To get started today I encourage you to really mindfully settle in where you might be sitting or laying down,
Taking some nice deep breaths,
Noticing if there's any tension you'd like to exhale,
Any thoughts or distractions you'd like to imagine placing on a shelf and setting aside for these few minutes that will be together.
Then taking the deepest breath that you have taken all day,
Exhaling with a loud heavy audible sigh,
Giving yourself permission to take a couple more of those really deep breaths if it would be helpful.
Whenever you're ready you can place one hand over your heart and the other hand on the side of your face and simply notice how this feels.
You might be used to placing a hand over your heart in practices like this but it's less common to place a hand on the side of the face.
So you can just let yourself be curious how you receive this,
If it feels comfortable,
If it feels odd,
If it feels intimate,
If it feels disconnected.
Whatever you're noticing,
Simply being curious about it,
Continuing those nice deep breaths.
Now we're going to explore something called the face-heart connection in our ventral vagal state and really what this means is our autonomic nervous system can be in a couple different states.
An oversimplification of this would be a state of calm or safety,
A state of distress or reactivity,
And a state of overwhelm or shutdown.
And by exploring this face-heart connection we're exploring the state where we experience safety,
Security.
It's called our ventral vagal state.
You might know it as our parasympathetic rest and digest.
With all that clinical jargon aside,
We're going to explore what this connection really feels like in our embodied being.
Just to be with this face-heart connection and exploring how this is a way that God wired us and also a way that God connects with us.
So I first invite you to be curious when you think about feeling safe,
Feeling calm and peaceful,
Feeling secure.
This is a place where we are most available and present to connect with others,
For our face and our heart to be open and available.
And as I say these things I invite you to think about what comes to mind,
Just noticing whether it's a memory from your own life or something from a TV show or a movie that depicts this kind of face-heart connection that involves relationship,
Those dynamics,
Those things happening between people as they connect with their faces and their hearts involved.
And if you'd like more time to notice what's coming up you can pause this audio.
Otherwise I invite you to slowly let yourself smile,
Noticing with that hand that's on the side of your face all the little muscles that move with that smile.
Noticing the muscles around your eyes,
Around your mouth and shifting between smiling and letting that smile relax to notice the movement of those muscles as you shift between a smile and relaxing the smile.
If you'd like you can switch which hand is over your heart and which hand is on the side of your face,
Exploring this from different angles,
Perspectives,
Maybe even exploring other facial expressions to feel those muscles move in different ways.
You can let all those muscles rest,
Taking a nice deep breath and just being curious about any other kinds of associations or memories that this brings to mind,
Any feelings,
Emotions that pop up in this very embodied experience of the face-heart connection.
And to close I'm going to read from Psalm 80.
There's a line that's repeated three times in verse 3,
7 and 19 and this line is very similar to something that we see in many Psalms and other places in Scripture.
This request for God to make his face shine.
So this first reads,
Restore us O God,
Make your face shine on us.
In other Psalms we might see lines like,
Do not hide your face from me.
And I love that in these ancient scriptures the relationship between God and God's people is deeply rooted in and deeply anchored in this face connection,
This face presence.
The Hebrew for presence,
For example in Exodus where God talks about God's presence going with the Israelites,
That Hebrew word is the same word for face.
So it could be translated as face or presence.
So this idea of God being present,
Being God's face being present.
And so I'm gonna read this a couple more times.
As you continue to have one hand on the side of your face and one hand over your heart,
I invite you to be curious just noticing anything that pops up,
Anything that stirs inside.
Nice deep breath.
This is Psalm 80 verse 3.
Restore us O God,
Make your face shine on us.
Restore us O God,
Make your face shine on us.
Restore us O God,
Make your face shine on us.
You can continue to read through this psalm or process what you're noticing as this audio closes.
Or if you're ready to conclude this time for today,
I invite you to take a nice deep breath and let out a nice big exhale.
