Acceptance Of Bodily Sensations- Led By Marshall Kupka-Moore

Developing acceptance for life's difficulties is a practice that takes many years of dedicated effort. By starting small and accepting what is here-and-now within our own bodies, we take a step in the direction of greater acceptance. Therefore, in this meditation, we will develop acceptance for our bodies from the inside out.

Transcript

Welcome to a 10 minute acceptance of bodily sensations meditation. You just start by assuming a comfortable position. However you feel you will be able to stay for a long period of time without having to fidget too much. Really settle in, Get comfortable. Now in your own time, You'll spend 3 minutes doing body scans. This is very important because we want to make sure that we are very tuned in to all of the sensations in our body. So we'll start with our head, Inch by inch progress down, Past our eyes, Our nose, Our mouths, Past our chin, Our neck, Shoulders, Chest, Upper back. This first round, Really just take your time, Just sense what is present. Continuing down our torso to our bellies and lower back. And our hips, Our legs, Our knees and calves, And ending with our feet. Now in your own time, At your own pace, Just start from the top of your head, And this time instead of just being aware, Be aware, Accept what is there, And allow all the tension to melt away. Starting from the top of our heads, Progressing down methodically, Patiently, Not skipping around from the top of our head to the bottom of our feet. As you're scanning, Just really let the tension melt out of your body. Allow your muscles to let go of whatever they're holding onto. Allow your breath to deepen, Signaling to your body that you are safe in this moment. Now that we've spent about four minutes scanning our bodies, We shouldn't have a pretty good sense of what's going on. We should be pretty tuned in and well aware. Now what I'd like you to do is pick a sensation that you would label as undesirable or not good or bad. Just watch that sensation, And for as long as you can without causing serious damage, Just watch it and accept it and allow it to be. Whenever feelings emerge surrounding that unpleasant sensation, Just watch them. Thank them for coming. Thank them for sharing and teaching you whatever lessons they had to share and teach with you, And allow it to be. Take another minute or so. Let's move to an area in our body with a sensation that we would label as pleasant or positive. Just allow it to be. You may start to notice positive feelings and thoughts start to emerge surrounding that area. Just watch them. Accept them. Say thank you for teaching me and sharing with me your lessons, And let them go. We're not attaching to either the good or the bad. We're just allowing them to be in our awareness and practicing acceptance. It's very important to take time out of your day to practice acceptance. When training acceptance, We like to start with things that are small and within our control, Such as bodily sensations. These are kind of like the training wheels that will prepare us to accept larger situations, Often that we may have no control over. So if we start today, Start small, After dedicated, Diligent effort, We will be able to accept even the most difficult circumstances and scenarios. We will be able to look at them. We'll be able to assess it rationally. We'll be able to accept what is there. And then we'll be able to move forward with whatever we determine to be the best course of action. All of this becomes possible once we take some time to just accept what is in a very manageable way. Thank you for practicing. Go ahead and thank yourself for practicing. And we'll see you in the next session.