Creating space.
I'm so glad you're choosing to be here with me today.
There's a lot going on in our world right now.
The world at large and our own universe of our family and daily lives.
Sometimes I can feel compressed in my body with the weight of it all.
In addition to having speedy thoughts and challenging emotions.
Our bodies are continually shaped by our past and present experiences,
Our families,
Culture,
And the systemic framework of the society you find yourself in.
We are shaped by our traumas and life experiences which change the structure of our bodies in order to keep us safe.
Often by making us smaller or more armored.
Our body is the container that holds our thoughts,
Emotions,
Physiological processes,
And survival strategies.
We often hold our emotions and intense life experiences in our core,
The trunk of our body which can be very uncomfortable.
This is such a small space for such big experiences.
The gift of being able to create more space is that we can move through our habitual shaping,
Leading to new experiences of ourselves and the world.
The bigger our body container is,
The more life experience we can hold more comfortably.
Here is a practice I created to offer myself some space.
You can do this practice sitting,
Standing,
Lying,
Or walking with eyes open or closed.
Remember to pace yourself in this practice.
If you can't sense deeply into your body,
Give yourself smaller practice moments.
It won't help if this experience itself becomes too much.
Now turn your attention to your body and get a sense if you feel open and spacious or more compressed in this moment.
Are there specific places in your body that are looser or tighter?
Is there a difference between the sensations in your chest and your legs?
Take a moment to notice the qualities of these sensations anywhere in your body.
If you are feeling compressed,
Does the pressure seem to come from outside your body to the inside?
Or is the compression more of a squeezing sensation?
Or does the pressure deep inside rise up to the surface?
Notice the area just around the area of constriction.
Is it looser?
Does it feel empty?
Or does it have its own different quality of constriction?
The most helpful quality you can bring as you attend to your body sensations is kind curiosity,
Just noticing without judgment what sensations are present.
The questions that I'm inviting you to ask are deep somatic inquiry questions that can help us be present in this kind,
Non-judgmental and curious way to our lived experience in this moment.
Now,
I'd like you to slightly elongate your body.
Feel a gentle pull up from your head skyward while you simultaneously feel the earth pulling your pelvis or feet downward just a bit.
See if you can sense the micro stretching along your spine.
Stretch only to your capacity and tolerance just a tiny bit at a time.
What does it feel like to get a little bit longer or taller?
Does it feel scary,
Empowering,
Different or pleasant?
Now sense your body expanding out to the sides as if the side of your ribs,
Your arms,
Pelvis and the sides of your legs can widen and stretch laterally.
You might notice some shifts in your breathing as you do this.
How does it feel to take up a bit more space width wise?
Do you feel more open or a bit too visible?
Now sense your body expanding forward to the front at the same time that you're gently stretching and expanding your backside out to the back.
Again,
Expand outward front to back only to your tolerance to where it feels a bit new and different,
But not overwhelming.
Now sense your whole body longer,
Taller,
Wider,
Taking up more space front to back.
Just be curious what that may be like.
Now we're going to sense into the space,
The openness around and outside of our body,
Above and below us to the front and back and the sides,
Beyond what you just stretched to.
Imagine that you can make this energetic space or bubble around yourself as big or small as you need in order to feel less compressed and more spacious.
Sometimes when I'm feeling particularly compressed.
I will actually even use my arms and hands to kind of push away what feels impinging to me,
Moving my hands and sometimes my legs to push the weight of the world literally farther away from my body.
And for some of you too much space may not feel comfortable.
So you may want to make a smaller bubble closer to your body so that you can feel held and contained and safe.
Just stay curious about your experience and what you're needing right now.
What's happening in your breath right now.
Is there an easier flow to it.
Or can you breathe a little deeper or more easily.
Are the areas of constriction you identified at the start of this practice feeling the same or different.
Do you feel you have just the right amount of space within and around you so that you can be more present in this moment.
If you are experiencing challenging emotions such as anger,
Anxiety or grief.
See if you can do this practice with the intention not of suppressing or getting rid of your difficult emotion,
But of opening more space around it.
We often hold strong emotions in our chest and belly,
Which is too small of a space for the largeness of these emotions.
As you feel these emotions,
Especially if they're in your torso.
See if you can shift your attention and be curious about sensations in your arms or legs.
Sensing our limbs can help spread the emotional energy through our whole body,
Rather than it staying stuck in our torso.
Sense that there is a lot of kind space for your anger,
Anxiety,
Sadness or grief,
Whatever you're feeling.
Often,
When we open to our emotions,
We are less compressed and therefore less reactive,
And we can move into a state of kind and curious responsiveness.
More space,
More room for whatever is present.
Continue to work with your capacity to create and modulate the space within your body and around you.
Periodically check in to see how is your body feeling.
Notice if there's different emotions present now compared to the start of this practice,
Or if your emotions have more space to be.
Is the content,
Speed or quality of your thoughts different now?
Come back to this practice anytime you feel the weight of the world or your emotions or thoughts pressing in on you.
Your capacity to create space will grow over the time with continued practice.
Thanks for being with me today and exploring our inner and outer space.
Be well.
