What Is Awareness?

22:22

22:22

What Is Awareness?

by Jeremy Rothenberg, L.Ac.

Rated

4.6

Type

guided

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

100

What is awareness? Who am I? This meditation brings us closer to the watcher. Through breath and visualization, we disconnect from our story and our thoughts and tune into the deeper awareness within. As we connect with this aspect of our being, we release stress, anxiety, and tension in the body. We get closer and closer to the present moment.

Awareness Self Inquiry Breathing Stress Body Scan Relaxation Emotional Release Mindfulness Anxiety Present Moment Focused Breathing Stress Response Regulation Physical Relaxation Diaphragmatic Breathing Muscle Relaxation Mindful Observation Light Visualizations Visualizations

Meet your Teacher

Jeremy Rothenberg, L.Ac.

Ashland, OR 97520, USA

Meet your Teacher

Jeremy Rothenberg, L.Ac.

Ashland, OR 97520, USA

Transcript

What is awareness and who am I? These are some questions that we can keep in our background, If you will. We go into an exercise, The embodying, The breathing, The deepening, And noticing as we do all that, The aspect of us that notices the watcher, The awareness, And then how we get drawn into the story, The thoughts, The narrative, And that we can choose to pull ourselves out of that back to focused breathing, Focused attention. It's a really powerful mechanism that we have access to, This moving in and out of the story and back from time to time to watch, To be, To let go. And all this really needs to be working with the breath because as we change our breath, Bring the breath down into the belly, We signal to the nervous system that we're safe. Stress response starts to reduce, Relieve itself. Safety increases, Which opens our awareness, Allows for more information to come in, Allows for us to metabolize, Rejuvenate physically, And gives our sense of sharp mental acuity a break so we can towards just being only for a moment at a time. So allowing that breath into filling up the belly before we fill up the chest and then just letting go and releasing that breath. And at the beginning, We just do that gently, Just what's available, Noticing the tension around the in-breath, The body kind of holding itself together can take a little while to soften. And as you're breathing, Noticing the tension throughout the system, Throughout the bodily system, Or we take a look at that or we notice there's some tension almost everywhere. Our basic way of being awake, Our daily lives to be quite tense, Girding for disaster, Protecting, To bringing the attention up into the head, Noticing there, Just noticing where there's tension with your mind, With your attention, Allow some of that to begin to soften through the top of your head comes down an agent, Softening agent, Light comes in, Just softens the muscles, Clears away stagnation and tension and density, Starts smoothing everything out, Bathing it and down, Feeling into the eyes, All the sadness, All of the fear of the upset, So much emotion held in the eyes, Wearing out those muscles, Tiring them, Fatigue, Just letting whatever's there, Feeling the face, The cheeks, Jaw, The muscles around the mouth, Naturally just holding it all together, Letting that droop a little bit, Release all the while still breathing into the belly, Feeling that peaceful feeling come down the eyes and the cheeks, The face, The jaw, Chin, Feeling down the back of the neck, Sensations of tension there, Just allowing those muscles in the neck to start to, Wherever we put our attention, Focus to relax, We can let go from these unconscious holds, The peaceful feeling to come down into the shoulders, The chest, Now meeting a peaceful feeling with the end of the breath, Reaching up into the chest, Breathing out, Allowing that peaceful feeling to come down a little, Start to stream down the arms, To the hands, Out the fingers, Down deeper into the torso, Into the belly, Into the lower back, Breathing fully, Slowly, Meeting this relaxation, Softening with that out breath, Releasing, Letting go of any tension, That feeling down into the hips, Torso, Perineum, To the legs, Just streaming down the legs, Down past the knees, Softening the calves, Down to the ankles and the feet, With each breath, Just bringing in and releasing, Moving, This peaceful feeling from the top of our heads to the bottom of our feet, Out the fingers, Out the toes, Noticing, And noticing within the quiet, The vibrancy of life, Activity, Bodies, Bringing the breath a little deeper, A little fuller, Lay filling the chest, The out breath, Releasing fully, When you get to the end of the out breath, Pulling in the belly, Pulling up the diaphragm, Squeezing out some more air, While the next breath wants to come in naturally, With each breath, We get a little bit deeper, Fill a little bit more, Expand a little more, So release a little bit more tension, With every out breath, Really just getting to that place of emptiness, Release, Squeezing it all out and waiting, Until the breath wants to come back in, And then completely letting go of the breath, Completely letting go of all activity, Everything to operate automatically, Letting ourselves be breathed, Moving our attention to watch out, The need to connect with what's being observed, As though you have no relationship, The sensations, Just noticing them, Just taking them in, And noticing the variations of attention, And in, Back to the breath, Pulling in the air, Filling up the torso, Filling up the chest, Breathing out, Releasing, Full breaths in and out, Noticing sensations in the body, Remembering state of quiet, State of peace.