So welcome everyone.
And thank you.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for being here.
So tonight or whenever you are listening to this,
We are going to do something most of us almost never do.
We will try and listen to the body.
Most of our days are spent speaking to the body,
Telling it things.
Telling it to be quiet,
Telling it to perform.
Telling it to wait,
To push through,
To be different,
To be less,
To be more.
The body is constantly being given instructions.
What we very rarely do is the other half of the conversation.
We rarely ask.
We rarely wait.
We rarely sit with a hand on the chest and let the body be the one that speaks first.
So that's what we are going to do here.
We are going to put a hand on the chest.
We are going to settle.
And then we are just going to listen.
Not for anything in particular.
Not wanting or waiting for a message.
Just listening.
In a way you might listen to a friend who's been away for a long time.
Without rushing them to say anything.
So let me say a little about what this is.
So you know what you're being invited into.
This is not a meditation.
We are not doing this so you feel better.
We are not watching the breath.
We are not labeling thoughts.
And we are not building concentration.
It is not a body scan.
There's nothing to imagine.
What this is.
Is simply the posture of receiving.
The hand on the chest is a small gesture that the body recognizes.
It is a gesture of self-comfort,
Being held.
And of returning.
It is also importantly,
The gesture of saying I'm here.
I'm with you.
And I'm not going anywhere.
And listening.
Actual Listening the discipline of not immediately translating whatever arises into language.
Or telling yourself you're releasing things.
We don't need that.
The body speaks first in sensation.
In warmth or fluttering or stillness.
Or in a faint impulse to cry.
In a softening in a heaviness.
None of it is a problem to be solved.
And all of it is communication.
So our job is not to interpret anything.
Our job is to be the one who finally sat down,
And listened.
And before we begin,
One small honest note about why this is hard.
We don't listen to the body for a reason.
Most of us learned early.
That listening to the body was unproductive.
That feelings were inconvenient.
That tiredness.
Was weakness.
So when we first sit down to listen.
The first thing that often happens.
Is nothing.
The body doesn't trust the listener yet.
It has been ignored for so long.
That the experience of being attended to is in itself highly suspicious.
So it waits.
It doesn't quite believe.
And that is fine.
That's actually the first message.
The waiting is information.
The not yet trusting is also information.
So we are not going to push past it.
We are going to let it be the first thing that we sit with.
Some of you will find this practice easy.
Some of you will find it strange.
Some of you will find it tedious.
All of those are fine.
There is only your experience on this particular evening with whatever is true for you right now.
So if any of this is resonating,
Just find a position.
That you can stay in.
For the next few minutes.
Sitting is fine.
Lying down is fine too.
Whatever works for you.
Just let your body be supported.
Let whatever is underneath you now take your weight.
Just this.
That's all you need to do.
Whatever is underneath you right now,
Let it take your weight.
Notice that you don't have to hold yourself up against gravity.
The floor.
The chair or the bed that's already doing that for you.
So let yourself be held by whatever is underneath you.
Let it take your weight.
Now.
Whenever you feel ready.
With whatever is happening for you right now.
Take any one hand,
Left or right.
And just place it on your chest over your heart.
And the other hand can rest wherever it wants.
On your belly,
On your side,
In your lap,
Wherever.
It doesn't matter.
Place one hand on your chest.
And now just feel the weight of your hand on the chest.
No pressing,
No soothing,
No tapping.
Just resting.
Notice.
.
.
If you want to.
That your hand on the chest is the same gesture that small children use when they are frightened.
The same gesture people use automatically when they hear something tender.
So it is a universal gesture.
And the body recognizes it without having to be taught.
Now.
.
.
We begin to listen.
There is no right or wrong way to do this.
Just see what unfolds for you.
Bring your attention to the place where your hand rests.
To the warmth between the palm and the chest.
To whatever sensation,
If any,
Is there.
And then Internally,
You might say one quiet sentence.
Something like.
.
.
I am here.
And I'm listening.
I am here.
And I'm listening.
I'm here.
And I'm listening.
And then wait.
Don't expect anything.
Don't manufacture anything.
Don't visualize anything.
Just wait.
Anything that arises right now,
If anything.
It might be a sensation.
It might be an old emotion.
And it might be nothing at all.
Just notice it without doing anything with it.
This is all information.
There is no good,
There is no bad.
There's no positive,
There's no negative.
Just notice without doing anything at all.
If your mind wanders into thinking about it,
Interpreting,
Narrating,
Asking what it means.
Just gently come back to the hand on the chest.
To the warmth,
To the listening.
So the interpretation can wait.
Not very often.
The first thing the body says.
When it is finally listened to.
Is some version of this.
You've taken so long to get here.
It might not say it.
In words.
It might come as a wave of feeling,
A wave of grief maybe,
A wave of tenderness.
A surprising sting in the eyes.
Or a softening that hadn't been there a moment before.
If something like this arises for you.
You don't need to do anything with it.
You don't need to apologize.
You don't need to explain.
You just keep listening.
You just keep listening.
You just keep listening.
The body is not trying to make you feel guilty.
The body is just reporting,
This is what was here and this is what was waiting to be seen.
This is what was here.
And this is what was waiting to be seen.
And if nothing arises,
If listening feels numb,
Quiet,
Frozen,
Empty or unremarkable,
That is perfectly fine.
Sometimes,
The body needs to be listened to several times before it begins to share.
The listening builds trust.
And trust builds slowly.
Now.
.
.
Under your hand.
The heart itself.
Not the metaphor of the heart.
The actual organ.
Beating under your palm.
Doing the same thing it has been doing for every second of your life.
If you can feel its beat through your hand,
Please notice that.
If you can't,
That's fine.
You don't have to feel it to know it's there.
And just for the next few seconds.
Receive these words.
And then listen.
I am here.
And I'm listening to you.
I am here.
And I'm listening to you.
I'm here.
And I am listening to you.
If a question wants to ask itself.
Let it.
It might be very simple.
What do you want me to know?
What have you been waiting to say?
And what are you carrying?
Don't push for an answer.
Don't supply an answer.
Just let the question hang in the space between you and your heart.
And listen for whatever arises.
In whatever language the body chooses.
Now some of you by now might be thinking.
I am not hearing anything.
Am I doing this wrong?
So,
Two things to say about that.
First,
The thinking that nothing is happening is itself something happening.
The activity of the mind reaching for activity,
Looking for a result,
Judging the silence.
That is beautiful information.
The body sometimes has been so trained to produce that it doesn't know what to do when it is not being asked to do anything.
And second.
It is genuinely fine if nothing happens.
There is no badge for hearing the heart speak.
The point is not the message.
The point is listening.
Because the body over time learns that the listener is real.
That the hand on the chest is not going to be removed when I bring up something inconvenient.
That the witness is here to stay.
That alone,
Repeated over weeks and months,
Changes something.
Not because the body finally produces a profound revelation,
Because the body finally has someone who is willing to listen without demanding.
The body finally has someone who is willing to listen.
Without demanding.
For the next minute.
We are going to do nothing.
Hand on the chest,
Body supported.
And listening.
There is nothing you need to make happen.
There is nothing you need to figure out.
Listening is the practice,
Being with itself is the medicine.
If your mind wanders,
Welcome that.
Come back to the hand on the chest.
Come back to the warmth.
Now something I want to say quietly while you stay here.
The body has its own pace.
Its trust does not run on the timeline of a single session.
If this is the first time you have sat like this,
The body may simply note that something different has happened.
It may not produce a clear response and it may not feel transformative.
What it will do almost certainly is remember this.
The body remembers being met.
It logs the experience and it quietly recalibrates.
And the next time you sit like this,
The listening starts a little further along than it did the first time.
This is one of the reasons,
Returning to the practice matters more than getting it right.
The body is not interested in your perfect practice.
It is interested in your consistent presence.
And I'll say this again,
The body is not interested in your perfect practice.
It is entrusted in your consistent presence.
Now if somewhere in the listening we have done today you felt something soften or something stirred up in you or something be heard I want to offer you one sentence.
And you don't have to take it.
It's an offering.
Thank you for telling me.
That's all.
Four words.
Thank you for telling me.
Thank you for telling me.
Thank you for joining me.
It doesn't require you to know what you've been told.
It doesn't require you to do anything about it.
But the body acknowledges that something was shared.
And the listening was not for nothing that you received.
Now hands still on the chest.
Body still supported me.
If anything arises,
Let it.
If nothing arises,
Let that too.
There is no agenda.
Just notice.
Are you now sharing space with your own body?
In a way that most of your days do not contain.
The mode of being together rather than against.
The body has never been waiting for your fix,
Or your explanations,
Or your techniques.
Just this.
The willingness to share space without any demands.
The willingness to share space without any demands.
Now for those of you that want to stay in this space longer,
With their hand on their chest.
You may want to pause this recording and take as long as you need.
In a few moments,
We will begin to come back to ordinary attention.
But there's no rush.
Just notice the room around you.
The sounds of it.
The temperature.
The light if your eyes are open.
And the space that you're in.
And you might want to let your hand stay on your chest a little longer than it needs to.
There is no rush to remove it.
And when you're ready now.
You might let your other hand come up to the chest too.
Both hands are resting on the chest now.
As a small sacred final thank you.
Thank you.
And thank you.
And then slowly in your own time.
Let the hands rest now wherever they need to.
If anything arose in the listening that wants to be honoured,
A tear,
A sentence,
A memory,
A small impulse,
Just honour it.
Don't analyse it.
Let it be the thing it was.
And the trust that what needed to land has landed.
If nothing particular happened,
That is perfectly fine too.
You sat.
You listened.
A new shared space with the body that has been waiting for this kind of company.
So you can return to this practice daily,
Weekly,
Whatever works for you.
The body will remember each visit.
Each visit builds the trust a little further.
Be gentle for the rest of today.
Or tonight.
Move slowly.
The body has just been hurt.
Let it have the time it needs to take it in.
Now?
Thank you for being willing to listen.
Thank you on behalf of your body for sitting down.
And until next time.
Namaste.
