Center Of Center

This meditation explores the felt sense of ‘centeredness’ and offers somatic pathways for locating and returning to our personal centers, even as the constancy of thoughts, sensations, and internal and external stimulation might pull us off balance.

Transcript

I'm going to just start off with a meditation.

Meditation can be also any shape that feels good for you,

Standing,

Sitting,

Lying down.

But choose a shape that really just allows you to arrive in some kind of relative stillness.

And if it feels safe and accessible for you to close your eyes,

I welcome you to close your eyes.

Sometimes closing the eyes with meditation isn't desirable for lots of reasons,

Including we just woke up and maybe this will send us right back to sleep.

So if closing your eyes doesn't feel like the right choice for you right now,

Then allow your body to turn so that your gaze can just rest towards the earth and your eyelids can be maybe more half-lidded,

Gently releasing downwards without closing entirely.

And as we begin our practice today,

We're just going to begin noticing what's here.

And so in this particular meditation,

The instruction is not to stop your thinking.

There's no technique that we're going to follow except for noticing what's here.

And in this process of arriving and noticing what's here,

Everything is welcome.

Your thoughts are welcome.

Your bodily sensations are welcome.

Distractions and movements in the environment are welcome.

And you allow your consciousness to get so big that everything that's here can just be here.

Inside of your meditation,

Invite curiosity into the relationships between parts of what's here.

So if a sensation in your body is making itself known,

Does that sensation have a relationship to thoughts?

If a thought is making itself known,

Does that thought have a relationship to sensation?

If sounds or stimulation in the environment is present,

Are there relationships occurring or arising between your thoughts or your body's sensations and whatever is making itself known in your environment?

And beginning to notice the quality that you bring to the relationships.

When you're noticing a thought or a sensation or information in your environment,

Is there a quality with which you greet that information?

And that quality might contain thoughts or sensations,

Might have an energetic presence or a vibe.

And you can include that too.

How big is the space that we can hold for what's here?

And then on your next inhale,

If your eyes have been closed,

Go ahead and open them and stretch.

And allow your body to find a twist.

In your twist,

If you're seated,

You can use your arms against your legs to help you twist.

Look all the way over your opposite shoulder.

Twist the other way.

And come back to the center and again,

Stretch and lift your arms up and let your back arc a little bit.

And then as you exhale,

Release your arms down and let your spine curve a little bit.

And in whatever position you're in,

Take a couple of breaths like this.

So as you inhale,

Letting the spine open in the front.

And as you exhale,

Letting the spine open at the back.

You can use your arms or not.

Little cat and cow kind of thing.

Maybe as you sit or you stand,

You could take it all the way into a forward fold if you're standing up.

Allow yourself to wiggle into the front and the back bodies.

And then next time you come back to the center,

Let's take a little bit of a side bend.

So I'm going to reach one hand down,

I'm standing up and I'm going to take the other arm up and over.

And if you're seated or lying down,

You can do this kind of thing as well.

So just being really intuitive with your own movement,

Breathing into the side that's opening.

Maybe really exhaling and feeling the firmness and support of the side that's more flexed or closed.

And then let's take it the other way.

And then come back to the center and just take a moment and feel the weight of your body grounding down into the earth and the space of your body moving away from earth.

And then one more time,

We're just going to move our spine in all its different directions.

And so as you're ready,

Take a twist and I'm actually going to let this standing twist be a little bit of a rotation for myself.

And you might want to give it a couple breaths on each side and something that's more steady.

Again,

Letting your body choose its own adventure.

And then after twisting,

We'll forward fold and back bend a little bit.

And so this could be really gentle,

Kind of just gentle curving forward and opening back with your breath.

And it could also be something that is a little bit more active,

Including your arms,

Maybe forward folding all the way over your legs,

Allowing your body to wake up and get into its own movement.

And then after the forward backward,

Let's just take it to the side a little bit.

And as you take it to the side,

Maybe remember what we did last week in class,

Finding this top of your spine right around the bridge of your nose and feeling the top of the spine going to the side,

Noticing here that sometimes in the side bend,

We might twist or forward fold a bit as well.

And let's see if we can really find a sideways movement.

And taking it the other way,

Reaching from the top of the spine.

And then as you're ready,

Coming back to the center and rubbing your hands together.

And let's rub our faces a little bit.

Good morning face or good day,

Good evening,

Whatever time it is for you.

And take your hands down to your heart.

And let's rub our hearts.

And as you rub over your chest,

Send a breath into your chest.

And can you greet the organ of your heart?

Maybe sending an inner smile,

Maybe a little gratitude.

And then go ahead and take one hand all the way as far as you can get under your opposite armpit,

And then wrap the other arm on top and let your hands reach back as far as they can without straining your shoulders or anything.

When you have given yourself the tightest hug that you can,

Again,

Without creating pain in your body,

So this should feel hopefully pain free,

We're just going to squeeze in gently and breathe out into our own holding and our own touch.

And as you breathe into your own holding and touch,

Try telling yourself any version of I've got you.

Whatever makes sense to you and your language or your felt sense.

I've got you,

I'm here for you.

Giving that message to your own body,

Mind,

Being.

And just noticing with curiosity,

Not judgment,

Playing around with the idea that you could receive your own support.

You could breathe into it.

One more little squeeze and we'll let the embrace go,

Shimmy the shoulders for a minute.

And now with your hands,

Find your belly button and just press in gently at your belly button for a moment.

And then let your hands circle out along the length of your waist to the part in your spine that's the same height as your belly button.

And then keep one hand there and take one hand to the front.

And I'm closing my eyes because it really helps my vision come inwards.

So close your eyes if that's helpful for you too.

But can we inhabit now our lower bodies?

So from the height of your belly button through your lower body,

Bring as much consciousness as you can.

And let this consciousness be a little bit of a body scan in the lower body.

You're noticing all the way around your pelvis and your butt and thighs.

All the way down,

Noticing your legs,

Your knees,

Your ankles,

Your feet.

Whatever shape your lower body is in right now,

Pour your awareness into this half.

And then we're just playing here.

We're just playing with our consciousness.

So can we now pour consciousness into the upper half?

Letting the guidance of your hands give you the starting place and then traveling in your awareness through your torso,

Back,

Belly,

Chest,

Upper body,

Arms,

Head,

Neck.

And then let your hands drop away from your torso.

And now pour your attention back into your lower body.

Arrive in the spaces below your belly button.

And then pour your attention back into your upper body.

Use your mind to direct your consciousness and notice the sensations of the inner body and the skin and the muscles,

Your posture.

Good.

And then take your hands and find your ears,

Just feel your ears,

Right from the center of your ear,

Your earlobes.

And with your hands as the guide,

Find now the front of your body.

So from your ears,

You might even draw a really gentle line up to the top of your skull or imagine tracing a line down the sides of your body.

And we're going to pour our attention now into the front of our bodies.

Noticing the front of your face and the front of your throat,

The front of your arms and your chest and your legs and your groins and your feet all at once,

The front body.

And then from that same line that bifurcates front and back,

Can you now pour your consciousness into your back body?

Use your mind to direct your awareness,

Noticing the back of your neck,

The backs of your ears,

The back of your skull,

The skin of the back body,

All the way from top to bottom.

And then again,

Alternate and shift,

Bring your attention into the front body.

Feeling your presence and consciousness,

Scanning the front body,

Bringing awareness to it.

And then once more,

Pouring your consciousness into the back body.

We're just playing,

Curious about what we can feel.

As we arrive in the back body.

And then it may be easy to do the next one,

Or you might want to use your hand as well,

Just to find the midline between left and right.

You could trace a line or find one point,

Maybe your belly button again,

Right at the center.

And now let's start on the left.

Let's go all the way to the left.

Can we feel the left sides of our bodies?

Can we feel the left sides of our bodies all at once?

So our left feet and left hips and left sides of our nose and left shoulders are being lit up by the presence,

The luminosity of our consciousness.

And then ask your mind to direct your consciousness to the right.

Notice the right side all at once.

The upper and the lower,

The front and the back of the right.

Then one more time to the left.

Directing consciousness to the front and the back,

And the upper and the lower left side.

Directing consciousness,

Hold everything that's in the left body.

And then one more time to the right.

And now let's look for the center.

And we'll start by bringing the left and the right sides towards each other.

Can you find your left and right sides in your consciousness?

Can you feel that you have a left and a right?

And can you find the midpoint or midpoints?

Where is the center space between your left and right ears?

Between your left and right arms?

Between the two halves of your pelvis?

Being in that center space between left and right.

And you might know this as your sagittal plane.

So can you be in the center of left and right all the way through your body?

Now this one,

Next one can sometimes be a little tricky,

Or maybe it's easy for you.

Can you find your coronal plane,

The place where the front and the back of your body come together?

Where is your front?

Where is your back?

Can you feel them both?

And where do they touch inside?

Where is the meeting place between front and back?

And try and be in that meeting place through your body,

Through your legs,

Through your torso,

Through your head,

Through your arms.

And then where does the upper half meet the lower half?

That navel area again,

Or the horizontal plane.

Can you feel the lower half of your body meeting and greeting the upper half of your body?

And then can you place your attention through the volume of space in your inner body where the upper and the lower meet?

Now can we find the center of the center of the center?

So from this place where the upper and the lower meet,

Where's the intersection where the front and the back come together and the left and the right come together too?

And that's just one singular point inside your body where all of these planes intersect and meet.

And now just for a moment or two,

Can we meditate in that space?

And everything else can still be here.

There can still be thoughts.

There can still be other sensations.

There can still be things going on outside your body.

But as you notice and allow for what's here,

Can you call yourself back and see if you can dwell,

Can you reside in the center,

Center,

Center?

And then once again,

Noticing the quality that you bring to the center.

And when thoughts and sensations and things are happening in the environment,

Pull your attention out of the center.

What's the quality with which you bring yourself back?

And I want to invite here really open,

Spacious,

Loving quality.

So when a thought comes up,

When another sensation pulls you somewhere else,

Greeting whatever it is,

Oh,

Hello thought,

Oh,

Hello sensation.

And then delivering yourself as gently as possible back into the center.

So we don't need to grip around that consciousness.

The focus itself can be soft.

What we're looking for is steadiness.

And then bring your hands to hold your center in some way and practice sending a smile down into your center.

And I'm going to propose something to you that you can think about and make your own decision.

And the proposal that I'm going to make is that practicing being in our centers could be useful.

Could be useful to us.

It could be useful for all kinds of reasons in our lives,

Be very practical in the ways that we relate and act and interact.

Being in our centers could be good for us.

Practicing being here could be good for us.

So as you smile down into your center,

If that thought resonates for you that there's some reason to connect with your center,

Then remember that as you smile down and maybe collect inside of your thoughts all the reasons that occur to you right now about why it might be useful to be able to practice returning to your center,

Sensing your center.

Smile towards those reasons.

And then as you're ready,

Let the concentration go and stretch out and look around,

Move around with your body as you need.

Reviews

Wowzers. That was unlike anything I’ve done before. Holy cow! 🤩🌟🤩