Calming And Ease For Mental Loops (Feb 6, 26)

My name is Larissa,

And we're going to practice for about half an hour today,

Just taking a little bit of time to settle into your body as we're getting situated,

As we're getting ready for this meditation.

And then just a couple of very simple reminders that meditation is not some place we're trying to get to,

It isn't some experience we're trying to have,

Sometimes we might put pressure on ourselves,

Like wanting to feel a certain way,

But just giving ourselves permission just to be.

And it's this reminder that we're choosing a focal point,

We're returning to it again and again,

And we're being as kind to ourselves as possible in the process,

It's three steps.

And that last part,

Being kind to yourself,

There's a cultivation,

Some days that's easeful,

Some days that feels challenging,

Some days we're filled with judgments,

Some days we're filled with these small delights.

So just remembering that every day is a little different,

Every moment is a little different,

And to tend to yourself in each moment.

And with that in our minds,

I'll invite you to settle back into your body.

You're welcome,

Of course,

To close your eyes,

Just making any small adjustments,

Even just a little wiggle in your torso to help you settle into your seat.

And it doesn't matter what posture you've chosen,

Just choosing something that feels supportive.

It's helpful at times to have an upright spine so that we have some alertness,

That wise balance of effort,

But then also remembering ease.

And our breath reminds us of effort and ease with every single cycle of breath,

The wise effort of the inhale,

The wise restfulness of the exhale.

Let's take a few moments here as you're settling to notice your breath,

Notice your foundation.

The foundation,

Your actual physical form,

What part of your body is being touched by a chair,

By the floor,

By your cushion,

And being supported,

That support traveling all the way through your body.

And we begin there with our body,

With our breath,

Because breath is always present.

Spending a few moments here in silence,

Just allowing your body to share with you all of its signals,

All of this information.

And two,

As we settle into a bit of stillness and silence,

That information that our body shares or the different thoughts that come and go.

We're not trying to figure them out,

We're just noticing that they're there.

And then in moments tending,

Ooh,

My hands are a little chilly,

Let me tuck them in.

Ooh,

That thought brings a little tension in my jaw.

Let me soften that as I exhale.

Now just coming back to your body again and again and again.

Just first noticing your foundation,

The firmness beneath you,

And that gentle movement of breath and heartbeat.

Returning to your focal point as many times as needed.

Your focal point is your body,

This stable foundation.

Our body is what holds all of this information,

So our brain is interpreting all of it.

Our body is sharing.

There's tension here,

There's discomfort here,

There's ease here.

And it's our mind's interpretation that sometimes takes us out of the present moment.

Like,

Ooh,

I'm feeling this sensation in the body,

And then our mind will go to judgment.

And it's because our brain is trying to keep us safe,

There's never anything wrong with that.

But just noticing,

The littlest sensation starts to help us recognize what is it that my mind is doing.

Just returning again and again to your body.

Just noticing the foundation and the subtle movement of breath and heartbeat.

In just a moment I'll invite in a working with meditation,

Working with our mind.

Always beginning with this being with,

Just being with presence,

Being with body.

It's this groundedness of coming back,

Oh yeah,

That's right,

I'm just noticing a breath.

And that is so helpful when we start to work with our mind.

Remembering too,

We're not trying to figure anything out or fix anything.

Just using these curiosities,

These next questions,

To get to know ourselves,

To get to know sometimes our thought patterns,

Our thought loops.

But any time we get stuck in a loop,

The most important skill is to be able to return to your body.

And that's a practice,

Because our mind,

Once it starts going,

Can take us in a million directions.

Just take a moment here again,

Just notice your breath.

You might place a hand on your chest,

The other one on your abdomen.

As a way to explore the feeling of breathing,

It gets us out of our head for just a moment,

And back here to the present.

Notice again here the depth of your inhale.

And the softening quality of your exhale.

Again,

Allow your breath to be deep and full,

Let your belly expand with it.

Notice what parts of your body naturally soften as you exhale,

Invite that softening in.

And I'll share here,

Before we begin this curiosity exercise,

This is a poem from Mary Oliver,

I read a line from it earlier this week.

It's called I Worried,

And it's a beautiful example of these thought loops that we can get stuck in.

It's important at times to plan ahead,

To pause and to figure something out.

Sometimes that comes with worry or excitement.

But it's when we get caught in these loops that they're less helpful.

And sometimes it feels almost impossible to get unstuck once we're pulled into a loop.

And this poem I Worried is about that loop and how she brought herself out of it.

She says,

I worried a lot.

Will the garden grow?

Will the rivers flow in the right direction?

Will the earth turn as it was taught?

And if not,

How shall I correct it?

Was I right?

Was I wrong?

Will I be forgiven?

Can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing?

Even the sparrows can do it.

And I am,

Well,

Hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it?

Am I going to get rheumatism,

Lockjaw,

Dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And I gave it up.

And I took my old body and I went out into the morning and sang.

And there's such a simplicity to her judgment of will I ever be able to sing.

And then she saw that the worry was stealing her present moment awareness,

Her joy,

Her connection.

But that very first thing,

She says,

I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

I saw it.

And that's such a big part of her meditation,

Just observing.

I'm observing my breath.

And then my thoughts go and I get disconnected.

Oh yeah,

That's right,

I'm just observing my breath.

And then a thought comes in and then it happens a hundred times,

A million times that our thoughts just wander or we get a little sleepy.

But it's the noticing,

I saw,

I saw that I was worrying.

I'm witnessing my breath move through me.

That's the most important part,

It's not about fixing,

Quote unquote,

That worry loop.

It's just noticing.

Just take a moment again here.

I'll invite in a question in a moment,

But just noticing.

How is your body being supported?

What parts of you are moving as your breath moves in and out?

This question I'll ask,

It's an invitation.

And if the question takes you out and you'd like to just simply come back to your breath,

Just turn the volume down.

Take care of yourself.

Utilize the tools you have.

If it makes sense,

We'll start this working with curiosity process.

Remembering to also be with.

You might place a hand across your chest and your abdomen,

Especially if your mind starts to take you away from the present.

Or if this curiosity creates any tension in your body.

Just contacting yourself with your own hands,

That external physical touch can be so supportive.

It's so small,

And yet so big for our bodies.

Just notice again a breath.

Let it expand your belly as you breathe in.

Invite your jaw and your shoulders to soften as you exhale.

And then I'll invite you to bring to mind something in the past day,

The past week or so.

And I'll invite it to be something small.

Something that brought you worry,

Or a fear,

Or an irritation,

Or a frustration.

Just that feeling that we have when something is challenging,

When something is bringing us some form of conflict.

And again,

Invitation to bring up something a little bit small.

It's like,

Oh,

I was a little irritated rather than I was enraged.

And not that we don't want to hold the rage.

But if your mind goes to the farthest place,

It's harder to contact these little tiny modalities of stability.

I'll give you a moment here,

Just recalling something in the past couple of days,

The past week,

That brought you some challenge.

And as you bring this to mind,

Just a moment here,

Just curious about the story itself.

It's very often we recall the story,

The event,

The happenings of it.

What I did,

What they did.

But as we recall the story,

It often brings back similar sensations,

If not the exact same sensations.

Same emotions,

Same feelings in our body.

And the goal here is not to live in the story.

And if you recalled something that brought a lot of sensation or a lot of emotion,

I'm going to invite you to take a moment and just rub your hands together.

We can all do this together.

Just rubbing your hands,

Being very,

Very,

Very curious about the sensation of warmth that you're creating,

The sound,

The friction.

And that movement itself gives us resourcing and regulation.

It brings us back into our body.

So when we have really big moments of agitation,

Of challenge,

Of difficulty,

Sometimes a subtle breath isn't quite right.

We need a little bit more.

So that rubbing of your hands together is something that we can always do.

If your hand is full,

You can rub your hand across your leg or across your chest.

That physical sensation helps us get out of that loop in our mind.

And once we're grounded,

Once we're stable,

And come back to that loop that you noticed,

And start to become curious about the thought itself.

It's like,

Where did my story take me?

Did I start to notice?

Did I start to think about what I did,

What I said?

Do I blame myself in it?

Do I blame another person in it?

Where does the story get caught?

And there's a hundred things that we might notice about this story.

And what I'll invite you back to now is to let the story go.

And tend to your body.

And that's the part of this practice that's most important.

All day long our mind goes into story.

It's being able to get out of story,

Out of the loop.

As Mary Oliver so wisely says,

I finally saw the worrying.

It's the witnessing of it.

It's,

Oh yeah,

I see that loop.

I see my tendency to self-blame.

I see my tendency to blame others.

I see my tendency to hold my irritation in my jaw and think I should just get over it.

I see my tendency to.

And it's this curiosity.

And we're not trying to bring judgment to it.

We're just curious.

What do I see?

What does my body do when I get caught in these little loops?

Can I witness the loop itself and recognize,

Oh,

That's a thought pattern.

That's a pattern that I fall into.

That's not a bad thing.

But now that I see it,

I can start to tend to myself.

I can take that wise action of not following the loop a hundred more times.

The proverbial winning an argument in the shower type of thing.

It's this moment here in time.

What did that story do to my body?

Very often we can feel just remembering,

Recalling something difficult.

We can feel it in our bodies as if it's happening.

Our brains don't always know the difference between memory and present moment.

But our bodies do.

So when you can come back to your body,

Ground back into your breath.

You might take a deep breath and just notice the expansion of your abdomen.

And invite in the softening of your exhale.

That helps release any small tensions.

If your story brought a small irritation back to you,

A small discouragement,

Just a deep breath and a remembrance of that softening can be enough.

When it's big moments,

When it's big anxieties,

When it's big frustrations,

Sometimes we need that,

Rubbing our palms together.

It brings you back to present.

Sometimes our brain thinks,

Oh,

That's silly,

It's not enough.

I have to take big action.

And we may want to take big action in the world.

But it's the action of the present moment that helps me get out of the loop and come back to the wisdom of my body.

So this little exercise is multiple parts.

First,

It's just witnessing.

Can I see the loops in my mind?

Can I see these patterns that happen?

And then the second part is tending to your body.

As Mary Oliver first said,

Finally I saw,

I witnessed,

I was aware that worrying had come to nothing.

And then I took my body and I went out into the morning and sang.

That's the action.

First,

She took her body.

She was present in her body.

And I went out into the morning and sang.

And you don't necessarily have to sing.

But her judgment was around singing.

And then she disallowed herself that expression.

We'll spend a few more moments here in silence.

I'm going to invite you just to be curious and be considerate that we're not trying to get caught in the loop,

That you don't want to tell yourself the story again.

But curiosity,

What is my wise action that I can allow that story to move through me rather than getting stuck in the loop?

Maybe the wise action is just simply right now,

The deep breaths you're taking give you presence.

You might future plan just for a moment,

I'm going to take myself for a walk.

Maybe you want to make yourself a cup of tea and just notice your hands and all of their actions,

How much your hands care for you.

It doesn't have to be a big action.

It could be as small as this deep breath right here allows you to move the story through you.

Just take a moment and be curious.

Is there any wise action that I can take in this moment or perhaps later today?

And then pausing again,

Giving your mind a moment to rest,

Just inviting your mind to let go of any story,

Any future thought of action.

And just watch the wise effort and ease of your breath.

Just let your body breathe for you.

Simply be breathed for a moment.

And as we start to come to a close,

I'll read again just a few lines from this poem of Mary Oliver's.

And it's this part here where she says Will the earth turn as it was taught?

And if not,

How shall I correct it?

And I point that out because I think almost all of us have been in these moments in time that we feel like we're carrying the weight of the world,

The burden of the world.

And we somehow think I should be able to handle this.

And to be able to soften and recognize even this here,

Our collective meditation together,

We are supporting each other in all of these burdens.

And it's when we come together that a burden becomes half,

As the old adage says.

A burden shared becomes half a burden,

Not a double burden for the other person.

And I'll invite you to bring your hands into any of your closing habits or practices.

It's contacting your body.

It's remembering that you can contact yourself as if you're touching a loved one.

Because you are.

We'll end in a moment with a few loving kindness phrases.

Just remember in these wise words of Mary Oliver,

Will I ever be able to sing even the sparrows can do it,

And I am,

Well,

Helpless.

And if we tell ourselves the story of I am helpless,

I should always be powerful,

I am,

I am,

I am,

We miss the moments of just being human.

Will I ever be able to sing even the sparrows can do it?

Finally,

I saw that worrying had come to nothing,

And I gave it up.

And I took my old body and went out into the morning and sang.

And can you appreciate this beautiful,

Old,

Young,

Wise,

Ancient body to share its wisdom with you today?

Just repeat these phrases back as they make sense for you.

May I remember the innate goodness of my breath.

May I remember the ancient wisdom of my body.

May I seek and find contentment today.

When action is needed,

May I choose to move with ease and peace.

And may the merits of our practice ripple out to benefit all beings.

And go slow if you can.

Find a little movement in your body.

Flutter your eyes open,

And take a moment to thank yourself just for showing up today.

Showing up is enough.

As always,

Thank you for being here,

For supporting each other.