Tuning Into the Body’s Wisdom (S3E5)
Tuning into the embodied experience of a phenomena–a sound, a thought, a sensation–can give us important insight into how we are feeling at any given moment. This meditation will invite kindness in as we practice returning over and over again to the most present sensations in our body.
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Transcript
Set yourself up for practice by finding a comfortable posture and closing or turning your eyes downward. 8If it feels appropriate, take a few full breaths to help you arrive.
For a moment or so, be with the body as it settles.
Gather the heart and mind around one anchor. It could be a part of the body or a sensation or the breath.
Do your best to be kind to yourself when the mind wanders, especially if your practice isn’t going the way you’d hoped it would and keep gently bringing your attention back to this anchor.
Begin letting other things in, not searching for them, but if a sound arises, or a smell, a sensation, a thought, a taste, or a sight, even if the eyes are closed, let them come in and out.
Before you return to your anchor or move on to the next experience, take a moment to tune into how that experience landed in the body. If it’s a sound you might feel it in the eardrum or the ear, but I tend to feel it in the torso as a contraction or expansion or lightness or heaviness.
Perhaps it moves. You might find yourself thinking when you hear or smell or see something. Without getting too lost in the contents of the thought, drop back into the body and notice what is felt in the body as a result of that thought.
If after a few moments of silence you’re wondering if your app closed and opened your eyes, that’s fine! But notice how opening the eyes feels in the body. What does your body try to tell you when the head is not involved?
In case kindness has gone out of the door, invite it in as you continue to tune into whatever is arising in the body as a result of the things going on around you.
In a few moments, I’ll ring the bell. As best you can, receive the sound of the bell and how your body responds to it.
