Slow Curious Exploring Of Your Being

Yeah,

And whatever spot you've wound up is perfect.

So we'll all be in our own,

Our own context,

Our own environments,

And our own positioning.

Some of us might be sitting upright,

And some of us will be laying down,

And so forth and so on.

So as I lead us through this rest,

You'll just come to your own context of your body's positioning.

And even just now kind of starting off just acknowledging,

Yeah,

I'm sitting or laying or whatever in this position,

And I can feel my body in just the subtlest of ways upright,

You know,

Or horizontal.

You know,

We're not trying to figure anything out here.

We're just noticing,

Oh,

I'm upright or I'm horizontal or whatnot.

And we're just acknowledging that,

You know,

As a fact,

So to speak.

Yeah,

And based on your context,

You know,

Based on if you're laying down or sitting up or whatnot,

You'll be experiencing different weight distributions and different engagements in the body.

So those of us that are sitting upright,

We might feel more weight,

Say,

In the sit bone area or if we're leaning against something,

Maybe in the back area.

Whereas if we're laying down,

The weight will be pretty distributed between the whole body.

But we still might feel certain areas a little bit more than others.

So in this one,

We're just kind of noticing your own weight distribution.

Just what in your body is connecting to chair or mattress or bed or sofa?

And just feeling that contact,

Just noticing,

Including into your conscious attention contact of.

.

.

We'll just start with the hands for fun,

Just noticing the hands and noticing what the hands are connecting with.

The hands might be connecting with a cat or a blanket or air,

Clothing.

So kind of just saying hi to the palms of the hands and what the palms of the hands are connecting with in the factual way.

Again,

This is literally what they literally are connected with.

Maybe it's just air.

And the back of the hands in the same way.

Is there something that the back of the hands are connecting with,

Some kind of texture or object or maybe just air?

And there is truly no right or wrong or good or bad here.

It's just based on context.

And the fingers are connecting to what they're connecting with.

And just that same kind of invitation,

Just noticing as we move up the arms a little bit,

Just the placement and the textures,

The contact with whatever happens to be there under the arms,

On top of the arms.

Might be pretty boring here,

So we're not looking for anything exciting.

We're just noticing what's here.

And then we'll kind of jump a little bit to the feet,

To the toes.

And in the same kind of way,

We'll connect to the toes and the soles of the feet and the top of the feet.

And just taking your time to let your attention introduce itself to this area of the body,

Noticing the different textures and temperatures and felt qualities.

Nothing to change or fix.

Just notice in this moment,

Based on your context,

What your feet are experiencing.

And it may be boring,

So again,

We're just noticing the subtleties here.

And the same up through the lower legs,

Slowly through the knees and up to the upper legs.

And just taking your time,

Just noticing the landscape of the leg,

The lower up to the upper,

The underneath,

The on top,

The different contacts that are being made,

Different pressures,

Textures,

Temperatures.

Nothing to do but notice what's already here.

Just slowing down to notice what's already here that's most simplest.

Now for many of us,

The body can be either unfamiliar or uncomfortable or even painful.

And so we just want to be very gentle and very slow and very basic,

Which is quite counter to the mind.

The mind doesn't work in basic programming very well.

It works in complicatedness and meaning making and ideas and conclusions and all that.

Indirect experience,

We connect to kind of what's below that,

So to speak.

So just using temperature as an example.

We might just notice the temperature of something of the arms or legs.

Now if you're really hot or really cold,

The mind will do something with that.

It will make it bad and wrong or something.

But without extremes,

There's not usually a lot that the mind can do with temperature.

It's usually just fairly factually perceived,

So it's a good one to kind of experiment with.

Just noticing as I connect to my toes and my hands and my arms and legs,

I notice a lot of variation.

I notice some of my toes are really quite cold and then some parts of my legs and arms are really quite warm.

And I just notice the variation.

That's it,

Just as a fact.

Like oh yeah,

That's true.

These opposites are here.

I don't need to change them.

Just noticing,

Acknowledging the experience of temperature on skin.

And you could do that experiment,

This factual experiment based on your context,

You could do that for a long time.

You could start all the way at the,

You know,

Go through every toe and every space of the foot and every space of the leg and etc.

All the way through the fingers in the same way.

You could spend quite a bit of time just being really curious of how the temperature,

The environment of temperature is experienced just factually.

We won't do that for much longer here,

But you could.

You could just be really curious to see,

You know,

Yeah,

How is it in my armpits or how is it in my elbow pits,

Whatever that area is,

Behind the knees,

You know,

Like all these spaces that we often overlook because we're pretty,

We have pretty busy minds,

But to slow down and maybe just notice with curiosity how even the toes might have different temperatures.

The big toe and the small toe might be a little different or the front and the backs of the hand might be a little different.

So we're going to use that same kind of curiosity of noticing and move now to the face.

The face is probably exposed to air for most of us,

So we'll just do the same kind of thing like we'll use air and temperature here.

Like,

Oh yeah,

Okay.

It might be more subtle.

I know it is for me right now.

It's like,

Oh yeah,

The face is kind of more,

There's less variety in the temperature of my face.

So I'm just noticing what I notice.

There isn't a right or wrong or good or bad.

It's just what happens to be there.

I notice my cheeks are a little warmer than my forehead.

So you'll notice what you notice based on your context.

You might notice the space right under the nostrils where the air comes in and out of.

The air or the skin of the nostrils.

The temperatures there may change too.

They do for me.

It's cooler on the inhale and warmer on the exhale.

Work may be different for you,

So whatever your experience is,

Just noticing the temperature of skin in the nostril area.

And we'll just kind of play,

Continue playing with kind of what we might call the surface level of our bodies,

You know,

The skin of our bodies.

We're going to just stay playing with this perception for a little bit longer.

Just to notice,

You know,

There's air and there's clothes and then there's maybe,

You know,

The pressure of the sit bones on the chair or whatnot.

And just kind of taking a moment to perceive this,

The body,

The whole body,

So to speak,

And even the space around the body.

The space around the body exists too.

It's kind of subtle.

It's pretty neutral,

So it's almost hard to detect because our minds love the extremes.

But neutrality is like,

Huh,

What's neutrality?

And the space around us is probably somewhat neutral.

And so we might even miss it.

And so if you don't perceive the space around you,

No worries.

You'll just notice what you notice.

Yeah,

Can't do it wrong here.

And then we're going to bring in something else factual.

We're just going to bring in the breath that is just a fact.

It's been happening the whole time.

We're going to just stay really,

Really curious and slow and just notice the in and out,

The emptying,

The filling and emptying.

We're not going to explore how we're breathing or the depths of the breathing.

We're just going to notice the kind of the surface existence or the factual simple existence.

While you're sitting,

While you're laying,

The space of the body is engaged with a breath,

A breath,

A breath,

A breath.

If you're noticing the mind come in to evaluate or judge or like or dislike or meaning make,

That just means you have a brain.

So that's really common.

It's really valid.

Just notice that happening underneath all of the thoughts is a is just a factual mechanical happening of the body.

And sometimes we can connect to the breath in that simple factual way and sometimes we can't.

So whatever your experience is just allowing that to be what it is.

There isn't a supposed to here.

Our bodies do factually know how to breathe on their own.

When we go to sleep at night,

The body knows it doesn't require us to be in charge of it.

And so during the day,

We might notice that we might notice this the breath is making its way through existence,

Just happening and we can observe that.

And we can also be curious of it is to treat each inhalation exhalation with some curious attention.

Just going for the ride.

The breath actually takes the body for a ride.

The body just moves the body just like in an ocean,

The waves move in and out all day long.

And the body moves as the breath goes in and out all day long,

With or without our involvement or our attention,

I should say.

So in a factual way,

We can just follow that.

We can just notice this ebb and flow.

And we can experience it in our own unique ways.

We might notice it as breath coming in and out of the nostrils.

Just that.

Just that in and out of the nostrils,

That's it.

We might notice it as just the rise and fall of the shoulders and that's it.

Or the flow of the upper chest.

Maybe it fills and empties and we can just notice that upper chest.

Or maybe we notice the middle of the back pressing into the chair or wherever.

The middle of the back ribs just opening a little bit and releasing,

Pressing a little bit and then shifting out of that.

We may notice the lower belly of the diaphragm filling and emptying.

And we may even feel a little bit lower than that,

Even to the pelvic floor.

There's a little bit of direct interrelationship happening with breath there too.

We may feel that there.

We may not.

And so many other overt ways that breath may engage that you may notice that I didn't even name.

And maybe there's a felt expression of the breath that's really subtle.

It's so subtle that you just feel it as maybe a temperature or a tingly.

But you can just feel on some level the expression of breath that's coming through somewhere other than the lungs or the belly,

Maybe through some other area.

Must be with that mystery.

Going back to that space around us,

The breath even moves in and out of that space.

Space around us moves a little bit from moment to moment just like the beach on the ocean.

It's interfaced with differently as the water comes in and out.

And so our breath comes in and out and interfaces with the space around us.

Just noticing what you notice with that.

This is not something you can connect to with the mind or by thinking.

So if you're doing that,

That's okay.

Just let yourself think if it feels right for you to come back to below the chin,

So to speak,

To just feel or notice how the body does move.

It moves up and down or depending on how you're positioned,

Of course.

So you'll just notice that it just it does move.

It engages with the space in front of us or the space behind us or yeah,

Just kind of noticing this.

Open your eyes and watch that happening.

It's literally happening in this moment in overt ways.

We can watch it.

Maybe very subtle,

But we can watch it.

It's more overt when we take deeper breaths.

Again,

Your body is doing this all day long.

It's breathing all night long.

It's breathing in all these ways.

It's engaging in all these ways,

Just effortlessly,

Seamlessly,

Rather neutrally,

Except when our minds come in to add value or have likes,

Dislikes,

Etc.

We can just notice those are part of being human.

We do that.

And just the last thing we'll just turn toward is sound for a little bit.

We'll just notice sound for the remainder of our rest here.

Sound is often during the rest time anyway,

Pretty neutral because it's pretty quiet here.

There's no one banging around today.

So we'll notice there's not a lot of jarring sounds.

The nervous system can appreciate that.

Sound is probably fairly still or quiet.

The sound of my voice is coming in and out.

Maybe some things in your background are making noise.

Maybe the noise of your thoughts are coming in or the noise of the narrative.

That might be coming in.

It's a different kind of sound,

But we can still have kind of the sound of our own narratives in a way.

Just to notice.

I don't know about you,

But the sound of my narrative can even change depending on things.

Sometimes my inner voice has different pitches and different speeds.

So if you're noticing an inner narrative,

You might just acknowledge that or give pause to notice those textures or qualities.

You might notice the sound of your breathing.

You might notice the sound of space.

So lastly,

We'll come back to some conscious breaths as we stay connected to sitting or laying and breathing and just letting the body move a little bit organically here,

Letting the arms stretch above you to the sides if you want,

Letting the wrists be engaged in the hands,

The fingers.

The same with the feet,

The toes and the ankles and letting the knees come alive a little bit.

If you haven't already,

You might open the eyes and just welcome in this data now.

While you're noticing the colors and shapes of sight,

Just letting your attention still noticing the space of the sitting body.

The breathing body is still here.

We want to let some attention stay with that.

So there's attention still connected to the inner world as we now include the outer world to sight.

Yeah,

Just coming back to your screen when you're ready.