Rest With Trust

Okay,

So yeah,

Just kind of settling in into your space,

Whatever that is,

Some are sitting up,

Some people are lying,

So whatever your context is,

Is just fine.

And well,

Maybe just each of us can just connect to our own context of location here.

Just kind of noting the location of your sitting body or your lying body and yeah,

Just kind of saying hi,

Letting your body say hi to the chair in whatever ways it's drawn to automatically.

I kind of immediately notice my feet on the carpet and kind of just feel that space and some other things are just kind of standing out to just say hi to with regard to my body sitting in this rocker.

And I'll just kind of guide you through some areas,

So just to consciously include just the space of the back.

Maybe we'll even just for fun,

We'll start higher.

We'll start with the head.

So the space of the head for many of us is not supported.

It's just,

It's in space,

So to speak.

It's supported by the rest of the body below it,

But there may be nothing behind it.

So we get to kind of feel what that's like to have a body part that doesn't have anything behind it.

For those that are lying down,

They'll have a different experience.

You will have something behind it.

And so you can feel that directly,

Again,

Based on context.

One's not better than the other,

Just different based on our positioning.

So if you are sitting upright,

Just feeling that space behind the head,

In front of the face,

And then gently just moving down to the back.

Again,

You may have contact here with some object,

You may not.

So if you do have a solid object behind you,

You'll feel that directly.

And if you don't,

If you're sitting without anything behind you,

You'll just,

You'll feel that.

So just feel,

Noticing the space behind you,

Noticing the space in front of you.

Nothing to change,

Nothing to figure out.

You're just saying hi to location.

Downward more towards the sit bones.

And here's where everyone will have commonality,

Where all of our sit bones are connected to something.

So we'll,

All of us will feel that sense of solidity under us.

It might be very overt.

So if you're sitting upright,

You will feel a lot of the weight of the body settling on the sit bones.

And if you're laying down,

You'll feel less of,

Less pressure there.

It'll be more equally distributed from head to toe.

So again,

It's all based on context.

Just noticing the hardness or the softness,

The comfort or the discomfort,

Whatever is here in the sit bone area,

Pelvic floor,

Region.

And then downward,

Downward through the legs.

Again,

You'll feel contact in a certain way under the thighs perhaps.

Down through the calves.

And down to the feet.

And just again,

Noticing based on your positioning,

The different ways that your body is in contact with object or space.

Feeling the toes,

The heels.

Just noticing that they probably have different characteristics or qualities.

Maybe in different temperatures in different areas of the foot.

We don't want to leave out the arms,

So let's include,

We'll start at the shoulders,

Just feeling the space of the shoulders and their existence here.

Feeling high to them and the arms that are attached to the elbow space and eventually making your way to the fingers.

And that may seem like not much territory,

But it's not in a certain way and in another way it is.

All the different qualities and characteristics from the shoulder to the fingers.

There's lots of different textures and temperatures based on what the arms are resting on and the room that you're in and the environment and as well as the form of the body.

And slowly and gently,

Curiously saying hi to your arms existence down to the fingers.

Not wanting to change here or fix,

But just saying hi to how it is in this moment.

There may be comforts and discomforts,

Likes and dislikes,

That's all fine,

Just letting those preferences be there if they're here.

And then we're going to include breath now.

And breath is one of these features of being human that really makes its way through our whole body in a subtle way and it makes its way in and out of our body in an overt way.

So first we'll just notice the overtness of the breath.

It's been happening all along while we've been exploring other areas,

But now we're just going to curiously,

Consciously include it.

Say hi to its existence.

And there's no need to change how the breathing is happening,

Just kind of notice how your body does know how to breathe when you go to sleep at night.

It knows how to take over and take care of that feature for you while you sleep.

And we can study breath in the same kind of way while we're awake.

Just watching the air exchange in and out.

Through the nose or mouth is fine,

Whatever your preferences are.

You may notice some consistency of breath,

But you also may notice some changes of breath.

So there may be times when all of a sudden the body just takes a deep breath or the body just kind of takes shallower breaths.

So just kind of watching the inclinations of your body breathing itself.

It knows how to breathe and you can just watch it curiously while you're sitting or laying here.

And even though the breath does know how to breathe itself,

You may have thoughts about the breath and that's fine too.

So you may be having ideas or thoughts about the breath and just notice those thoughts,

Notice those ideas or opinions or beliefs and those are invited to be here too.

When it feels right,

Just gently bring more of that attention back to the breath that's already underway.

Just watching to see what comes next with the breath function.

The breath breathing mechanism.

I'm still kind of staying curious of the breath,

Not trying to change it or manipulate it or understand it.

I'm just going to continue to notice it,

Notice its existence,

Notice that the air does come in and out and it does come in and out through the nostrils or the mouth.

And it comes in in whatever ways you feel it come in.

I mean it's coming in but we can consciously get curious of,

Yeah,

Where is it coming in?

How is it coming in?

Not from our minds but from our experience.

So you might feel the breath come into the sides of the body.

For example,

The sides might move,

The side ribs.

You might not feel that at all.

That's okay.

You might feel the shoulders rise and fall.

Or maybe not.

Maybe the chest is going up and down or in front,

Moving in front of you and then back.

So just kind of noticing if the chest is moving.

And you may feel the back ribs move a little bit into the mattress or into the chair or into space.

You may notice none of that.

Maybe you mainly notice the belly and you just notice the belly kind of inflate and deflate.

Some people are more chest breathers,

Some people are more belly breathers,

Some people are more upper chest breathers,

Lower.

There's all sorts of different ways that our bodies have learned or habituated in the breathing process.

So in this moment we're not actually trying to fix any of that or change any of that.

We're just noticing,

Well this is how I'm breathing.

It's perfectly valid to have preferences of breath here as well.

You may enjoy studying or being with the process of breath.

You may not.

And so if you do enjoy that,

Just let yourself enjoy it.

If you don't,

Let yourself come to some other area of your body.

Maybe coming more to the feet or the hands,

Some aspect of being here that feels simple.

And just for a few moments we'll include the other senses.

We've been mainly connecting to the felt senses.

But for a moment we'll also include sound.

Sound has obviously been happening the whole time as you've been hearing my voice.

You may also have been hearing your internal voice.

So we have different flavors of voices and different textures and intonations as we hear letters and words.

And then you may also be hearing other sounds.

Sounds in your background,

Sounds in my background,

Events or computers or who knows what.

Just kind of noticing that sound is receiving lots of data and different kinds of different sources.

But it's all being received in the same receptor we could say.

Sound is happening.

Taste might be happening a little bit depending on what's been going on in your life.

You might notice some taste.

You might notice some scent.

You might not notice either of those.

So it's no right or wrong,

Good or bad,

Just based on context.

And then with the eyes closed you'll either be not having very many visuals or you'll be more in what we might call the imagination.

And imagination does give us visuals even though our eyes are closed.

In direct experience we would be kind of seeing the back of our eyelids so not a lot of content there.

You might see kind of different shades of gray or different things.

So what we're going to play with a little bit here in this rest is this word of trust.

Now this word in our culture has a really,

It can be a loaded word.

So we're going to kind of just chill with it a little bit and really study it in its most base level.

We're going to just notice that on some level our bodies are trusting right now just organically and innocently.

Our bodies are trusting that whatever we're sitting upon or laying upon is going to hold us.

So I'm pretty sure,

I could be wrong,

But I'm pretty sure that most of us haven't really even given it a thought.

Am I going to fall out of this bed?

Am I going to fall onto the floor?

Am I going to float up to the ceiling?

Maybe that thought might come in every once in a while,

But generally speaking we have a pretty habitualized sense of trust based on our relationship to the field of gravity that we're all a part of and based on all of the times that we've sat in chairs before and laid in beds before.

We can just consciously acknowledge that,

Like let our nervous systems consciously include that data that we may not normally pay attention to.

The nervous system is very practical and it likes to be safe and so it can be useful to say to our nervous systems,

Oh yeah,

Like even when I'm feeling emotionally unsafe,

My body in a very practical way is safe or is trusting on a very base level,

A very base practical level.

So for a few moments I'm going to be quiet.

I just want you to be curious of your being,

Your body's relationship with this innate trust that is here that we normally don't notice,

But we're just going to consciously include for a little bit.

If you notice your attention going to your mind trying to figure this out,

That's really normal,

But we can't actually figure out trust from the mind,

So it's too limited to do that.

So just gently let your attention come back to the surface that you're sitting upon and just noticing that your bones and your muscles and your bodies are pretty trusting of what you're sitting upon.

Just keeping it really simple in this moment.

Sometimes we have to remind ourselves,

Oh yeah,

Like oh,

I can release the shoulders from up around my ears,

I can release them down.

It's I'm being supported here.

Or let the inner thighs soften.

Maybe they just habitually tighten for you.

Or maybe the hands,

Just letting the hands and the arms go slack,

Letting them be real heavy.

Letting the jaw be loose and let the embouchure open if it wants.

Just letting the body kind of get the memo that regardless of what's happening on an emotional level,

From a physical level,

The chair is supporting this body,

The bed.

Even this field of gravity that surrounds us,

It's trustable.

Just resting there for a moment.

There's literally nothing you need to do or no one you need to be to earn this support.

It's just given to us through this field of gravity,

Through these objects that we're sitting upon.

We can even feel this a little bit more viscerally when we take a deep breath and the body is caught by that chair with the exhalation.

The body is always caught by this field of gravity.

We always trust that we're going to be caught,

We're going to be held and supported by this field of gravity on a very base level,

Base but very profound and important level to the nervous system and to our bones and our bodies.

Letting yourselves take some deeper breaths if you want.

You're all muted so you can really take exaggerated breaths if you want,

Have fun with it for a little bit.

Just to really notice,

Wow,

I always do get received by this object I'm upon.

Always received here.

Some kind of way.

If you start to go to your mind to figure this out,

That's really normal and valid and won't be of much help.

Again,

Because this is happening from a level or an experience that's wiser than the mind.

So just gently acknowledge that,

Bringing your attention back to something very simple this moment,

The chair,

The bed,

The breath,

The sit bones,

What not.

Just feeling this sense of support that's here on a very basic and yet important level.

It can be nice for the nervous system to know that there is something wiser than it to support it.

This field of gravity is quite wise.

Just supports our beings.

And from a psychological or from the personality's perspective,

This may not matter much or may be unsatisfactory and that's okay.

Just letting that be what it is for now.

We're just kind of feeling the simplest expression of trust in this moment.

For some of your personalities,

This may feel like a relief and for others it may not.

So again,

I don't have an agenda here.

There's no right way to be responding to this.

Just notice what you notice.

It's all allowed here in this moment.

While the body might get an understanding or a sense that it doesn't have to earn its existence to just be sitting and breathing here,

The ego or the personality may still feel like it does have to prove its worth or whatnot and again,

Those might be happening at the very same time.

The sense of some base level of trust and maybe some other lack of that and again,

That's fine just letting that happen if it is.

We're not trying to rearrange anything that's not in direct experience right now.

Just letting your attention continue to kind of curiously connect to this very simple happenings of right now,

Whether it's the breath or the sounds that you're hearing or something else that is being received by your being.

Your body is a receiving phenomenon,

We could say.

It's receiving constantly of whether we acknowledge that or know that or not.

So in this moment,

We can just be really curious about this conscious reception that's happening and if it feels right to really let our beings receive not having to do anything right now.

Okay.

While you're continuing to notice breath and continuing to notice this sitting body or laying body,

Just let the eyes gently open.

Then start to take in the colors around your room.

I'd invite you to continue to keep some of this attention within yourself,

So to speak,

Really still feeling this breath,

Still feeling this sittingness that's happening even while the data from around you is coming into your attention.

So you'll have this seemingly outward information and this seemingly inward experience happening at the same time.

Just noticing the different colors and the shapes and objects and then you'll probably already be having thoughts or sentiments coming up when you see things or ideas.

So the mind comes in pretty quickly when we have this outward data.

That's really normal.

It feels right for you.

You can close the eyes back and just kind of settle in here for a few minutes or if it feels right for you,

You can just kind of keep the eyes open as we carry on into the rest of our time together.