Home Base 25 Minutes

Home Base is a comfortable experience, perhaps even pleasant, that invites you to inhabit. Home Base may or may not be the breath, and can be listening to sounds or silence, or directing your attention to the tips of the fingers -- whatever is a supportive, stabilizing experience you can inhabit and return to when the mind wanders. This is a longer version of the 7 minute Home Base practice.

Transcript

This is a guided meditation called Home Base.

Home Base is a comfortable experience happening right now.

The intention is to grow self-awareness and choice about how you are in each moment.

Home Base does this by exercising your natural capacity to notice,

Choosing where you direct your attention,

And grow self-regulation of the body,

Emotions,

And states of mind.

As a lightly guided meditation,

Home Base will have times of silence.

These are opportunities to open up to the experiences of the moment.

Remember that your well-being is the most important part of this.

You might be surprised by unexpected difficult emotions,

Sensations,

Or thoughts.

The meditation is not causing them.

It's simply letting you know they're around so you can choose your response.

Let yourself be challenged if that happens.

This is an expected and necessary part of the practice.

But you don't need to power through overwhelming difficulties if they happen to show up.

If challenge starts to stray into overwhelm,

Change the practice to a different Home Base experience,

Open the eyes,

Change your body's position,

Or stop entirely for a bit.

Finally,

Before we begin,

Just know that a little gentleness and lightness can be very helpful to settling the body,

Heart,

And mind.

Invite curiosity and kindness to the experiences that show up and to yourself.

There's no wrong experience.

It's just what's here,

So greet it with as much friendliness as you can.

We're not trying to be perfect,

Stop thinking,

Or get rid of emotions.

We're just showing up.

Let's begin our practice by taking your meditation seat.

Physically,

If you're in a chair,

You might want to scooch forward just a little bit to the edge of your seat.

Place your feet on the floor.

If you can,

Allow the hands to settle into stillness on the legs,

The lap,

Wherever they happen to land is fine.

You don't need to hold them in any particular way.

Let's hang up nice and tall and straight,

As is comfortable for you in your body,

But make adjustments that are appropriate for you.

If you need the backrest,

If you're in a chair,

That's fine,

Use that.

You can allow the eyes to close if that's comfortable for you,

But if you'd rather have them open,

Just a soft gaze,

Just a gentle peek into the visual spectrum is fine.

Not having to identify what you see,

But just knowing that seeing is happening.

Let's take the meditation seat with the body,

But you can also do this standing or lying down.

It's not about the position of the body being correct.

It's about being aware of how the body is positioned and choosing that.

We also take our meditation seat with our hearts and our minds.

So notice what are the emotions that are making themselves known in this moment?

Maybe something holding on from what has come just before this or maybe from years ago.

Maybe some anticipatory emotions as well.

Something you're looking forward to,

Something coming up later today or further out.

And also checking in with thoughts.

Not getting too deep into the contents of thinking,

But just noticing the quality of thoughts.

They fast or slow,

Just the same one tend to come back.

And with the body and the heart and the mind for this practice,

We're not trying to change anything.

You're just starting to become aware of what's here.

Noticing your meditation seat in body and heart and mind is just the first step to noticing.

Growing your capacity to be aware of what's here around you and within you.

The home base is a comfortable experience that's happening right now.

You have five senses to check into and each one of those may have several layers to it.

For some,

Sensations of breathing are a good home base.

They help settle you and they're comfortable.

And for others,

Different sensations are good home bases.

But everyone will have the same home base and you may have different home bases from day to day.

So we'll start by checking into a few different home bases to find one that might be helpful to you.

Comfortable experience.

We'll start with the breath and see what that's like.

Let's begin by taking a nice slow,

Slow deep breath all the way in.

Tippy top,

Feel that fullness.

And then breathing out all the way,

Nice and slow.

And then once more,

Breathing all the way in,

Very slowly.

Where do you feel that in your body?

And then let the breath go.

When you let the breath go,

You're not stopping breathing.

You're just allowing the breath to settle into its own natural rhythm,

Whatever that happens to be right now.

And noticing it,

Feeling it.

So welcoming a little curiosity to this moment.

Where in the body do you feel breathing happening?

Might be a few different places.

Maybe a warmth and a coolness up by your nose as you breathe in and out.

Maybe a little rise and fall in the chest or back.

Maybe some expansion and contraction in the belly.

Breathing in and breathing out.

And sometimes breathing is very subtle.

It's very quiet.

You can place a hand on your stomach and literally get in touch with breathing if that's helpful.

Once you have an idea of maybe one or a few different places where you can feel the breath happening,

Choose one to brighten with your awareness.

Bring your focus there.

Focus on the nose or the chest or the belly,

Whatever it happens to be for you.

And that doesn't mean breathing goes away in the other parts.

You're in an ecosystem in this moment that's all still there.

We're not trying to shut that out.

You're just brightening one spot on the body where you feel it the most.

Feeling that center stage in your experience.

You may find that the mind wanders from time to time.

That's an expected part of this practice.

It's the default mode of our brains to wander.

So when you notice that's happened,

There's no need to give yourself a hard time about it.

Again,

That's an expected and necessary part of this practice.

Noticing the mind has wandered and bringing attention back to your home base.

Home base may be breathing in and out,

Following that experience,

Feeling it all the way through.

And as you are experiencing breathing,

Checking in with how your heart is,

How is the mind,

How are you doing?

This is not an inquisition.

This is just a gentle curiosity.

How do you feel?

There's no wrong answer to that.

That's just whatever's here right now.

If you find that this is comfortable,

Supportive,

Maybe calming,

Maybe energizing,

That is your experience.

And if you find that that's what it is,

Home base may be a comfortable experience for you,

A good one to stay with.

Many of us also find that it is not a comfortable experience.

It's okay to choose something else,

A different home base,

A different layer of your sense of touch.

So if you find breathing is not comfortable,

Let's explore different potential home bases that are comfortable for you.

You can,

For example,

Still in the sense of touch,

Direct your attention to the bottoms of your feet.

It's okay to wiggle your toes for a few moments just to draw attention there and then let the toes settle in to stillness,

Noticing sensation that might be there.

So guide your attention for a few moments just to the bottoms of your feet.

You may not feel any sensation at all.

That's also an expected part of this.

It's not about feeling sensation.

It's about exercising your capacity to notice.

It's like listening when it's very quiet.

You don't need to create sound.

It's not about the sound.

It's about the listening.

So hear listening with your sense of touch,

Even if it's quiet,

The bottoms of the feet.

And again,

When mind wanders,

Just bring it back to home base,

Wherever that spot is in the body that you're experiencing and paying attention to.

We'll try one other home base,

Your sense of hearing,

Listening,

Noticing what's in the environment around you.

So shift your attention now to sounds.

Refreshing curiosity.

What's in the soundscape right now where you are in this moment?

Not having to get caught up in what the sound is or thinking about it or identifying it.

That may happen.

That's part of the experience,

Just noticing when the mind or the heart or the body run away with attention.

Just come back to receiving sounds or even silence in this moment.

Not having to hold on to a sound or a silence.

Just receiving it as it comes and goes.

And again,

Checking in.

How do you feel?

How are you doing?

Great curiosity of the different home bases that we've tried.

Breathing,

Attention on the bottoms of your feet or listening to the sounds in your environment and receiving those.

What was the most comfortable experience you could stay with that invited attention back?

Whatever that is,

Right now in this moment,

Bring your attention as fully as you can to that.

And as best you can,

Hold attention in that place,

That spot,

Whatever it happens to be.

Beautiful and natural rhythm of breathing in,

Breathing out.

Noticing other sensation or receiving of experience,

Whatever that experience,

That home base is.

And if you find during today's practice,

Mind wandering is happening a lot,

Very strongly,

It may be helpful to narrow your focus a little bit more,

Making the flashlight laser pointer very fine dot.

With the breath that might be really having the intention to just notice the beginning of each in-breath,

Not worrying about the full in-breath or the out-breath,

Just set the intention to really experience the beginning of the in-breath or the beginning of each sound.

Perhaps noticing a heightening of attention in that moment before the beginning in-breath,

That awareness.

Building attention.

And if that's helpful,

Perhaps extending that a bit,

What would it be like to focus on the entire length of the in-breath,

Not worry about the out-breath,

But just setting the intention to fully experience each in-breath all the way.

And if mind wandering comes back strongly,

It's okay to shift back to just the beginning of each in-breath.

Or if mind wandering is beginning to settle,

You'd be experiencing the full in-breath and the full out-breath,

Receiving fully each sound,

Whatever your home base happens to be.

Exposing it a little more deeply,

A little more brightly.

Sometimes,

Difficult or surprising emotions or states of mind may also show up and make themselves known.

That is an expected part of this practice.

That's the exercise,

Working with that.

So when that happens,

Then some difficulty arises.

Just notice how you're feeling,

How you're responding to that.

What is it like to be a little challenged and grow from that challenge?

This may show up physically in the body as an itch,

Maybe a small ache.

What's it like to just direct attention to that ache?

To experience that itch and not have to scratch,

But allow it to pass on its own.

That sensations come and go,

That emotions come and go,

That thoughts,

They come and go.

And every so often refreshing the experience of home base.

Mind has wandered or some surprising thought,

Emotion,

Sensation has taken over.

Notice that just come back,

Just come back.

Welcome yourself back to experiencing home base in this unique moment.

And allowing yourself to experience it,

Brightness,

Some friendliness to the experience,

Whatever it happens to be.

Allowing kindness to show up with this breath,

With this moment of listening.

And when you're ready,

When it's comfortable for you to open the eyes if you've had them before.

Still present,

Still here,

Still mindfully aware.

And after being still,

Be listening to the body and stretching a little bit in whatever way maybe refreshing,

Comfortable for you to do.

What is that?

There's no wrong answers here.

Home base is something you can do as a formal meditation where you don't do anything else like we just did.

It can also be something that you check into while you're doing other things,

Just a light awareness of the breath,

Of listening a little more deeply.

Home base is more about a way of being in each moment.

Thanks so much for your time and thanks for doing this home base practice.

Reviews

A fantastic grounding meditation. Thank you, Ted! I needed this one today. Hope you are having a great day full of joy and majic and love.