Experiment With Inner Peace

Alright,

So just yeah,

Let yourself settle,

Settle in the spaces that we're in,

Chairs and wherever.

And so there's literally nothing to do but just notice the body finding a spot that's comfortable.

That's all that we kind of mean by settle.

And this isn't an intellectual endeavor,

This is just based on familiarity of positioning or comfort.

So there isn't a way that you should settle,

There's just a way that your body will just do it.

And it often happens without us noticing it,

So we're just inviting conscious attention in the next bit of time to just notice how the body likes to sit here.

And then just very matter of factly just saying hello to the body as it's positioned.

Maybe bent knees or straight legs,

Saying hi to the positioning,

However the legs are positioned.

Again we're just noticing the factualness.

My legs are at a,

It's a 45 degree angle,

I can just kind of feel,

I can just connect to that raw data experience with my feet on the floor.

And so wherever your feet are placed,

Just noticing that as a matter of fact.

Knowing where your toes are placed.

Letting your toes get to know what's under them.

I've got carpet under my toes,

So I'm just letting my toes kind of introduce themselves to the carpet and you can let your toes introduce themselves to whatever's there,

Air or some other surface area.

And then kind of letting your attention move into other areas of the feet,

Into the bottoms of the feet in the same kind of way.

Letting the bottoms of the feet,

The soles meet the floor or wherever the feet are positioned.

Moving to the heels,

Letting the heels find the floor or whatever they're connected with.

The mind often thinks in this binary of right and wrong and when we connect to a feet,

We all have six different pairs of feet.

And we don't know where each other's feet are.

There isn't a right place for our feet to be.

There's just a feet based in context.

And so we can just notice how the binary mind is always looking for that right,

Wrong or should or shouldn't or whatnot.

And then factually,

The foot's just placed where it is and it's just connecting to whatever it is in the context.

And in this moment,

We're just kind of utilizing that perspective,

That factual,

Actual factual acknowledgement of the soles of the feet and the toes and the heels just placed in their way based on this moment and letting the feet find themselves in this moment just as they are.

And we'll be utilizing that kind of that perspective for a little bit just as we welcome in the acknowledgement of the body.

So we'll just move up a little bit through the ankles,

Back up through the knees,

Again noticing their positioning,

Back up through the upper legs and just pausing there,

Just saying hi to the legs down,

Downward,

Just a matter of fact objectively,

Noticing what you notice.

You might have images of your legs even with the eyes closed,

That's just the mind has that capacity to do that.

You might have thoughts of the legs and then underneath the words or images,

There will be the actual factual experience of the legs in some way or another.

Again,

Maybe feet on the floor is what comes in,

Maybe it's the thighs on the chair,

Maybe it's something that's on your lap,

Maybe it's something uncomfortable in the leg or something comfortable in the leg so we're not looking for a particular experience,

We're just noticing what is here.

We move up to include the sit bones into the pelvic floor so the space where the surface areas of our body is sitting on the chair there and if you're laying down it will be a little different,

You'll have kind of the underneath part of you or the back side of you on the bed and if you're sitting upright you'll have kind of the underneath part of you making contact with the chair.

So just based on your context,

No right or wrong,

Good or bad here,

And noticing the sit bones,

The way the body is sitting literally,

Meeting the chair.

We're just noticing that the lower body is fairly still,

Maybe there's some movement there,

Maybe your legs are moving a little bit,

That's fine too,

We're not trying to make them still but they might be somewhat still,

Particularly compared to the upper body which is breathing so there's a movement up top and there's usually a little more stillness comparatively speaking down below.

We're just noticing that factually.

The body is rising and falling and the lower body is just staying.

And we're going to try to keep the perspective of just kind of witnessing,

Just noticing the facts of the body rising and falling in however it is and the body being still however it is,

They both are co-occurring.

And as you notice both stillness and movement in the body you'll also notice the chair behind you or if you're laying down the bed under you or the floor or the couch under you.

And you'll notice as the body moves and as the legs are still the chair or the floor or the bed,

That is a whole other level of stillness.

The space behind us and under us,

The object that's holding us is very still,

Very solid,

Unwavering most likely.

I'm in a rocker,

It moves a tiny bit but my nervous system can feel the solidity even amidst the slight movement that the rocking chair makes at times.

And that's what we're inviting in.

This is nothing of the mind,

It's just of the being.

And so we're just actually inviting our nervous systems and just by simply inviting them,

Something in our systems will hear that.

It doesn't even have to make sense but our nervous systems are so wise they operate at a level beyond the level of the linear logical mind.

So we just invite the nervous system to experience this dependability behind the body,

Under the body of how the chair stays dependable amidst the movement of the torso,

Amid the movement of our minds and above the or amidst the movement of maybe movement in the legs that might be happening even if it's subtle.

The floor,

The chair,

The object that you're upon is quite unconditional in holding the body.

Just all this movement that the body is experiencing.

And our nervous systems can perceive that on some level.

There's literally nothing to do or accomplish here.

Just continue to notice stillness and movement in the object that you're upon.

You might notice that as the breath comes in,

The body kind of rises and then with the exhalation,

The body is always caught by the object that you're sitting on or resting upon.

It always returns down into the field of gravity and the chair,

Whatnot,

Always catches it as it returns and releases the air.

Again,

This is nothing of the mind.

There's nothing to figure out about this.

There's nothing that necessarily could be figured out about it but we can watch and experience the happening of that.

As you exhale,

You might just feel that body release back down to the field of gravity,

Down to the chair that's there waiting for its arrival.

Your arms are here too.

We don't want to leave out body parts of the arms,

Get jealous of not being named.

We want to include them.

They get to be consciously named and just noticing how they are resting,

What they're resting upon,

The fingers.

They may be rather quiet and still or they may not be so just noticing your own experience.

The body is moving,

The body is still and the object that you're upon is quite unconditionally present and receptive of this moving body,

Moving still body.

Using the shoulders,

Rising and falling or maybe still depending on your context and also lastly,

Listen,

Naming the space of the head and the face.

I always like to just take a moment for myself to acknowledge the space of the face because I can hold tension in my jaw quite readily,

Kind of habitually for me and I always just like to kind of connect into the space of the cheekbones,

Into the jaw just to see what might be holding or clenching just out of habit.

As it may resonate,

You can just invite any clenching that doesn't need to be happening in this moment to release maybe with the exhalation.

Letting any clenching that does need to happen,

Just letting it be there.

I'm not trying to change anything or fix anything.

We're just noticing what's here.

And all of our bodies are actually heavy.

If we stepped on a scale,

It would register a weight and we want to just let ourselves experience that as we're sitting or laying.

We want to just let the body be heavy,

Be its heaviness,

Be its weighty object that it is as it's just held by this object that we're upon.

Letting the body be heavy here.

Letting the very usual,

Usually busy arms and legs know that there is nowhere to go right now.

Just nothing to do.

Just hanging out for a little bit longer.

I'm just letting that body know it gets to rest here.

Just factually.

The mind might be busy and that's fine.

We don't need to change that.

We might have a very busy mind and a very un-busy arms and legs.

And we're just letting the arms and legs acknowledge,

Yeah,

They get to be pretty quiet here or at least not as active as they may normally be.

Letting the muscles soften if they want to.

Noticing any kind of flavor of the mind or maybe the rhetoric or narrative of your mind.

It often again does do that binary right or wrong thing.

That's just part of having a human brain is that capacity that we have.

So you may be noticing judgments or ideas or shoulds or expectations and that's very normal for human beings.

The chair holds all of that too.

As those thoughts come and go.

As the breath comes and goes,

The chair remains the same to receive all that is happening in each moment.

And we'll just take a moment to notice here,

You know,

Kind of if there's anything,

I like to use this phrase below the chin so to speak,

Is anything below the thinking mind,

The figuring out mind that is experiencing what we might call peace or we might call okayness or simplicity or neutrality.

These different words may kind of be similar for us in certain ways and just letting our attention name what is okay as it is.

Now there's a lot of territory here in this moment.

The mind might be programmed or habituated to go to certain areas but we want to be really curious and just see,

You know,

What is it like to just be in the nostrils so to speak.

Is it just,

Is it okay to just hang out there if the air coming in and out of the nostrils for example?

Is that peaceful or simple,

Neutral or okay?

And if so,

Just let yourself hang out there.

If not,

Let your attention kind of continue to be curious and go on a journey about the armpits or the fingers or just the pinky.

And maybe you like the often warm center of the palm.

Maybe it's peaceful to feel the breath come in and out,

That wave-like movement.

Maybe it's just feeling the weight of the sit bones.

Maybe it's in the feet or the toes or the big toe or any of the other maybe thousands of places between the top of the head and the bottom of the feet.

Something that's very simple to hang out in.

And if there isn't anything,

You might just pay more attention to the chair,

See what it's like to just hang out with the chair or the bed.

Wherever chair is even acknowledged or how it's acknowledged in your experience.

Or maybe pieces for you,

A phrase or a mantra or a word that you like to repeat or a place in your mind's eye,

A place you like to imagine being.

Maybe there's a visual that as you experience that,

You experience that simple sense of okayness or peace.

There's not a right or wrong here.

There's just whatever you're noticing.

And I'm gonna be quiet for a moment to just let your system discover no right,

Wrong,

Good or bad,

No expectations here.

Just looking,

Inviting the attention to just connect to what might be simple in this moment,

Even for just a second.

I didn't include sound or taste or scent,

So it might also rest in those sensory mechanisms.

There might be a sense of peace as you just hear the sounds in the background or the scents that are experienced and received by the body.

So again,

Just being curious of what is here now in this moment that has a semblance of peace in any kind of way.

I really let the nervous system attune to that,

The nervous system experience that and acknowledge this and attune itself to that peace or simplicity,

Is to take that in through recognition.

And letting your cognitive conscious attention acknowledge that felt sense of okayness or peace or neutrality,

Maybe there's a temperature with it,

Maybe there's a sense of space with it or a tingly or it could be anything really,

A pressure,

It could be any word.

Just gonna again invite the cognitive conscious attention to acknowledge that resonance and invite it to take up some space here,

All the space it wants and just watching to notice there's no expectations or shoulds here.

Boom-boing.

Gently coming back to breath and into the limbs of the body.

Also noticing that sense of peace or neutrality or simplicity as you consciously include more of you now.

Again the breath or the arms or legs moving.

Maybe the toes,

The fingers,

And even stretching a little bit.

You can have the eyes open or closed still,

Letting the body move a bit because we've been rather still for a while.

You still may notice that sense of neutrality or peace or you may not so there's no agenda here just noticing what you notice.

If you haven't already let the eyes slowly open,

Just noticing the light come in and then shapes come in,

Objects and whatnot.

And again if you still notice that sense of peace or neutrality or simpleness just continuing to notice that attention is now going to be divided a bit.

We've got this external world so to speak and that takes up a lot of our attention but if we can keep some of our attention inwardly connected to that resonance we want to involve and invite that to be here.

And then as it feels right for you just coming back to the screen.