Rest Amidst The Hurricane

Let's take a few minutes to ease into your positioning here.

Wherever you're seated or laying down or standing,

Wherever you are in your beingness,

Let's take a moment to notice where you are in your beingness.

What's in attention right now?

What is it like to be you?

How is it like to be you?

Is your attention in a whirlwind of thoughts and imagery?

Is your attention in sensations in the body?

Is your attention moving between thought and body?

Is there emotion or strong sensation that's gripping you or engaging with you?

Is there ease?

Is there dis-ease?

How is it to be experiencing you in this moment?

What is it like to be you?

Notice the responses that come.

Maybe there's just a watching of what's happening or maybe there's a real engagement with content.

Maybe there's a critical responses that surface.

Maybe there's a curiousness that comes with the prompting of my questions.

Whatever it is,

Just notice what it is.

Just notice what's alive in you,

What's going on with you.

If there is more of a critical arising,

Just notice how that feels,

Maybe with a tightened sense or tightened feelings or engagement with form.

If there's more of a curious response,

There might be a little bit more of an openness in your system.

And there might be a combination,

A weaving.

Everything in between.

And I have you take some real deep breaths here in a moment,

Not quite yet,

But in a moment.

Some deep inhalations and some deep exhalations.

And as that happens,

I want you to really notice the engagement of your body and your form with those deep breaths and deep exhalations.

So go ahead and do that.

Go ahead and take three or four.

Really breathing in,

Breathing in more than you ever have before.

And then really letting that air out.

And when you think you've exhaled all the air,

Pushing even more out.

And then letting the body take another deep breath and really bringing all of attention,

All of the mind's attention to this engagement of breath to really feel what it feels like to have this accentuated breath.

And then what it feels like to have this exhalation.

Another couple exaggerated breaths.

Staying right with the movement,

Right with how it feels.

And then maybe one more really slow,

Really curious,

Really slowly filling up and really slowly exhaling.

And if it feels like your body wants just a few more of those,

You can push the recording or the pause on the recording just to do more of those.

And maybe for the next time,

If you listen to this recording another time,

You can experiment doing it just with the nostrils,

With the mouth closed and doing it through the nostrils and see what that feels like.

There's different ways that we are used to breathing.

So when we really connect in with a deeper breath to get really curious and really play with how it is to do it a little bit differently.

Science tells us that nostril breathing can really support the nervous system in a powerful way.

So just to practice doing that at some point.

When you do those deeper breaths to really let your system engage,

You know,

Some of us chest breathe more,

Some of us belly breathe more and to allow both the chest and the belly to fill up and release.

And then to watching the breath just go back to its normal pace.

Our bodies know how to breathe.

When we're sleeping,

Our breath gets taken care of for us.

There's a wisdom that exists.

So we don't have to stay up all night breathing that gets taken care of for us.

So in this moment,

Just stand back and watch and notice how breathing will take care of itself.

A pace will resume itself.

And yes,

We can consciously experiment and play with breath,

But we can also just watch breath do itself.

And it's this quite busy time.

I'd like you to just pause your attention as much as possible on this breathing,

Knowing that this recording won't last forever and you can go back to what all the things that you have to do.

But for this moment,

For these moments on this recording,

Just keeping your bringing your attention back to breath.

And I want to invite you to find breath or discover breath or something related to breath as the eye of the hurricane.

In this busy time with doings and worryings and for some of us,

Grieveings and some of us celebrating the full gamut of aliveness here happening in this human realm around the holidays.

And it can be quite chaotic.

It can really be like this hurricane.

We get swept up in,

Overwhelmed by.

And I'd like to invite you to find your eye of your hurricane.

Maybe it's breath.

Maybe breath can be the eye of your hurricane.

And of course,

There's many experiences within breath.

So maybe it's the feeling of the breath and the nostrils coming in and out that really kind of ground you or center you.

Just to turn toward that.

Or maybe it's to feel the chest or the rib cage move.

Or maybe it's to feel the belly,

The lower belly ground you with the breath.

Or maybe when you breathe,

You connect into the palms of your hands or the feet on the floor or the feet situated wherever they are.

Maybe you feel the breath move through your legs into your feet,

Into your hands or anywhere in your body.

And that's the eye of your hurricane.

That's what helps you ground you in this moment.

That's where you can find some stillness amidst the chaos,

Amidst this constant stream of data that is part of being a human being with the amazing sense receptors that we have,

Really designed to feel so much.

And we have this capacity to hone in on some very simple expressions of being.

So I want to invite you to lean toward or tune into something very simple.

Whether it's through breathing,

Through breath,

Or through or into some other engagement with form or expression here.

And maybe the eye of your hurricane,

Maybe it reveals itself in different ways in different moments and that's beautiful too.

And maybe you just can't access that right now.

And that's to be honored as well.

Maybe there's just a lot of efforting happening.

Maybe there's a lot of pressure that you're experiencing.

Maybe there's a lot of emotion,

Fear,

Grief,

Anger,

Excitement,

Joy.

Maybe there's just a lot happening.

So we're,

I'm not wanting any of that to change per se,

But just notice what it feels like,

How it is for this efforting to be here,

This pressure,

This engagement of emotion.

And I'd like to invite you just to breathe into that as well,

Just to honor that,

To be with that.

And also just to experiment to see what's possible here.

Is there any sense of efforting or holding on or pressure that for just a few moments can be released?

So I'm going to have you take a couple of those deeper inhalations and exhalations.

And as you do,

Connect to your chair or your couch or just if you're standing to your feet and just see is there anything that gravity wants to help you release?

Just really feeling this chair supporting you,

Really feeling the floor or the couch supporting you.

Just letting your gravity sink down,

Be supported by these objects and just see if there's any sense of efforting or holding that's ready to release with your exhalations.

With each in breath receiving that new air and with the exhalation just releasing that old air and just letting gravity do what it does.

Anything that's ready to release,

Let it do just that.

And whatever is not,

Just acknowledging and honoring that.

Part of being a human being is to have holding ons,

Otherwise we'd just be a blob on the floor.

So there's nothing right or wrong about holding ons or efforting that happens as part of being human.

And it's just to give space to anything that's wanting or willing to release.

I'm inviting you to take a couple more deeper inhalations and exhalations through the nose.

And just feeling that oxygen move throughout your whole system,

Every time the breath happens,

Your cells get oxygenated and your cells move through your body.

So literally your breath impacts your whole being from head to toe.

So to feel your breath through your being,

Particularly for a moment here,

Just really feeling it engaged down lower to your lower belly,

Into your sit bones,

Your pelvic floor.

And imagine breathing from there to there,

Down through your legs,

Down to your feet.

And just taking a moment to pause in the feet and feeling the space of the feet,

However,

Whatever they're connected to,

Whether it's floor or maybe they're tucked up underneath you.

Just imagine that you're breathing into the feet and feeling whatever you feel as that happens.

And to let that space of connection extend beyond form.

So feeling this energy,

These sensations above,

Below,

To the sides,

Outward.

Every time attention wants to go back to mind or figuring out or that very normal mental activity,

Just acknowledge,

Oh,

I'm thinking,

I'm planning,

I'm figuring out,

I'm worrying,

Etc.

,

So on.

And just gently using the mind to bring attention back to breath,

Back to the energy that's moving through and around your being.

And just seeing if in this moment you can find one area that feels okay to be with,

One area or one way to be intimate with your experience right now that feels okay.

Maybe it's just the way that the toes are touching.

Maybe it's the way the breath feels somewhere in your experience.

Maybe it's the way the earbuds are touching your ears or the way the air is touching your skin.

Maybe it's the feeling of the chair behind your back.

See if you can find or become intimate with one sense of this eye of the hurricane,

One place of stillness or okayness that you can rest with.

Of course,

You can push pause on the recording and stay with this as long as resonates.

It's really letting your nervous system have some time here to be slow,

To be nurtured,

To be honored,

Knowing that you can go back to the hustle and bustle in a bit.

But for now,

Really letting your system have this gift of presence.

And if it resonates in any way,

Just scanning through your system to see if there's any part of your being that would like to receive touch from yourself.

And just letting your hand go just to that place.

Just to feel that support of contact and presence.

Just letting your system take that in,

Receive that experience,

The gift of connecting with yourself as yourself.

Of course,

You can pause the recording here too and experiment and play with this just really in this busy time to take the time to just be still with yourself and to honor yourself and to honor this being,

This breathing,

And to honor the breathing itself.

This breathing is what carries you through your days and your nights.

It's the one thing that's happening at all times.

Amidst every emotion,

There's breath,

Amidst every minute of your life,

There's breathing.

Amidst the highs and the lows and the happinesses and the sadness and the franticness and sleep,

There's breath.

And at any moment,

You can use this resource,

Turn toward this resource or any other resonance in your being that feels like spaciousness or stillness,

You can access this,

This resource.

Any moment in your days,

You can catch these moments of rest.

As we bring this rest to a close,

Go ahead and just keep turning toward breath and to the sensations and the presence of being in this chair and open the eyes.

So you're including eyes open and staying tuned into yourself,

Turned toward yourself.

You know,

At a stoplight or at dinner or in any moment,

You can have eyes open and connect to breath and connect to your inner beingness.

Slow your system down,

Connect with your nervous system.

We can't breathe in the past,

We can't breathe in the future.

We can think about the past,

We can think about the future,

But we can only breathe in the present moment.

We can only feel in the present moment.

So giving yourself the gift of this present moment.

Thanks for connecting with yourself in the ways that you have and know that every time you listen to this recording,

It will be different.

So continue to use this as it resonates.

Thank you.