Making Space For Allowing

This practice is all about holding space for how things are (even if they aren't as you would prefer). This can take the form of challenging emotions, difficult circumstances, or even the day-to-day discomforts we all experience. Interestingly enough, this was recorded and first shared with the Teaching Balance community in March of 2020, just as the pandemic was beginning. As you can imagine, this was a time where we all needed support to hold space for our fear and discomfort.
Please note: This audio is ripped from a video.

Transcript

Hey there everybody,

This is Kristen from Teaching Balance and I am here with you with this week's mindfulness meditation practice.

And right now we are in the month of March.

This will actually be the final meditation for March's theme of mindful boundaries.

And as I'm filming this,

You guys know that I tend to film in batches,

The first several of this month were filmed a whole month previous.

This one is actually being filmed just a couple of weeks before March 30th,

Which by the way is my birthday,

More about that later.

But the idea of course now is that it is a whole new world that we are living in,

Being sequestered,

Social distancing,

And all of those things.

And it's sort of interesting to me when I think I'm always,

When I sit down and get ready to record these for you guys,

That I always try to have something meaningful to say regarding the whole idea of the theme and connecting the theme to some sort of thoughts or insights and invitations for the week.

And it's really interesting when we talk about this idea of boundaries,

Because of course here we are establishing some pretty hardcore boundaries in this new world order of social distancing and all of the things that we are doing to try to minimize the pandemic of COVID-19.

And so even as I say these words,

It feels like it's so bizarre,

But nonetheless.

So the boundaries are in place.

And what I'm thinking about for all of you is,

Believe it or not,

The thing I'm thinking about right now is establishing,

It would be easy to say like establish boundaries with between you and the people in your household,

Whether it's roommates,

Kids,

Partners,

You know,

Whatever it might be,

Other family members.

And we could,

And you could always go back to a couple of weeks ago where we did the whole idea of mindful boundaries with people.

But instead,

The thing that I'm thinking about the most right now is this idea of just allowing.

And by that,

I mean,

Allowing ourselves to be present with how things are and to allow them to be the way they are.

And so what I mean by that is probably almost best explained with the old,

I guess you could say it's like a prayer of some kind.

I don't know how many traditions that exist within,

But the idea behind it is,

You know,

Give me the grace to change the things that I can,

Accept the things that I can't change and the wisdom to know the difference in that whole idea.

I'm sure I've worried it differently,

But the point is there's a lot of things right now that we can't change and we cannot do much about them beyond what we can deal with in terms of just,

You know,

Being present and working within the literal confines of where we find ourselves right now.

And so the point I want to make is let's just play with the idea of allowing something that we don't find appealing or preferable to be here.

And by that,

I mean the fact that you are,

You know,

In your home,

Either by yourself or with other people,

And you don't have the options to go out and be with others,

Or at least you're choosing to not have the options to do that.

And even though you might not like that,

To allow yourself to allow it to be okay.

But when I say being okay,

It doesn't mean that it's truly okay.

Like yes,

This is how I want it to be.

This is totally okay.

Everything's fine,

You know?

Not like that.

I mean more just in the same way we've talked about in the past,

The idea of being present with difficult emotions,

Which of course can definitely be happening right now for all of us as well.

There's the whole idea of instead of,

You know,

Pushing difficult emotions away or pushing the things that we're resisting away or trying to hide from them,

It's an odd metaphor,

But just allowing them to sit on the bench with you.

So you just,

You know,

Whatever these circumstances are that are the moment right now,

As undesirable and unprofitable as they may be,

Allow yourself to just let it sit on the bench next to you.

And you don't have to pretend it's not there and,

You know,

Look away and put on blinders.

And you also don't have to give it your sandwich and feed it and,

You know,

Kind of like wade in the misery that might be associated with it.

You're just allowing yourself to coexist with it.

And I think that you will find that that oddly feels rather empowering.

So that was a pretty long intro.

Let me try to wrap it up.

In this month of mindful boundaries,

It's not so much a boundary regarding the traditional sense of establishing boundaries between people or anything like that.

But the kind of boundary that I'm inviting you to create is to create a boundary,

If you will,

And we don't even have to use that word if you don't want to,

But to allow yourself to create a boundary where you're just,

At least with,

For moments of your choice,

If you decide to do this,

You're creating a boundary where you hold the space for whatever it is that is unpleasant,

Difficult,

Challenging.

You wish it were different.

And you're just making the conscious decision,

At least for a short amount of time,

To allow it to be there.

So let that sit for a little bit.

I tried to kind of dance around it in a few ways,

But I'm just feeling like there's a lot.

There's a lot going on.

So speaking of there being a lot going on,

Let's do our meditation.

We're going to sit for 10 minutes.

I'm going to set my timer,

Make sure my volume is good.

Let's just go ahead and meditate.

This one's going to be pretty standard.

So as you allow yourself to settle in,

You might be seated on a chair or cushion or even lying down.

But if you're seated upright,

I'm going to invite you just to check in with your posture and to just notice,

First and foremost,

Do you feel grounded?

Because there's a lot going on.

The more grounded we feel,

The more supported we feel,

The stronger we might feel.

And so if your legs are crossed,

And you can leave your posture the way it is,

But if you want to go for it,

Let's try this.

I would uncross your legs and put both feet flat on the ground.

And if you're sitting in a chair where that's difficult,

You might need to scooch up a little bit to get your feet flat.

You can do whatever you like with your hands.

You can just rest them on your lap.

You can interlace your fingers.

You can put one on top of the other.

If you're wearing a hoodie or something with pockets,

You can put them in your pockets.

The idea is to be comfortable.

And then one last thing is I'm also going to encourage you to just roll your shoulders back.

It's going to feel a little weird at first,

Like you're sticking your chest out,

But we're so hunched over our phones and computers and books and devices and all the things.

So just roll your shoulders back.

And if they roll back naturally,

It's fine.

Let's let go of all this pressure,

Okay?

All right,

So you're sitting in a relatively upright but not tight or rigid posture.

Your hands are just resting comfortably.

You may have already noticed my eyes are downcast.

You can close yours or just look down.

I like to keep this as chill as possible.

So don't worry if you're doing it right or wrong.

Honestly,

There is no wrong way to do this if you're working within the very loose guidelines,

In my opinion.

Now that you're settled,

I'm also going to invite you to take a few deep breaths.

I want to acknowledge that for some of you,

Taking a deep breath right now might be very challenging.

Just doing the best that you can.

If you feel tight and slightly emotionally escalated and it's harder to take a deep breath,

Just take a slightly deeper breath.

But if you do have the luxury of taking some deeper breaths,

Because you can,

Please do.

Don't skip this part.

There's a beautiful effect that occurs when you take deeper,

Longer breaths.

You naturally calm down.

And even if you're not feeling like you need to calm down,

It is a really nice way for you to just settle in for this sit that we're doing together.

Now I mentioned this is going to be pretty traditional.

And before I begin by talking about where to rest your attention,

I just want to mention that I'm going to invite you to also let go of any expectations or any pressure.

Don't worry about doing it right or getting it done.

I don't even know how many ways to say it.

Just if anything,

For these few minutes that we're sitting together,

I just want you to just be deeply present with how things are.

So if you feel tightness in your body,

You don't even have to change it.

Just notice the tightness.

Because that's what we're doing.

We're just being deeply present to accepting of.

And to go back to the word I used earlier,

We're allowing things to be as they are,

At least for these few minutes.

So the first anchor for your attention that I'd like to offer you is for you to rest your attention on the breath.

By now I assume your breathing has resumed its natural rhythm.

So I just want you to notice where do you feel your body breathing?

We know it's happening.

But if you were to do a scan and sense,

Where do I actually feel a sensation that confirms that you're breathing?

It might be the rising and falling of your chest or your abdomen.

Or it might be sensations around the nose or mouth as the air goes in and out.

And if you can't see which one is most dominant,

Don't worry about it.

Just pick one.

And what I'd like for you to do is just take a little bit of time to observe those sensations associated with the breath.

You might notice there is a bit of a wave-like quality to the breath,

A gentle rising on the inhale and a descending on the exhale.

And if that's appealing to you,

I would invite you to allow yourself to ride that gentle wave like ripples on a calm ocean.

And inevitably,

Of course,

Your mind is going to wander to other things.

It might be making lists of things to do.

It might be generating ideas or worries.

All of that is completely natural.

It's a common misconception that you're trying to cease thinking when you meditate.

In fact,

What you're doing instead is you're just noticing,

Oh,

There's a thought,

There's a worry,

There's me list-making.

And you just very gently,

Without beating yourself up or thinking it's a problem because it's not,

Just gently bring your attention back to your breath.

And we're going to stick with the breath as our anchor for the remaining two and a half minutes or so.

So in addition to noticing sensations or allowing yourself to ride the gentle wave,

The other thing you might find helpful to keep your attention in the present is to just play with that moment at the top of the inhale,

Just before the exhale,

And that moment at the bottom of the exhale before the new inhale and the new breath.

And I wouldn't get too preoccupied by it,

But really with all of this,

Having a lightness and a playfulness,

I feel like we're trying so hard all the time.

Let's not try too hard.

And in fact,

Even though there is a bit of effort required to hold your attention in the present to keep your attention resting on your breath,

You're actually doing something deeply,

Deeply restful by giving yourself a break from always following your thoughts somewhat mindlessly and allowing your thoughts to yank you around wherever they choose.

In this case,

For these minutes that we choose to meditate,

You notice that your mind started to do that.

And then you just shift and pivot and bring your attention back to the present.

So we've got a little under a minute left until the final bell.

So what I'd like to do is in a few moments,

Just let us sit in silence.

And I'm going to invite you again with lightness,

No pressure.

See if you can try to hold your attention in the present on the breath until our final bell.

Okay,

This is the final.

Okay,

That was 10 minutes.

I think I need to turn the volume up on this.

Anyway,

This will be going out to members on,

If you're watching this on the day that it is sent to you,

On March 30th,

2020,

Which is my birthday!

And the way things are looking right now as I'm recording this a couple of weeks before,

Who knows what that day is going to be like.

But it'll be one to remember,

That's for sure.

So as always,

Thank you so much for taking this time to practice and thank you so much for allowing me to accompany you on this journey and I will see you guys next week.

Take care,

Bye.