Building Awareness

Okay,

Welcome people,

Live and listening on replay and let us close our eyes for a turn downwards just to give ourselves the best chance to walk inwards.

There'll still be noises,

There'll still be thoughts,

There'll still be smells,

There'll still be different light playing in your eyes but we'll just take away that alley level of stimulus that we have with our eyes open.

So let's take a moment and transfer the wonder that we might feel for the external,

Let's transfer that wonder into our internal landscape.

Where's your internal beach,

Where's your internal safe space,

Where's your internal gasp of amazement or sense of gratitude,

It's your internal landscape and just take a moment to feel around the internal landscape,

You can imagine yourself to have a stick like a blind person,

Just tap away,

Tap away internally and see what's there,

Obstacles,

Are you coming up against barriers,

Are you encountering,

Does your tapping stick of curiosity or awareness get stuck in places,

Just notice what's going on for you in this moment.

You don't have to search for stuff,

You don't have to search backwards or forwards,

Search backwards to find some potent memory or lean into the future for what might happen,

Let's just treat our internal landscape as a blind person walking down the street,

They don't need to know if a truck has passed by five minutes earlier,

They just need to know what's happening right now,

What's going on for you right now,

Perhaps you're noticing a calmness,

Perhaps you're noticing a sense of enjoying your breath,

Enjoying the expansion and contraction,

So enjoy it,

So you're noticing the tightness of your throat or your diaphragm as you travel and breathe,

As you try and expand,

Can you enjoy that tightness,

Can you be curious about whatever stickiness or barriers that might be there,

Can you welcome them as much as you welcome the ease of breathing,

A sense of calm or relaxation,

Let's just notice it with as little judgment or attitude or opinion as you can give it,

And let's imagine we've explored our landscape now,

We've used our tappy stick of curiosity and awareness,

We found whatever there is that needs to be found and noticed in this moment,

And let's imagine now we go and sit outside our heart,

Let's imagine that our heart is a cave and there's the entrance to that cave and we just sit quietly outside of them,

We could be sitting cross-legged or on a stool,

We're just sitting outside and we're still aware of what it is that we might have noticed,

Whether it's calmness or relaxation,

A sense of wonder or a sense of tightness or frustration,

Whatever it is we've noticed,

Let's not say that one is bad and one is good,

Let's just be grateful for our ability to notice,

To not be drawn into something but just to stand as the connected observer,

Using your breath to hold you steady and just notice,

Observe with no opinion,

And let's imagine that we've gathered up everything that we've noticed,

Perhaps we've put what we've noticed into a basket where we gathered it up in a handkerchief like someone about to go off on their travels,

And we lay this out now,

We lay this out now in front of ourselves,

We take the things out of our basket or we lay out on a kerchief or whatever we've noticed in front of the cave of our heart,

And in this moment we invite in an attention to our heart,

We're focusing on our heart,

We're holding an intention to open our hearts,

Whenever we bring that focus of attention or intention it's like rubbing two sticks together,

They get warmer and warmer,

And perhaps they'll burst into flames or perhaps it's just a heat that's generated,

That heat or flame represents the opening of your heart,

And you can open your heart to happiness if that's what you've touched,

To calmness,

To relaxation,

To frustration,

To tightness,

Open your heart to anything and everything that you noticed with your tapping stick of awareness,

Just offer it up,

And the heart energy can hold all of that with compassion,

Allowing you if you felt happier to really meet that happiness,

To allow yourself that happiness without holding back,

Without a sense of yes but look what's happening in the rest of the world,

You can still be happy,

You can still hold a sense of wonder,

And perhaps what you're bringing on your kerchief and laying in front of your heart is frustration,

Why can't I,

Why can't they,

Whatever it is you can ask for that to be included in this heart energy,

And the heart energy just burns off any judgment and allows you to meet whatever you're meeting with compassion,

Just keeping that focus of attention on your heart and the intention to open it,

Just allow whatever alchemy is taking place to take place,

Just breathe into that,

Allow your body to expand with that energy,

Even if it feels like there's only a warmth that's created,

No flames,

That's fine,

If that's what's happening,

That's what's meant to be happening,

That's right for you now,

Perhaps you've created a burning fire,

Whatever's going on it's right for you,

Just in the same way as whatever you noticed is right for you,

Just breathing in,

Expanding the body,

Allowing the diaphragm to softly do its work,

Allowing your lungs to expand,

Your ribcage to expand and then contract,

And all this while you're just sitting outside the cave of your heart,

Offering up whatever it is that feels ready to be offered up,

And perhaps the flame in your heart will make whatever you're feeling burn more brightly,

Or maybe it will burn it and allow a release,

Just breathe in a sense of trust that whatever is happening for you is the right thing to happen,

And you're sitting here and you can sense the warmth of this heart energy,

I'm going to invite you now to imagine a trapdoor in this cave of the heart,

I'm going to invite you to open that trapdoor and by doing so you allow this warmth,

This energy of the heart to travel all the way around your body,

So it can touch and reach the things that weren't even ready to be seen and to be noticed,

That weren't ready to be put in the basket,

Were anchorage and brought to the heart,

Things that were too hesitant to come out,

Too weary,

Too delicate,

And in these moments you can choose to just allow the heart energy to come down so that all these areas are included with little effort,

Just an allowance,

An invitation,

Just allow the warmth of the heart to spread all the way down through the lungs,

The solar plexus,

Touching the organs and stomachs,

And there are areas here that need some healing,

Muscles that need some strengthening,

Breathe into that,

Is there some relaxing,

Some tensions that need to be let go in order for your body to feel itself,

Allow that to happen,

Allow the warmth of that energy just to massage and caress all the organs,

Your diaphragm itself,

Allow that energy to come down into your lower tummy,

Someplace below your belly button,

Just keep on holding that focus on your heart and the intention to open your heart and that way this heat,

This energy,

This fire will just keep on being produced and it can gently find its way around your whole body,

Perhaps it needs to go down your legs,

Into your knees,

Your shins,

Your toes,

Right leg,

Left leg,

Perhaps it needs to come up and swirl around your right shoulder,

Upper arm,

Elbow,

All the way down into your hands,

Is there a stiffness in your wrist that could be warmed by this energy coming to the left shoulder,

Swirling down,

All the way down across the elbow,

The wrist,

Into the hands,

Other fingers that are sore,

Knuckles that are slightly swollen,

Just allow that heat to soften and maybe it's just a softening around the tightness,

A loss of tension around whatever it is that may be sore within us,

Just allow that energy of the heart to go to wherever it needs to go,

To wherever your body is calling,

Just sitting outside your heart,

Allowing your breath to expand and contract,

Almost acting as bellows for this energy,

This warmth or fire,

Just start a slow journey back now,

Close that trapped door for now,

Your body has received enough,

It's received all it needed to receive,

It can continue to enjoy the warmth and relaxation that it received from you,

You can sense these things that might be in your basket,

Wrapped up like a traveler in a handkerchief,

Are they done,

Are they burnt off,

Do they need to stay by your heart for a little bit longer,

Or to be warmed further,

Or are you choosing to pick them back up and put them back where you found them,

It's up to you,

Now take a moment and thank your heart for its energy,

Thank yourself for being willing to open your heart,

Perhaps you'd like to fold up your happy stick of awareness,

Stick it in your back pocket,

Or maybe you choose to keep it out and walk the rest of the day just noticing,

Noticing your internal landscape as much as you notice your external landscape,

And see how they meet each other,

And just allow yourself to come back to the breath,

Really noticing the expansion and contraction of your lungs,

Your tummy,

Your chest,

Take a big inhale and exhale softly through the mouth,

Two more times,

Big inhale,

Exhale softly through the mouth,

One last time,

And as you exhale just come completely back into your room,

Into your space,

And whenever you're ready you can open your eyes,

Well done.