,

But simply noticing presence and acknowledging it.

And this isn't about anything other than that.

It's just,

Okay,

This is what's here right now.

I'm going to see it,

Recognize that it came from somewhere and that it's on its way somewhere else.

And I don't know when or where or how,

But I know that whatever I'm looking at is changing.

And then come back to your own body and feel the way that you're moving and feel the way that every step is slightly different.

So even if most steps feel basically the same,

Every step has just a little bit of a different idea to it.

And that's because the ground is different underneath your feet.

Weight is different.

Our sensations that we're responding to and the ways that we shift our attention are different.

So there are similarities and differences.

There's the similarity in habits that we have,

But there's also these slight differences.

So there's the similarity in habits that we have,

But there's also these slight differences.

And see if you can feel in your body that there is consistent change.

You might think about how you feel now and remember how you felt a previous time and without judging,

Without thinking,

Oh I feel better or I feel worse.

Just yes,

Now things are different.

And you might consider that tomorrow you'll probably feel differently than you do today and notice tendencies,

If they're there,

To leap into a future assumption about how you will feel tomorrow.

And a lot of times we set ourselves up for feeling certain ways.

When we expect something,

We can usually find a reason to validate our own expectations.

That's not to say that you are in charge or that you control reality as it is.

Just that you can set up conditions for yourself to have a feeling in the reality that you're inhabiting.

So if you set up the conditions to expect disappointment,

You'll probably find reasons to be disappointed.

If you set up the conditions to be happy,

You'll probably find reasons to be happy.

Right now,

Let's set up some conditions to be content.

Contentment is not,

You know,

We're jumping up and down super excited about everything.

Definitely not that.

But it's also not despair or hatred or fear.

It's pretty balanced.

It's pretty grounded.

It's just seeing that everything is in a state of change.

So whatever it is that you're looking at,

Noticing the judgments that are there for sure,

But not telling yourself only that story.

Starting to tell different stories.

And those stories are kind of a collaborative story that you're telling with whatever you're looking at.

So it's like you're just asking a question,

Where did you come from?

What made you?

I wonder where you'll go.

This is a great tool in our relationships.

So when we meet other people,

We're curious about the forces that have shaped them.

And then if we see,

You know,

Where they are now and we wonder,

Wow,

I wonder where you're going to go.

What are you going to do?

And just think about,

You know,

What kind of feelings you want in your own growth.

You know,

Do you want a feeling of possibility?

Do you want guidance?

Do you want love?

And as you encounter other people,

You might just kind of check in like,

Wow,

I wonder how I could help that person grow in the way that is best for them.

So just like if we have a garden and we think,

Hmm,

This plant needs more light.

Maybe I'll clear this space over here and let in some more light.

Or this plant needs a little bit drier soil.

I'll move it up over here and get it higher into the sun.

And we can do that for each other in small ways.

And that's not about controlling each other's behaviors at all,

But simply questioning like,

Where did you come from?

What has shaped you?

What kind of support can I be in your life?

And then we're going to feel into our own bodies again and notice all of the things around us that can support us to grow in ways that feel good.

And regardless of where you are,

There is something.

And it might be as simple as your breath.

It might be as simple as recognizing that you can breathe right now.

And that oxygen is needed in every cell in your body and you can receive it.

And that in itself is amazing.

It might be recognizing light.

And it might also be recognizing darkness and shadow.

That our bodies need both.

We need light and we also need darkness.

We need to feel awake and we also need to sleep.

So just recognizing that there are cycles in the day.

That's so supportive.

And there are seasons of the year.

And there are inside spaces and outside spaces.

And then continue to extend and think of all the ways that you're supported.

This could be the food you eat,

The water you drink,

The resources you have in your life,

Your relationships,

Your dreams,

Your faith,

Any material forms,

Any objects,

Any plants,

Any other beings.

And as you think about all of this,

Also having that awareness of everything is changing.

There's nothing to do right now but just recognize whatever it is in this moment.

Appreciate that it's come from somewhere and is going somewhere else.

Appreciate that you have come from somewhere and you're going somewhere.

And if you really ask yourself,

Break it down,

Where did I come from and where am I going,

You don't actually know.

And so all you have is this step,

This moment of trusting,

Just taking flight,

Feeling every choice you make in the moment,

The ways that you land.

So we're going to finish the walking meditation today with a little prayer.

And you're welcome to keep walking as long as you want.

Take this meditation to something else.

But I'll close with you right now just by asking you to breathe deeply,

To feel the magic of your breath.

And for all of us to ask together that no matter what it is that we end up doing or being,

Saying or thinking,

That we are in the world and in our lives in ways that we are proud of in the future,

In ways that serve the health and happiness and the wholeness of everything else that exists,

That we can find our parts in this big balance.

And we ask for happiness and freedom for ourselves and all other beings,

Knowing that when we are feeling good as a community,

Then individuals feel good.

So thanks for walking with me today and much love to you and yours.

Reviews

This is exactly what I was looking for in a walking meditation! I'm so glad I found you! Thank youuuuuu Xo