What's happening in your day today?
Notice all of those different ways that we approach the day.
Notice what's going on in terms of worry or concern,
Happy anticipation,
Resourcing ourselves.
A lot of that has to do with joy and pleasure and meaning and regulating our nervous system for sure is part of that.
And this real depth and strength that we develop over time through being present with ourselves,
Understanding ourself and seeing through some of the beliefs that we've had perhaps our whole life about who we are.
And then here we go,
There's something new comes in and we have a realization of our own basic goodness or something like that.
All of this is here in this moment.
We focus on some things and we don't focus on other things and a lot of that has to do with our nervous system.
It's very compelling.
And then we take a look around and use our senses to locate ourselves in this moment as well as this location.
And notice what you're touching right now.
Just without moving your body,
What's your sense of touch?
Part of that might be how your body is supported.
I can feel the way my body is supported by the chair,
Through my seat,
My feet on the floor,
My back.
So notice the details,
Like really specifically,
What can you feel?
How is your body positioned?
And is there anything you could do to help your body be a little bit more comfortable?
And as you breathe,
Notice the patterns of your breath without really changing them.
Probably they've already changed a little bit just by bringing our attention into our body and our experience.
Notice what happens if you were to take a full breath.
Maybe a deep inhale through the nose,
Long exhale through the mouth or through the nose.
Move your body around as you do that.
Open up through the chest,
The collarbones.
Maybe bring your arms into it.
Stretch a little,
Wiggle around as you breathe out.
See if you can loosen up anything that's tight.
My meditation teacher used to say,
Notice what there is in this moment to enjoy.
Quite often,
Our attention is drawn to what we're suffering.
Of course,
We need to be aware of what's going on in all different ways.
Bring your attention to what there is to enjoy.
It might be that you've just had a nice meal or that you're looking forward to one.
It might be that you have something going on today that you're anticipating that you're going to enjoy.
I read that over half of the pleasure that people get about going on a holiday on a vacation is the planning and anticipating.
And once you actually get there,
Often there's other things going on that it's frustrating or there's delays or it's too hot or something.
But just anticipating something that you're going to enjoy is about half of the enjoyment of the event.
I thought that was really interesting.
As you're tuning into what there is to enjoy right now,
It might be something that's present moment.
Really,
I'm enjoying the play of the sun on the trees or I'm enjoying whatever that might be for you.
Let's work a little bit with something that's here right now.
And it might be an absence.
I'm enjoying that there's nobody yelling in the apartment next to me or something.
Or you might have that as a presence.
I'm enjoying the stillness.
I'm enjoying the quiet.
Let yourself feel that in your body.
What happens in your body?
What happens with your breath?
And maybe as you're tuning into that,
There's something that's becoming more enjoyable.
For instance,
If your muscles are starting to soften,
Just being present with that might feel more enjoyable than it did when you were all tensed up.
What is there to enjoy right now?
And then bring your attention to something that you're anticipating will be enjoyable.
Something could be today.
It could be in 20 minutes.
It could be three months from now.
You're going to be on a trip.
Or for us here in Nova Scotia,
In three months,
It will be warm enough to swim in the lake.
So I could think about that.
Let's take a few minutes here.
Let yourself go into the future and focus in on something that you're anticipating will be enjoyable.
Let yourself feel it in your body.
Let yourself soften into that.
Your mind might be kind of skipping from one thing to the next,
Or maybe you're having trouble thinking of something.
It doesn't have to be something big and dramatic,
But see if you could think about something in the future,
Near or far future,
And then let yourself really feel that.
What are the images?
Is this something you've done before?
So that you have some memories of that as well,
Images,
Body memories.
I think about swimming in the summer.
There's a lot of different events that happen with that in the past.
So I could just focus in on one of them,
Like maybe pick a warm day rather than a cold day.
And the water feels so delicious.
Let's give this a couple of minutes.
Anticipatory joy.
Try a few deeper breaths.
Let your body soften as you breathe out.
And then if we were to press pause on that and really have a look at what was going on that was helpful or not helpful.
So sometimes our mind is really engaged in worry,
Or we're really hypervigilant,
And we keep getting kind of dragged off track into that.
So that might have been,
Probably was what was going on for some people here.
So when there's a more immediate concern,
Then enjoyment tends to get pushed away.
And maybe you were able to kind of recover and come back.
Maybe that was in the back of your mind,
Or maybe that was just something that just took over.
So you could notice what was going on in your mind.
And what was your nervous system doing?
How much of that was generated by some kind of worry or hypervigilance?
Part of what we're doing with the nervous system is really watching it.
How is it operating in the background?
And bringing it into the foreground so we can see it.
And there might be another voice that's coming in.
If you were accused of daydreaming or get your head out of the clouds,
There might be some uncertainty about,
I don't know if this is even okay to do.
And of course in our conscious mind we're like,
Of course it's okay.
But then sometimes we have that conditioning of don't be a daydreamer.
And actually daydreaming in a positive sense can be wonderful.
One of the things I find so fascinating is that our brain believes our thoughts and it doesn't know that we're not actually on a warm summer day swimming in that lake.
I was experiencing the body memory of that and an anticipation of enjoyment.
And that's just as real as worries about what might happen in the future.
So in the brain if we focus on watching to see what is interfering,
What is jacking us up,
What is making us more anxious.
And then reducing some of that compulsion of that thought.
And then we can come back to neutral which is what we often do.
Let's come back to neutral now and do a little bit of breathing,
A bit of body softening.
As you're inhaling and exhaling notice the sensations of your breath.
Let your body soften as you breathe out.
Notice your forehead,
Eyebrows,
And eyes.
And if you were to bring back or bring in something that you're anticipating enjoying then notice what happens with the corners of your eyes in particular.
Maybe you could have a bit of a smile.
Just thinking about somebody who we enjoy being with or some experience can often reset our nervous system.
Bring a bit of softening into our face,
Our jaw,
Smile on our lips,
And in the corners of our eyes.
And soften your forehead,
Eyebrows,
And eyes,
Mouth,
And jaw.
And whatever needs to be said out in the world doesn't need to be said right now.
So we could allow our jaw to relax,
Our tongue to soften.
Let your vocal cords be still.
Notice your neck and shoulders.
If you wanted you could do a little bit of movement.
Breathing in,
Bringing your shoulders up a little.
Breathing out,
Letting them release.
There's a few practices like Blue Star where it's important to have a still body,
But almost all of the other ones it can be very helpful just to move around a little.
Let your body release,
Stretch.
Let your mind not be so hard lying around.
I'm supposed to be relaxing.
I should be still.
Maybe not quite that severe,
But just the conditioning that we have of wanting to do the right thing.
Taking some breaths that might be a bit deeper.
Noticing the aromas in the air,
If there are any.
I have a strong smell of sage in mine right now.
I really enjoy that when I breathe in deeply.
We also have memories of aromas that we've enjoyed.
Maybe bring to mind something that you enjoy smelling.
My dog came over a little while ago and she has a certain woodsy kind of a scent because she's outside a lot.
I can remember the smell of cinnamon buns when I would come home from school.
What are some of the memories of that?
Smell and aroma that you enjoy,
You could bring to mind and enjoy again in your mind.
Maybe it relates to the memory that you were working with a while ago.
When I'm swimming in a lake,
There's a certain smell of the water.
Your nose is right at the water level.
What is that for you?
Let yourself enjoy that smell,
That scent.
I'm coming back to the face,
The neck and shoulders.
Notice now the muscles in the front of your chest and the back of your chest.
I think it would be fair to say we all enjoy a softer neck and shoulders and muscles and that our body has a habit of tightening up or bracing.
If you were to move your muscles around a little,
Your shoulders,
Your arms,
Maybe do a bit of cat stretch or whatever feels good in your body.
Then notice when you bring your attention into your heart area,
Including the rib cage and the muscles that cover the rib cage.
Notice what's going on in there,
In that area.
What is there to enjoy in your heart and emotions right now?
There might be a warmth,
A lovely memory or some heart opening.
Maybe what there is to enjoy is just the fact that you can feel no matter what it is that's happening in your heart,
That you can feel.
Our lives,
Our hearts are not a Disney movie.
It's real life.
It's not always pleasant.
Is there something that's going on that you could focus in on that would be something that's enjoyable or something that you could appreciate perhaps?
Bring yourself into your tender heart.
For most of us,
As we've been doing these practices,
That's so much more possible now than it used to be.
We're in our body a little bit more and we've been working on healing a lot of the core deficiency beliefs,
The inner critic,
The kinds of things that make it harder for us to be in our heart.
Here we are doing a practice,
Relaxing your body,
Notice your stomach,
Your breath,
How your body's moving.
Notice your legs down to your feet so that you're noticing again how your body is supported in the environment.
And what is it that you've enjoyed during this practice or appreciated?
In yoga,
There's two terms,
Praya and shreya.
There's the momentary pleasure that we can enjoy and then there's the deeper enjoyment,
Deeper happiness.
Let's take a moment to savor a little bit more and maybe make a plan for savoring.
What are you going to do for the rest of the day?
How might you bring yourself more into awareness,
More mindfulness,
To savor or enjoy what there is to enjoy?
One of the things I really enjoy is the reality of this.
This is real life.
We're not pursuing pleasure in kind of a frantic,
Addictive pattern.
We're just being here with ourselves.
We can always find those moments to appreciate and then we weave that into our whole life.
