Head Into Heartspace
Feeling in a funk because of the pandemic and current state of the world? Get out of your head and into your heart through guided meditation practices that don't involve sitting still and trying not to think. Enjoy guided meditation and live music in this practice recorded Live on Insight Timer.
Transcript
Become more and more aware of your body and of your emotions and a little bit less aware of the churning sea of thoughts in your mind.
And we can do that by placing our attention consciously on the breath.
And that's what this song,
This poem encourages you to do.
It's talking about your breath,
Breathing in and out,
Deeply and slowly,
Inviting in calm and ease as you smile and release and remembering that this present moment is a wonderful moment.
In and out,
Deep,
Slow,
Calm,
Ease,
Smile,
Release,
Present moment,
Wonderful moment.
In and out,
Deep,
Slow,
Calm,
Ease,
Smile,
Release,
Present moment,
Wonderful moment.
So feeling into your body and noticing where you're laying,
Where you're sitting and letting yourself become a little bit heavier and a little bit more weighted as you invite in relaxation,
As you give yourself permission to get out of your head and come into your heart space,
Focusing on the breath,
Letting one hand come to your belly.
And as I sing,
I invite you to let your attention stay there on your belly,
On the hand on your belly,
On your breath as it's being breathed through you.
In and out,
Deep,
Slow,
Calm,
Ease,
Smile,
Release,
Deep,
Slow,
Calm,
Ease,
Smile,
Release,
Present moment,
Wonderful moment.
So we'll let the song just ring in our ears for another moment.
And just noticing now where are your thoughts?
Are you up in your head or are you a little bit more down in your body?
Either one is okay.
We're being the observer,
We're being the scientists of our life now.
We can use music,
We can use vibration as a way to change our consciousness.
And as you start to get out of your head,
You might notice that your thoughts actually increase.
They want your attention.
And so you can say to yourself softly,
Ah,
Thinking,
As you recognize that you're thinking.
And then you can come back into your body and find an anchor point.
I'm going to invite in three anchors now that we'll practice together.
So our first anchor where we can often keep our attention focused with effortless ease is the abdomen where we just were feeling.
So letting your hand come back to your abdomen if it's not there.
And we're going to breathe in for a count of six together and out for a count of six.
And as we breathe in and out for six,
My invitation is for you to just simply feel the breath rise and feel the breath fall.
So we'll take a clearing breath,
Breathing in,
Sighing out,
Letting go.
Focusing on the abdomen,
Breathing in,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Out,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
In,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Out,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
In,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Out,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Continuing on feeling the breath rise,
Feeling the breath as it falls.
So you're feeling the breath in the abdomen.
As you count in and out for six,
You might find a little more ease coming into your body.
You might find your breath beginning to deepen.
You might find your mind beginning to settle.
Or you might not,
And that's okay too.
We're not forcing or pushing ourselves to relax or to shift in any way.
We're just giving a gentle invitation and we're allowing whatever arises in our experience to be there.
When thoughts come,
Noticing,
Catching the thoughts,
Saying,
Thinking,
And then letting go.
Coming back in to the abdomen,
Into the breath as it rises and as it falls.
We'll sit in silence for just a few more moments in this anchor before we move on to a different anchor.
Noticing again when you're caught up in thought and letting yourself come back into the breath without judgment,
Without thinking that you're doing it wrong.
If no one has told you today,
You can't meditate wrong.
All you can do is try too hard.
And please don't try at all.
Just allow,
Just experience,
Just be with what's already happening because that is how we find ease and peace.
That is how we access our heart space.
So the next anchor we'll explore is the nostrils and this little piece of skin that I don't know the name of right under the nostrils.
This is one of the first practices of mindfulness I ever learned and I found it to be so soothing to realize that I could actually feel my breath in my body.
So my invitation for you is to breathe in through your nostrils and feel the cool air as it flows in.
And then breathing out through your nostrils,
Feel the warm air coming out.
So we'll do this for the count of six again.
And you don't have to focus on like filling up all the way or making sure you get to six.
It's not about using your head and doing it right.
It's just about having some guidance so that you can just flow with whatever happens without having to think too hard with just experiencing it.
So let's do it together now.
Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth just to sigh and get ready.
Breathing in 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
Out 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
In 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
Out 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
In 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
Out 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
Continuing on cool breath.
In,
Feeling the warm breath flowing out.
And then beginning to recognize what's happening in your body.
Are there places that earlier you felt tension,
That now the tension has shifted or maybe lessened?
If it's nighttime for you,
Perhaps you're noticing you feel a little more sleepy.
Noticing if there's more weight,
More heaviness,
More relaxation.
And if there's not,
Know that that's okay too.
Sometimes it takes a while for us to be able to regulate our nervous systems and to soothe ourselves back out of fight or flight.
Know that wherever you are on the continuum of the emotions that you feel,
That it's perfect to be in this place,
In this moment.
Because it's changing and it won't last.
It's just here to teach you,
To show you,
To remind you.
And then it leaves.
That's true for emotions.
That's true for thoughts.
It's true for body sensations.
And it's especially true for the breath.
Every breath teaches us impermanence.
It comes and it goes.
It's unique.
It's special.
For one moment,
This breath is all we have.
And when we focus here in this moment,
Just like Thich Nhat Hanh says,
The present moment is a wonderful moment.
So letting this be a wonderful moment.
And now shifting your awareness.
One more anchor,
And that's the anchor of the heart.
You might still have a hand on your belly.
You can put that hand up on your heart,
Or you can have one hand on the belly and one hand on the heart.
Either way.
So as we anchor now our awareness into the heart,
We're going to focus on first the physical sensation of the chest rising and falling as we count to six.
And after we do that for a few cycles,
We're going to go deeper into the feelings that arise as we focus on the heart.
You might notice how you're feeling now,
What emotions are here now,
So that you have a frame of reference to compare in a few minutes.
So with your hand on your chest,
As you breathe in,
Notice the rise of your chest.
And as you breathe out,
Notice the fall of your chest.
Chest rises as you breathe in.
Chest falls as you breathe out.
So we'll count to six together.
Starting with a clearing breath,
Just breathing in through the nose and if you'd like,
Sighing,
Making a sound as you release out through the mouth.
Breathing in 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
Out 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
In 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
Out 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
In 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
Out 2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
Noticing the chest as it rises.
Noticing the chest as it falls.
Breathing in through the nose and breathing out through the mouth.
Going a level deeper.
From just noticing the physical body breathing to noticing into the heart space.
Noticing how your heart feels in this moment.
Perhaps if it has shifted in its feeling from a few moments ago.
We cannot control the facts of our lives.
But we do have control over the thoughts that we think.
And from those thoughts come emotions.
So we can choose to cultivate elevated emotions consciously.
Rather than reacting from our head,
We can respond from our heart space.
But we have to be able to feel into our heart space and to remember the truth that lies within us.
And that's the truth of your own basic goodness.
So I invite you to feel into your heart.
If your hand's not there,
Maybe bring both hands to your heart.
As you remember that you are good.
Regardless of what society or your parents or loved one or school or anything has ever told you in your life.
Deep down underneath all that conditioning,
There's a timeless being of love.
You are good.
You have the same innate basic goodness inside of you.
That all of those figures,
All of those humans who walked before us that you might look up to also had.
The Buddha,
Jesus.
I could go on all of the different saints,
All of these people who you see in an elevated regard.
They share the same goodness as you.
We are all here to love and be loved.
To give love,
To receive love,
To embody love.
And we often lose sight of our true nature because we get caught up in the mind and in the thoughts as we rehash the past.
As we rehearse the future.
And as we judge the present.
When we set all of that down and come into the feeling in our heart,
We remember the truth.
The truth of our own basic goodness.
The truth that we are unique beings here on purpose.
And we get to consciously create our reality.
And we can choose in every moment to come back in and return to love.
We can choose to feel love.
And it's not just love.
It's more than that.
It's joy.
It's bliss.
And mostly,
I would say,
It's gratitude.
So I invite you to feel a deep sense of gratitude in your being in this moment.
We get out of our heads and into our heart space by elevating our emotions and by letting go of the stories.
So feeling right now into your heart.
And feeling gratitude that's welling up in your heart because it's naturally already there.
All you're doing is remembering what's been swept under the rug.
Because of conditioning,
Because of societal programming,
Because of belief systems.
You can always come back into a state of joy,
Love,
Bliss,
And gratitude whenever you'd like.
And we'll do that now by counting to six again.
And this time as we count to six,
Your goal as you breathe in is to let that sense of joy,
Bliss,
And gratitude,
And love fill up your heart center.
Let it expand out of your chest and let it really radiate out of you.
You've seen those people who just radiate joy.
They're just reflecting back something that does exist inside of you and you have an opportunity to practice that now.
So as you breathe in,
Feeling yourself filling up with this gratitude.
And then as you breathe out,
Sending that gratitude out into the world through every cell of your body.
Some people like to envision it with a light,
Like a color,
Like you're filling up with golden light on the in-breath.
And on the out-breath,
You're expanding this golden light and it's pouring out in all directions.
Some people like to do this meditation with sound.
They like the vibration of AUM.
AUM.
So whatever feels good for you.
I invite you to just experience,
Experiment,
Be curious.
How much gratitude can I feel in my body and can I give out into the world?
So let's begin.
If your hand's not on your heart,
I invite you to let it rest there.
Maybe even let both hands rest there.
And if that doesn't feel comfortable or safe,
Letting your hands be wherever they'd like.
We'll begin with a clearing breath together,
Breathing in and sighing out the mouth.
Breathing in two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Out two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
In two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Out two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Breathing in,
Filling up with gratitude.
Out,
Letting it flow through each cell.
Breathing in,
Letting gratitude fill you up.
Out,
Sending it to each cell of your body beyond.
In two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Out two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
In two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Out two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Continuing on for a moment,
Letting yourself be filled up with gratitude as you breathe in.
And letting it flow through each cell of your body and out into the world as you breathe out.
You might notice that a smile has come to your lips.
Let it be there if it's there.
Maybe even smiling a little bit more.
So as you rest in this place that is your true nature,
The essence of who you are,
The place of love and gratitude,
Of joy and bliss that exists beyond all constructs of the mind,
That is always here in your heart.
Let it flow through each cell of your body beyond.
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