Resting In The Present Moment

Welcome to the wake up call everyone.

This is Judy Cohen.

This is wake up call 298.

And the title for today's call is rest.

And there is our beautiful little fox resting on the top of a stump.

If you can't see the,

If you can't see the slides,

That's what you're seeing.

So I'm always saying that when you ask a lawyer how we're doing,

We always say the same thing,

Good,

Busy,

Right?

Because the law,

It's just so busy.

And the mind can also be a really busy place,

Or at least I know my mind can be a really busy place,

And all it takes is a moment to kind of suss this out.

Take a moment right now to settle in and just right now,

Take a look at your own mind and see what level of activity is happening in your mind,

And if it's a lot,

Then I'd say here in the majority of lawyers,

Maybe of all humans,

And one reason that the mind is so busy is that's how we're trained,

We're trained as lawyers to be looking at whatever is in front of us,

But also what could have happened down the road,

What happened before,

How can we understand it?

How can we spin it?

We're supposed to look out for danger,

For pitfalls,

For what could go wrong,

What could go south,

What could blow up.

We're also planning,

We're creating,

Which is something I really love about our profession.

It can be really creative,

And because it's true that the old adage,

The law is a jealous mistress,

We're trained to figure out what else can I do while I'm also trying to do all the things in front of me,

While I'm also trying to love the people that I love and care for the people that I care for and find a way to take care of myself,

So there's this quality of restlessness to our lives.

And I know for me,

Even when I'm not up against a deadline and when I don't have anything pressing at all,

I can still feel that I'm in this kind of reaching,

Striving,

Looking for something to do,

Often finding it,

Doing it,

Even if it's just reply to a bunch of emails that could wait until the next day,

It's a kind of busy-ness,

A kind of restlessness in the mind,

And maybe you can even feel it as I'm talking.

The beginning of this talk was intentionally to kind of activate that so that you could kind of see it,

But it's not just the mind.

It's also the body.

There can be a quality of restlessness in the body,

So for me,

Sometimes it's as simple as at the end of the day,

I find myself drying all the dishes when I could just relax and let them dry on their own,

Or I'm curling my toes in and out,

Or I'm swinging my leg,

Or I'm working on one page online,

And I have a real,

Like a physical sense of wanting to go somewhere else,

To my browser,

To my email,

To Amazon,

Whatever.

The great Vietnamese teacher Thich Nhat Hanh frames this as struggle.

He says,

The problem is that not many of us know how to allow our body and mind to rest.

We are always struggling.

We are always struggling.

Struggle has become a kind of habit.

We cannot resist being active,

Struggling all the time.

We struggle even during our sleep.

And I struggle sometimes in my sleep.

So the last couple of weeks,

I've been sharing this new practice,

Ground,

And the G as I talked about last time is for ground itself,

Feeling the ground beneath our feet,

Beneath our bodies,

Connecting to the earth,

Maybe even connecting to our ancestors,

If that feels supportive,

A kind of almost vertical connection,

Including our own bodies,

The weightedness of being on the earth,

Being part of the earth,

A kind of alignment between earth and our bodies,

And then feeling into the ground of community as well,

If that feels supportive or a family or tribe or collective.

Connecting to one another in whatever way is most supportive,

Tapping into that interconnectedness that supports us horizontally.

Right?

And so that's the G and then rest.

What we want to talk,

What I want to talk about today,

The R in ground stands for rest.

What would it be like to live a life where we really knew how to allow our body and mind to rest?

What would it be like to let go of the struggle?

And I'm not talking about letting go of the larger struggle to bring justice and love into the world or to win even our individual battles that we're hired to win or we're charged with winning.

We don't have any choice unless we opt out of the work that we're doing.

Right?

And even then,

Maybe we don't have any choice.

So we need to stay in that,

But the inner struggle,

The struggle that Tai is naming,

Always struggling that becomes a habit that has us unable to resist always being active,

That has us struggling in our sleep.

We don't have to stay in that.

And if we're thinking about something that happened in the past,

If we're planning,

If we're worrying,

If we're stressing,

If we're always finding something to do all the time,

It's really a struggle.

So even though there's a lot of work to do,

We need periods of rest and the world is not going to give those to us.

Not this world,

Not in this moment anyway,

And maybe never has.

I don't know,

Because I've only lived in this life in these times,

As far as I am aware.

So we have to be proactive.

We have to take moments of rest and to take them,

We pretty much have to make them.

And one thing I know is that for me,

I have to start with the body.

So when my body rests,

My mind has a chance to rest.

But if my body isn't resting,

There's so little likelihood my mind will be at rest.

And you can check this out for yourself.

But the main thing to know is that rest can happen in any moment.

So it can happen when you're sitting in meditation as part of your solitary practice of sitting quietly each day,

If you have that.

It can also be the foundation of a walking practice,

Resting while you're walking,

Just putting one foot in front of the other.

Even if the practice is just,

I'm walking from here to the kitchen to make tea.

Rest while you walk,

Relax the body,

Experience walking,

Let go of everything else.

And of course,

Rest is a beautiful part of lying down practice.

And you can combine it with a body scan if you do,

You can also do that sitting as well.

But if you do body scan,

You can do that lying down.

Which can provide even more of an opportunity to rest.

I have a morning yoga practice and I've had it for many years and somewhere along the line,

Maybe as much as 10 years ago,

I gave up the Savasana practice,

The corpse pose at the end.

And it only occurred to me that I had given that up recently.

And I was talking to a friend about that and saying how I had noticed that and I had started to put that back in.

And what a pleasure it was to remember to rest at the end of my yoga practice.

There's time for that,

Right?

And rest can also happen in your portable practice,

In daily life,

In your mindfulness practice,

In daily life.

So what about taking one meal this week and resting while you're eating?

And just tasting everything and enjoying each bite and relaxing between bites and relaxing before and after.

Or rest next time you're standing in line at the market,

If you're going to the market yet.

And just relax while you're waiting instead of checking your phone,

Right?

Or pages loading on your computer or your phone.

Or pages loading on your computer,

Rest.

When you're talking with someone,

Rest and listen while they're talking.

And speak slowly and rest between thoughts when it's your turn to talk.

Rest between projects during the day.

Actually take a rest.

Lie down for a nap or a rest in the afternoon,

Even just for five minutes.

My husband does it every day,

He swears by it.

Rest when you close down your screen for the day.

Make sure you do close down your screen at some point.

And rest for a moment after you do that.

Rest while you're cooking in the shower,

While you're brushing your teeth.

Let the dishes dry on their own.

So let's sit together and whatever your posture is,

Let's rest in our sitting practice today.

And I'm going to lead us in a body scan for our practice so that that might be supportive of resting for you.

Come to a posture that you'll be able to stay in for the next 10 minutes.

For the next 10 minutes.

And whatever posture that is.

First ground and sense the earth beneath you,

Whether it's beneath your sit bones or beneath your feet,

Or if you're lying down beneath your whole body.

Sense into the weightedness of the body.

And sense into the place where you are,

The people who are there with you.

Your community,

Your family,

Your collective,

Your tribe.

So get grounded.

Grounded.

And then bring your attention to your feet.

And your ankles.

Your calves.

Shins.

Knees.

Thighs.

To the whole leg and foot,

Both legs,

Both feet.

Really inviting the legs and the feet to rest,

To relax if that's available.

Then to the pelvis.

Lower back.

Belly.

Upper back.

Chest.

Shoulders.

And then to the whole torso.

Inviting rest,

Inviting relaxation.

And then to the fingers and hands.

Wrists.

Lower arms,

Forearms.

Elbows.

Upper arms.

Shoulders again.

And then the whole arm and hands,

Both arms,

Both hands,

Just inviting rest,

Relaxation.

And then the neck and the throat.

The jaw.

Face.

Maybe even bringing a slight smile to the lips actually relaxes the facial muscles.

Back of the head.

Top of the head.

The whole neck and head,

Just inviting relaxation and rest.

And the mind.

Letting the mind rest.

And then the head.

And then the head.

And then the head.

And then the head.

Take not Han says,

When you practice like that,

You practice stopping is the basic practice of meditation.

You stop running.

You stop struggling.

You allow yourself to rest to heal to calm.

Thank you,

Everyone,

For being on the wake up call.

Lovely to see you all.

Have a good Thursday and really nice weekend.

Be safe and see you next Thursday.