IRest Practice 29: Being Awareness

Other iRest tools (heartfelt mission, intentions, inner resource, body sensing, breath sensing, feelings/emotions, thoughts/cognitions) are all experiences that arise IN our awareness. This tool invites us to experience being awareness itself. By shifting our attention to being awareness, we can gain a wider view of everything we’re experiencing.
Whether we’re aware of awareness or not, awareness is present in every moment. Awareness always is. Awareness is the ultimate ground from which our inner resource of true safety, security, well-being, and joy emerges. Resting as awareness reveals a quality of well-being that’s steady, stable, and unchanging. Awareness is our ultimate inner resource.
iRest Practice 29: Being Awareness from the iRest Program for Healing PTSD: A Proven Effective Approach to Using Yoga Nidra Meditation & Deep Relaxation Techniques to Overcome Trauma. Written by Richard C. Miller, PhD. Recorded by Erin Finck, TCTSY-F, RYT 500, Level 1 iRest Teacher

Transcript

Adjust your body so that you feel completely supported by the surface on which you're resting. Scan your body and release any unnecessary tension. Senses open to your environment and the sounds around you. With your eyes open. Bring your attention to a particular object that's in the space around you. Focus your attention only on this one object. Note its size. Shape. And form. Note particular thoughts or feelings you have about this object. Now soften your eyes. Allow your attention to defocus. Without focusing on any particular object. Take in all of the objects around you. Instead of looking with your eyes. Feel with your entire body. As you take in all of the objects around you. Without focusing on any particular object. Experience the space around you. In front. Behind, To your left. Inside. Outside. Experience yourself simply being. Not focusing on any particular external object. Just being. Attention relaxed. I saw. Eyes open or closed. Just being Note that you're aware of the felt sense of being. You can feel yourself being. You're aware of the objects around you. And the sensations within your body and mind. Note how you're aware of everything. Note that everything you're experiencing is in your awareness. Everything is in your awareness. Gently feel into awareness. What does awareness feel like? Let your eyes stay soft. And your thinking mind stay relaxed and at ease. Sense how everything is arising within your awareness. Objects. The sense of space. Being. How you're aware of everything you are experiencing. And how you're aware of awareness. Sense awareness. Not by looking at awareness. But by feeling, Sensing, And being awareness. Feeling. Sensing. Being awareness. Note how your attention becomes involved with thinking. Or with an object or sensation that's arising in your field of awareness. Welcome thinking, Or whatever else may arise in your awareness. Keep returning to the felt sense of being-awareness. Go back and forth. Between noting thoughts or other sensations or objects that you're aware of. And awareness itself. Sense and feel what it's like to be in the field of awareness. In which all of these movements of your body, Mind, And senses are arising and passing away. Take your time. Note an object that's in your awareness. Then feel into being awareness. When you are ready. Open and close your eyes several times while continuing to feel yourself being awareness. Then take a few minutes to reflect. On words that best describe what it's like being Awareness.