Hello,
And welcome.
Thanks for taking the time to meditate with me today.
Today's practice is all about being present.
Let's settle into our seats,
Turn off any distractions,
Get comfy,
And take a deep breath to start.
As you exhale,
Lower your shoulders,
Unclench your jaw,
And release any tension you're holding onto.
Great.
Now let's take the next 15 minutes together.
Slow the pace of our daily lives,
Really sink in,
And get present.
Being present is a great tool to come back to and use as meditation in our daily lives.
It means that we'll put the past aside,
Put the future aside,
And sense into our bodies.
And the beautiful thing about this practice is that it's so accessible.
You can do this on your own,
Without being guided,
At any time you need a moment of peace or clarity.
And you can do this completely free,
Even if you don't have a penny to your name.
If we can learn to perceive and sense ourselves from the inside,
Our state of consciousness changes.
Let's start with the left hand.
Can you sense the inside of your left hand right now?
Focus on your index finger to start,
If you're having trouble sensing your whole hand.
Sense your index finger from the inside.
Breathe naturally,
And just focus your attention on sensing the inside of your left index finger.
When you think you've got it,
Take a mental note.
What does it feel like?
Something else?
See if you can sense your whole hand from the inside in this way.
Take your time,
If you've never done this before,
It's hard.
Now gently let your attention go up your arm.
See if you can sense your whole arm from the inside.
Now see if you can sense both of your hands.
All of your arms at the same time from the inside.
And if you can do that,
Add your legs so that you can sense your arms and your legs at the same time from the inside.
That is presence.
And what you're doing is you're not in your mind.
This gets you out of your mind.
This is what you can do immediately when you're stuck in your head,
Preoccupied with the past or the future.
Keep breathing naturally here.
Can you still feel the inside of your arms and legs?
Take a moment to tune back in if you're back in your head.
So the next thing you can do is while you are sensing your arms and your legs simultaneously is to add more facets.
Let's look.
Sense your arms and legs and look.
Look at whatever you see.
Just let it come to you.
Don't search it out.
Just take in what you see.
Are you still sensing your arms and legs?
The next facet is listening.
So you sense your arms and legs.
You look and you listen all at the same time.
Three things you're doing.
No need to identify the sounds you're hearing.
Just let them come to you.
Keep doing all three simultaneously.
With practice,
This gives you clarity and it takes you into a slightly different dimension of consciousness.
And as you are in that state of presence,
If you're in it,
Even for a minute,
If you can stay in it for a minute,
You will begin to sense the flow of energy.
You will sense that there is a flow because a lot of people living in their heads in the past or future don't even realize there is a flow in the present.
The flow is reality with dynamism.
If you look out there at the world,
You'll see that it's constantly changing and transforming all the time.
The same thing is true inside of us.
And you can sense a flow to it,
But you can't unless you're in presence.
If you're in your mental thinking mind,
It's your ordinary mind and you won't be able to do it.
You can move back and forth between these dimensions of ordinary consciousness and something that is outside of space and time.
And that thing outside of space and time is more real than the mental constructs.
That's where your true identity lies.
Because the other mental constructs are just stuff that you've learned throughout your life because of the family you were born in and the situations you had,
The circumstances you were in,
And your natural proclivities.
Let's go back to sensing your arms and legs,
Looking and listening for a moment.
This is the minutesiang.
And what's interesting is from that place of presence,
That slightly different dimension,
If you can learn to stay in that place and sustain it,
Then you will find yourself with questions that come up,
Just naturally arising questions.
Now generally speaking,
The very first thing that is going to come up is a judgment about it.
Someone might say,
This is a bad idea,
Go back to being who you really are,
Back to a state where you have a certain amount of control.
But when you practice being in presence,
You'll find it's easier to go with the flow rather than control it.
Just like it's easier to go with the flow of a river than it is to try to fight it.
Dance into your body again here for a moment if you've lost the flow.
The thing about control is that there's no way out of the moments in life we can't control.
Life is going to happen and death is going to happen.
And this extreme version of the flow of that life ending,
Being out of our control can be scary.
But the possibility that there is some kind of force that will take us out when it's time to go is nothing that we can do anything about.
So we may as well make peace with it and flow.
Take this next thought with you as you continue to sense into the flow of your body.
We are all a part of the whole and everything in the whole transforms all the time.
It changes form.
Transfakers let go and feel the flow.
You're welcome to pause this meditation here to stay present with your body for as long as you like.
Thank you for joining me in a moment of presence and flowing today.
Thank yourself for showing up and know that you're supported by so much love.
