Neuro-Somatic Mindfulness | Self-Acceptance Guided Med. 1

This guided meditation is the first of a series of five, in which we will explore self-acceptance in a deeply embodied way, through the practice of neuro-somatic mindfulness, and allow ourselves to come home and contact a ground of stillness, aliveness, and flow, both physically, cognitively and emotionally as well.

Transcript

Hi,

Welcome to another guided meditation practice.

In this guided practice,

We're going to work with deepening the context of self-acceptance,

Self-compassion,

And really allowing our experience to be as it is moment to moment.

And we're going to work with this in a very embodied way,

Employing the basic methodology that I call neuro-somatic mindfulness.

So as always,

If you take a moment to establish your posture,

Finding a posture that for you feels relatively upright,

Uplifted,

At the same time relaxed and stable.

And if for any reasons you need to do this lying down,

Standing up,

Leaning against the back of a chair for support,

Please do what works for you.

But if you are able to set up with a relatively upright posture,

That can be helpful.

You can do the practice either with your gaze down at about a 45 degree angle,

Or you can close the eyes.

And if you're new to this very embodied approach to mindfulness and awareness practice,

You may wish to close your eyes to begin with,

Just to really tune into the internal landscape of the body,

Activating our capacity for interoceptive awareness.

So as you're ready,

You're invited to begin bringing your attention to your body.

And by body,

We're referencing the actual tactile,

Physical sensations that make up the moment to moment experience we call body.

Most of the time,

We relate with a conceptual overlay over our entire experience.

So we have a conceptual body.

We look out into the world,

We see conceptual buildings,

Conceptual trees.

It takes a gentle effort to actually penetrate beneath the level of concept and memory to the actual direct experience.

So working with mindfulness of body,

The way we do that is we focus on feeling,

Actually feeling the body at the sensate level,

Feeling the sensations that make up this experience we call body.

So you may wish to begin with the sensations arising at the contact points between your body and the chair or the cushion,

Your feet in the ground,

And so forth.

Or perhaps your attention is drawn to some areas of discomfort in the body,

Perhaps the weight of your clothing,

The contact between your clothing and your skin,

Perhaps any movement of the air where you are or the air temperature,

And of course,

The passage of air across the nostrils and or parted lips with each in-breath and out-breath.

Breath after breath,

I encourage you to extend that awareness of physical sensation all across the surface of the skin from head to toe.

The skin,

The epidermis that encapsulates our body,

Is one vast sensory organ,

Very sensitive.

Sensations of touch on the surface of the skin travel through a set of neural pathways that are highly myelinated,

Making them very efficient,

So quite sensitive and going very directly to the brain for processing.

So we could really begin to feel ourselves enveloped by that field of sensation on the surface of the skin,

Which is the interface between ourselves and the space surrounding us,

Between our body at any rate and the space surrounding us.

And we generally imagine that space to be empty,

But we know it's not empty.

It's actually made up of gases and so forth.

It's tangible.

And we could actually feel ourselves being held by the space in a nurturing,

Benevolent way,

To regard the space surrounding us as benevolent and holding us.

So we could really feel ourselves being held in the nurturing embrace of our own exquisite,

Loving attentiveness to the body and the space surrounding us.

So we're creating an almost womb-like structure of loving,

Loving attentiveness,

Caring,

Compassion,

And feeling ourselves held in this very safe,

Nurturing space.

So I invite us to keep coming back to that again and again,

Back to feeling the body and feeling ourselves held by the space around us and feeling that structure of sensation from head to toe on the surface of the skin as a womb-like structure holding us,

Nurturing us.

And then in addition to that,

You're invited to begin exploring the internal landscape of sensation within the body,

The sensation of touch within the body.

So perhaps feeling the overall weight and mass of the muscles and bones,

The force of gravity holding us down on the earth,

Feeling all of the sensations,

The internal sensations related to the breath as the breath flows in and out of the body,

The belly rising and falling,

The ribcage opening and closing,

The action of the abdominal muscles,

Diaphragm muscle,

Intercostal muscles,

All assisting with the breathing process,

The air just flowing in and out of the body of its own accord.

And of course,

The passage of air across the nostrils and or part of the lips,

That entire flow,

That sensate flow we call the breath.

So actually feeling the breath at the level of physical sensation,

Internally and externally,

Being open to feeling any areas of discomfort in the body,

Any aches or pains,

Stiffness,

Tension,

Simply opening to what's there and realizing,

Reminding ourselves that our sense perceptions,

In this case,

Touch,

Physical sensation,

Physical touch,

And all of our sense perceptions arise across the spectrum from pleasant to neutral to unpleasant,

Things that are comfortable,

Not so comfortable,

Pleasurable,

Painful,

Everything in between.

And that's just our experience.

And we're fairly hardwired to be constantly chasing comfort and pleasure and avoiding discomfort and pain.

And that keeps us locked into a very unconscious,

Habitual,

Mechanical way of being.

So being willing to embrace discomfort is a powerful and tried and true strategy for waking ourselves up because we're going against the current of our habitual patterns.

Now we're not looking for discomfort,

We're not punishing ourselves in any way,

Shape or form,

But discomfort and unpleasant sensations and other perceptions are just part of being alive.

So we can make the choice to just embrace the totality of our experience moment to moment,

Rather than living in constant fear of discomfort and an addiction to comfort.

We could just make the choice to embrace the totality of our experience moment to moment.

So we're focusing here on physical sensations throughout the body,

Inside and out.

And the more we tune in to actually feeling the body,

Directly feeling,

Not so much watching,

Observing,

Witnessing,

But rather feeling,

Directly feeling,

Without even the need for a feeler,

We're sort of collapsing that subject-object duality and we're just feeling the body,

Even just being the body.

The more we tap into this and the more deeply we drop into the body with awareness,

The more deeply we feel the body,

We begin to tap into a self-existing resonance,

Coherence or flow that is very nurturing,

Stabilizing,

And at its depth gives us the experience,

The unmistakable,

Undeniable experience that we are unconditionally,

Primordially good,

Whole,

Pure,

Not broken.

We don't need fixing.

We may have all kinds of stuff going on on the surface and all our human challenges,

All our conditioning,

But underneath all that,

Just like when you have a storm on the surface of the ocean,

You go down not very far and the water is completely still.

So dropping into that stillness within our own being and just letting everything else be as it is moment to moment,

Thoughts coming and going,

Sensations,

Other sense perceptions coming and going,

Emotional experiences,

Mood shifts and changes of mood or emotion coming and going,

Just letting it all come and go just like clouds passing in the sky,

Anchoring ourselves in the depth of our being by developing this deeply felt physical presence to begin with.

And from this place,

Deeply grounded in the physicality of the body and the breath,

And ever more deeply grounded in this direct experience of beingness and flow,

The more we can allow our experience to simply be as it is.

We don't need to hold on to anything.

We don't need to run away from anything.

We don't need to push anything away.

We don't need to cling to anything.

We can simply let our experience be as it is in the moment and just be with it,

With awareness,

Curiosity,

Whatever arises.

Ah,

So,

And that too.

Ah,

So,

And that too.

So as always,

I encourage you to continue with this particular practice session for as long as you have time or you're able.

And in this session and in your daily practice,

To really work with developing greater embodiment,

The actual physicality of the body as an anchor,

Anchoring us in nowness,

And facilitating dropping deeper and deeper through interoceptive awareness,

Somatic awareness into the subtle energies of the body,

Which means we're dropping into the depth of being.

And from that foundation,

Just learning to allow our experience to be as it is with curiosity,

Acceptance,

Self-compassion,

Non-judgment,

And just allow things to empty of their own way.

You know,

Everything that's there stored in our psyche and our nervous system,

It'll just empty.

And if we don't feed it,

If we don't push it away or react to it or cling to it,

It just empties and empties and empties.

And over time,

There's a profound process of healing and emptying,

Lightening or enlightening.

So as always,

I wish you good practice and a great week,

And we'll see you next time.

Reviews

Dr. Maull brings deep wisdom and compassion to his guidance which I always find relatable and calming.

Very helpful 🙏🏾🧘🏾‍♀️

Exactly what I needed!

Thank you so so much , your voice and words and silences are a piure blessing. Merci beaucoup ✨

Amazing. I loved the analogy of a storm and the water being so still just below the surface.

Great start to the day. 🙏

I was so excited to find this! I love Fleet and his approach! Thank you for this!

Gentle great guidance, to allow & be in the body no matter what is occurring, Wish there were more tracks from this teacher to expand upon

A great entry into this topic, looking forward to more. It feels like there is wisdom here.

❤️🙏😊☀️

This actually helped me to release some feelings of guilt. Thank You

Excellent grounding meditation! Wonderful to see you here Fleet! Welcome to the Insight Timer community. We are SO lucky to have you here bringing your wisdom, compassion, stories & expertise to the community. Love Radical Responsibility! Looking forward to following your guided meditations and talks!

Really really loved this. Thank you