Relaxing In The Safety Of The Present Moment

It's always interesting to see how we come into a practice.

Some days we come in so regulated and grounded and happy maybe and other days we're more anxious or tired or whatever that might be.

So as always we begin with checking in.

How is your internal world today and what's your external world as well?

We can look around.

Check in with yourself and see how are you coming in and notice if your shoulders are up around your ears or if you're frowning,

If you're worried,

Just notice all of those indications.

And of course our breath is one of the big ones and we're going to work with that quite a bit.

So one of the initial instructions for meditation and really for any inward practice like this is to bring our mind in from other times and other places.

What does that feel like for you?

Bring your mind in from other times and other places.

One of the things that might be happening is like no I can't there's too much going on and if that's the case that's an urgency that's often driven by the nervous system.

There's a hypervigilance there.

We could notice that.

Somehow the weather is too hot or too windy or too cold or something going on.

We often feel a little anxious about that or not feel safe.

It's one of the ways that our nervous system is trying to alert us to danger.

So we have to work a little bit more intentionally if that's what's going on to recognize it and not to let it get too big of a grip on us either.

One of the ways that our mind One of the ways that our mind creates feelings of danger or not being safe is the qualities of association.

When we think about bringing our mind in from other times other places part of what we're doing is stopping that stream of thought that can go from one thing to the next to the next to the next.

It might be happy thoughts although that's more likely to be some kind of unhappier or more hypervigilant thoughts anxious thoughts but we're not really separating them out in a way we're just like all thoughts from the past and all thoughts from the future.

We can let them be where they are and not attract our attention or not get too involved in them.

We also don't want to suppress them.

Right now in this practice we're going to work with how we signal safety and danger to our nervous system and how we can get in the middle of that so that we don't go down those old patterns those old habit trains.

Our neuroception is our perception of safety or danger and that uses our sense perceptions what we see and hear and touch and feel or all of those ways that we notice what's going on around our body and in our body and it's very heavily reliant on our history which makes sense.

If something was dangerous in the past we don't want to forget about that we want to remember so that we could protect ourselves from that and we also as an adult now and as whatever our situation is now we don't want to overestimate the danger that might be here now because oftentimes it has a better safe than sorry kind of a philosophy of the nervous system.

Let's notice as we do the practice if we could keep our attention focused here in this moment in this room or the location that you're in whatever weather it is whatever was happening before and whatever is going to happen with you later in the day we've come here to do a practice so we could really honor that time by being as aware as we can and as present as we can and noticing if there's things that are taking us out of that awareness what is that and then as soon as we can to bring it back.

So notice your whole body from head to toes notice if you're comfortable if you're warm enough if you want to change a little bit notice if you were to take a couple of deeper breaths and then let out a couple of long exhale does that feel comfortable does it feel relaxing is there a bit of an easiness there?

There's no right or wrong answers to this we're just checking it out.

When you bring your attention to your back body that often helps us to settle a bit to stabilize most often when we have anxious thoughts it's about something that could happen in the future and as we bring our awareness into the back of the body it helps us to kind of bring our attention away from the future as well so that can be kind of a little hack I suppose if you have a lot of anxiety in the mind a lot of future thinking.

So bring your attention to the back of your head your neck your shoulders notice the sides of your neck the back of your neck the top of your shoulder joints the back of your shoulder joints and you could bring your shoulders up a little bit on an inhale and release on an exhale.

When we're doing this kind of an awareness relaxation nervous system regulation we certainly don't have to be still if it feels comfortable for you to move around then that's helpful sometimes.

And then bring your attention into the muscles in your upper back from the back of your neck through your shoulder blades those large muscles that attach in the center move out to the side moving behind the shoulder joints down into the arms.

This part of our back body we're often carrying a burden sometimes we carry heavy loads on our shoulders at times see if you were to lift up on the inhale and release on the exhale if you could have the intention as you're doing that of letting go of anything that you're carrying any worry any concern any heaviness we're not letting it go completely it'll still be there in a few minutes when we finish the practice but just for this part of the practice inhale and then as you exhale let go of any sense of heaviness or burden.

Notice in behind your heart center sometimes there's sensation there you could turn your head and look behind you the side and then the other side and behind you as well sometimes in the back we have that bracing ourselves for trouble our eyes will communicate that to our nervous system.

Again coming into the back of the head sides and back of the neck the shoulder joints let your shoulders relax and soften large muscles of the upper back through the mid and lower back into the back of the legs back of the arms when we're looking at the arms and legs notice for a moment if it's okay for your arms and legs to move if it's okay for your arms and legs to be off duty what do we do with our arms and legs when we do a lot of action in the world when it relates to the nervous system we often comfort we might hug ourselves or someone else we do that with our arms with our arms we also protect ourselves we also might use our legs to run or to fight so just as you're noticing bring your attention to your whole body from head to toes and notice your arms and your legs notice if you are settled back into whatever support is here or if you're kind of on the edge of your seat ready to go in either way see if you could soften in and accept the support of your chair of the floor whatever however you're supported in your environment and as you exhale let yourself experience letting your arms and legs be still and if they're a bit edgy or if you're restless you might do some shaking or stretching we're not forcing our limbs into being still we're noticing is this an appropriate time is it safe enough for me to let my arms and legs relax be off duty and when we look at a question or bring a question like that up part of what we're doing is letting ourselves have conscious awareness of what's already going on in the nervous system we're not going to be able to convince our nervous system by telling it that we're safe however we can shift our neuroception become more accurate by looking around the room or looking behind us by letting our body settle into the support that's here notice your mind where does your mind go it's a practice to bring our mind back to this moment everybody has a layer of the mind that wanders and worries and ruminates and we're not giving any attention to that or as soon as we notice it then we're withdrawing our attention from that layer of the mind we're noticing our physical body we're noticing that we could soften and really settle in to our physical body and then notice the front of your body as well now the front of your face soften through your forehead eyebrows and eyes let go of worry concerns let your forehead soften one of the reasons that we give our mind something to focus on is because that helps us to prevent going into the future or the past so if you focus on softening your forehead muscles your eyebrows the muscles around your eyes mind you'll probably get bored with that after a moment maybe go into another thought but it gives us a little bit of a break and notice as well that there's air flowing in your nostrils notice what does that feel like the coolness as we breathe in the warmth as we breathe out it's kind of a miracle how quickly our body warms the air notice the pace and the rhythm of your breath and notice the mouth and jaw the hinges of your jaw the sides of your neck the shoulders the front of your neck your throat into the front of the shoulders down into your arms and hands again and come back to the mouth the hinges of your jaw eye your tongue your lips your vocal cords just in the front of your throat there bring your attention now into your chest the collarbones the large muscles of your chest and the lower part of your chest where your rib cage ends and your diaphragm muscles attached there again now as we're getting more into working directly with the parts of our body that move as we breathe notice if this is comfortable for you if it's not you could extend your awareness a little wider you could focus on the breath in the nostrils but if it's okay notice what it feels like where is your body moving is it more in the upper chest middle part lower chest in the stomach area lower belly notice the rhythm the continuity of the breath and we're going to soften into this for several minutes working with the breath the breath is one of the really big immediate urgent signals to the nervous system signals to the nervous system when we're holding our breath it signals there's some kind of danger and when our breath smooths out it signals there's some safety doing a practice of continuity of ease in the breath really helps with that it helps us in their nervous system to know that we're safe we always start by bringing our attention to what is and from there we go to a practice might be an even breath at the start notice how long does it take you to breathe in and then breathe about the same length on the out breath get into that wave of the breath in and the exhale and the inhale and the exhale at this point it's more important to have a continuity and an ease in the breath than a really long breath as you're breathing out let your stomach area soften we're not using our muscles to push the breath out we're allowing the diaphragm muscle to operate the breath which is what the body will always do if we're not in the way of it if we're not tense or tight or afraid or something when the diaphragm muscle comes down on the inhale the stomach area rises and then when the diaphragm muscle balloons back up the lungs empty of air on the exhale and the stomach kind of tucks back underneath the rib cage the stomach area softens back towards the spine if you have a lot more activity in the chest area see if you could focus on softening through the stomach about the same length on the inhale and the exhale and really focusing on that smooth continuity of the breath and then begin to let the exhalation go a little bit longer and you can see how the breath is getting more and more relaxed and then begin to let the exhalation go a little bit longer in yoga we call that two to one breathing or extended exhale breathing if you're breathing into three you might start to breathe out to five or six it's really helpful if we can be breathing out with ease to a count of six six seconds it helps the relaxation response to activate in our body it might be something that we can do easily it might be something we need to build up to most important part is to let your stomach soften as you breathe out you could breathe in a little bit more full a little bit more volume on your inhale it gives us a little more length on the exhale you could breathe out through your mouth like you're breathing out through a thin straw that also helps to extend the exhale and let your mind come in from other times other places other concerns see if you could allow all of your focus to be right here working with the body and the breath this is such a reassuring breathing pattern to the nervous system it will help to lower any anxiety or hypervigilance we don't need to work with the thoughts we need to work with the body and the breath breathing in maybe to a count of three out to a count of five or six let your mind settle there's nothing we need to worry about for the next couple of minutes if you can keep your mind really focused on the practice and if it wanders off be kind be patient let's bring it back if you scan your body you might notice maybe i'll take a few out breaths and really soften my shoulders again my upper back maybe i'll work with softening my forehead on the exhale sometimes we let a wave of awareness and softness flow from head to toes on the out breath become more aware of the stillness in your mind let yourself rest and notice again what's happening in your arms and hands your legs and feet especially if you were kind of restless before is it still about the same has it changed if you have some restlessness you might do a little tension on the inhale tense up a little bit and then release on the exhale we do that four or five times that often brings a little bit more softening exhale you could give it out as a gusty sigh and then scan your whole body again notice your body your head to toes front to back notice your level of hypervigilance have you started to feel a bit less activated a little bit more relaxed more grounded as we finish it's helpful to just notice what was my experience experience some days we have a lot of activation and we just have to keep coming back relaxing our body and breath open your eyes look around move your body and i hope that you have some ease and joy in your day as you move forward