Take a moment to settle into the posture.
Feeling the support of the ground beneath you.
Allowing the belly to be soft and round.
And bringing awareness to the length of the spine.
Feeling the natural wakefulness that comes with a straight back.
During this practice period,
I want to invite you to remain very still.
To be aware of discomfort,
Whether physical,
Emotional,
Or mental.
We have a tendency to move,
To adjust every time discomfort presents itself.
But here I want you to bring that habit to awareness.
Notice your tendency to move,
Your tendency to avoid discomfort and seek greater comfort.
And more than anything else,
I want to invite you to just let stillness do its work.
Let stillness in the body initiate a healing process,
Whereby any tension,
Any deep-seated emotions in need of release can start to soften,
Can start to loosen up.
And rise to the surface.
Likewise.
You can allow thought to just arise in the mind,
Not trying to push it down,
And not identifying with it or diving into it as it comes up.
But rather,
Just holding an empty space.
A space into which the mind can unload.
Something you're anxious about,
Something that's been gnawing about you.
Something you regret.
Whatever it is,
You can just allow these thought forms to arise,
To fill the space,
To be thought,
To be experienced.
So often when we meditate,
As in life,
We think that challenging emotions,
Challenging thoughts are a problem.
That we need to do something about them,
That we need to make them go away.
Here in this moment you can give yourself the gift of stillness.
Any challenging sensations in the body,
Any emotions.
You can take not to be a problem,
But to be the letting go of a problem.
The releasing of something you no longer need.
Giving it a moment to be felt,
To be experienced completely.
And then let go.
Similarly with the mind,
Thoughts that would normally disturb us,
That would absorb all of our attention,
Our energy,
Our focus.
Rather than relating to these as problems,
We can reinterpret them as healing.
A letting go.
A sloughing off.
Allowing each thought to be completely thought,
To be completely experienced.
Running its course and eventually winking out,
Disappearing.
Like thin wispy clouds on a warm summer's day.
Like thin wispy clouds on a warm summer's day.
There's absolutely nothing you need to do,
But trust the stillness.
You don't need to do the healing here.
You don't even need to let go.
You can let go of letting go.
Letting the stillness do its work.
Stay soft.
Stay open.
Let the body-mind purge itself of anything it doesn't need.
Let stillness be the tonic,
The solution that draws all of this out.
Everything you don't need,
Everything holding you back.
Let the healing simply come to you.
Let the healing come to you.
Let the healing come to you.
