Welcome to a brief meditation focused on resensitization.
It has been said that we live most of our lives just a few feet outside of ourselves,
With our minds off thinking about the past or the future,
And not really living in the present moment,
Which is where the body lives.
So for this next handful of minutes together,
We'll explore ourselves and our surroundings using all of the senses available to us,
And allowing the body to feed us information directly from the environment,
And from its direct experience.
So first,
We need to get into the body,
And so we will do that by practicing a special breathing technique.
We will breathe in to a count of four,
And we will breathe out to a count of eight.
This type of breathing calms the nervous system and will allow us to be more present.
So once you are seated in a comfortable position,
Let's take our first breath together.
Inhale two,
Three,
Four,
Exhale two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Inhale two,
Three,
Four,
Exhale two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Inhale two,
Three,
Four,
Exhale two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
Let's do one more just like this.
Inhale two,
Three,
Four,
Exhale two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight.
And now allow yourself to just sit with this for a few moments and resume breathing in your normal pattern.
And now let's just take a few moments to check in with the body itself as a starting point.
And throughout this brief time together,
Let's remember that the mind has the story and the body provides the data.
So what we are doing is we're letting the mind know that while we appreciate its input and while we appreciate the information that it gives us,
For the next handful of minutes,
We're focusing directly on what the body tells us.
So we're going to practice a concept called noting,
N-O-T-I-N-G.
Essentially whenever a thought comes up,
We thank the thought for showing itself,
We acknowledge it,
We name it,
And then we allow it to pass.
A thought comes up and I simply say to myself,
Oh,
Thought,
And then I allow that thought to pass and be on its way without chasing any story.
And I return my attention very gently to the focus,
Which is the sensations given to us by the body.
If there are distractions in your surroundings throughout our time together,
Allow them to be a part of these few moments.
Just name them and treat them as you would thoughts from the mind.
Name them,
Welcome them,
Acknowledge them,
And then allow them to pass.
Do not feed them with your attention.
You may also let the body know that it can finally relax.
It's finally invited into a dialogue with you.
You are ready to listen.
So let's begin with the eyes closed,
As vision tends to be the sense that is dominant for most of us.
Instead,
Let's start with listening.
Allow yourself to focus exclusively on this very important sense and just listen to the sounds in your surroundings.
And whatever you observe,
You might note the name just using about 2% of your attention.
And once you have listened to the sounds in your surroundings,
You might send your awareness inward to listen to the sounds within your own body.
And as you're listening and naming the sounds that you hear,
Then let's gently transition into using our sense of smell.
And now in the same environment,
Let's focus exclusively on what you're able to smell.
So just notice what smells are available to you at this point in time.
And here it's important to say don't get lost in the story of whether a smell is good or bad or any other details about it.
Just name it and acknowledge it for what it is in the present moment.
Then let's move into our sense of taste.
And perhaps move the tongue around in the mouth a little bit,
Move the lips,
Move the jaw and notice what taste is present for you,
Or perhaps there's more than one.
And then shift from sense of taste into sense of touch,
Which is a very complex sense for us.
And at this juncture,
You can touch whatever is in your surroundings that seems appealing and like it would give you some interesting feedback.
You could touch your own arm,
Perhaps the chair you're sitting in,
Perhaps a piece of fabric,
And just notice details of that sensory experience.
Notice the textures.
Notice the exchange between your hand and whatever it is that you are touching.
The richness of sensation that is available when we actually focus on it.
And here you might close your eyes to ensure that you're using only this one sense to observe.
So just spend a few moments here the cycle of a few breaths,
Noticing the sensations that are available to you through the sense of touch.
And you may also at this juncture,
You may also use perhaps your foot as opposed to your hand.
Perhaps detecting the sensation of the carpet or the floor beneath your foot can use different parts of the body with this sense,
As you know.
Then slowly let's transition to our visual sense to our eyes.
So if your eyes have been closed,
I invite you to open them and just look around and using only this visual sense,
Observe your environment,
Observe the visual textures and the colors,
Whether things are shiny or dull,
Whether they're moving or still negative space and positive space.
And now that we've gone through each of the senses in isolation,
I invite you to combine them now.
And now we are being truly mindfully aware using our senses intentionally of what's happening in the environment and how our body is feeding us information about it.
And here I invite you to begin asking yourself if the body is saying yes to a particular sensation or a particular observation,
Or if the body says no.
If the body detects a particular odor,
Does the body say yes to it?
Or does the body say no?
If it perceives a particular texture visually,
Does it say yes or does it say no?
And how do you know?
And these are our first steps towards reorienting ourselves to being a sensing self,
To being in the body,
To allowing the body to share with us its wisdom and the data,
The raw data without the story of our environment.
And here you might ask yourself,
What do you notice differently between the beginning of our time together and now?
We've spent only a few moments going through this exercise,
But perhaps your field of awareness has changed significantly.
Are there other things that came up as you were looking around,
As you were smelling,
As you were tasting,
As you were sensing your environment?
Are there emotions or memories,
Thoughts?
Our task is to simply welcome them and allow them to pass without chasing,
Staying here with your body and with yourself.
And then lastly,
What is the response of your body to this noticing in general?
What exchange is happening?
As you check in with the body again,
Follow your body's cues wherever they might lead.
And just remind yourself that your body is your home that you can return to at any point in time.
When your mind carries you off in the world of story or analysis,
The body is always here with its wisdom,
With its perceptive abilities.
And once you have reached what feels like a point of completion,
Let's take another couple of deep breaths together.
You may take them at your own pace,
At your own depth.
And perhaps allow yourself an audible exhale,
Exhaling any tension or anything that came up with this very detailed observation.
Exhale it with this last breath.
And as one very last piece of this,
Take a moment to find one observation that was interesting to you that was new,
Or that you were grateful for.
As we seek to establish practices of being more present in day to day life,
It's important to build up those synapses with positive reinforcement,
Being grateful to ourselves for carving the time out or grateful for some aspect of our experience,
So that we come back and we do this again.
I thank you for your time today.
Namaste.
