Holding What’s Here

Welcome.

This guided meditation and breathing practice was offered by Renée Seals for Somatic Space.

Somatic Space is a weekly embodied astrology class where we practice attuning through our bodies with current astrological influences.

For this meditation please find yourself in a comfortable position where you can breathe easily.

Get your blankets if you want because I'm going to lie down on my back for a couple minutes and so if it's chilly where you are then please give yourself comfort.

And then when you find yourself lying down let's just start to touch our own chests.

And if you would prefer to stay standing or seated you can definitely do this in other positions.

So using our palms now rubbing around our chest area.

This is where cancer the sign cancer lives in the body.

Cancerian energy lives in the chest and breast and the fluid lining of the lungs.

And so allowing your hands to move all the way over your chest,

Your breasts.

Let your hands wrap around over your ribs.

Again you might want to squeeze yourself a little bit.

Give your body a hug.

And let's touch our our own bodies right now with the kind of care that we would want to be touched with in moments that really require a lot of sensitivity.

This is one of those moments.

So as your hands feel your body let your body feel your hands.

And breathe into the touch of your own hands.

Can you receive your own touch here?

And what kind of touch is your body asking for?

Sometimes deeper muscular touch can be really helpful in feeling and containing feeling.

So your body might be asking for a little bit of a massage through the muscles around your ribs or shoulders.

But sometimes our bodies respond to lighter touch,

More energetic touch.

And so where's your sensitivity right now?

Would it feel better to stroke your own body?

To caress or soothe?

You might try that quality of touch if you're not sure.

You could imagine that your hands are the hands of the most loving angel.

Caressing and soothing your throat and your chest or anywhere else down your arms or your belly.

You want to be touched.

And sometimes physical touch is actually too much.

And energetic touch is where it's at.

And so you can even try this if you're not sure.

You want to give it a try.

You can try caressing your energy body,

Allowing your hands to move gently maybe a couple of inches away from your skin.

And you might imagine that this touch can soothe or caress your energy body,

Comforting the energy of your head or your throat or your heart or your belly.

Whatever kind of touch you're doing,

Let's give it another two or three breaths.

And in these last few breaths,

I want to invite you again to maybe hum a little lullaby to yourself or through your voice or your inner voice to give yourself a mantra or an affirmation of love and care.

And that mantra or affirmation could be something like you are deserving of care.

You can receive love.

Or it might be something else that your spirit is asking for right now.

And then we'll allow our hands to find rest over our upper belly.

And I have my palms spreading over my lower ribs now.

So your left palm will be over your stomach.

And this is another one of cancer's domains.

And your fingertips can come together just where your ribs meet in the front.

So my palms are over the bones of my ribs,

But my fingertips are actually off the edge of my ribs and the soft tissue of my upper abdomen.

My pointer fingers are together right where the the xiphoid process is,

So the bottom of my sternum.

And using my fingertips now,

I'm just going to really gently start to push down in the soft tissue below my ribs,

Pushing down really gently where my pointer fingers are coming together just below the base of my sternum.

And I'm going to start to breathe up into my fingertips.

Now for anyone that experiences a lot of discomfort with this,

Please be soft about it.

So you don't have to poke your fingertips all the way into your tummy.

You can just use a really gentle pressure.

But I really want to invite us all here to meet the contact of our fingertips with our breath.

And let your breath spread out and up and into the contact of your fingertips.

And if it feels appropriate,

You can let your sighs emit sound.

But as you breathe out,

Relaxing your jaw and your tongue and your face.

And then we'll continue as we walk our fingertips down to the sides a little bit.

So now my fingertips are coming out more to the left and the right sides around the larger curve of my ribs.

And you might want to kind of just walk your fingertips around your rib basket,

Or if you find a place kind of just in the center where you want to pause,

Pause and again breathe into your touch.

Adjust the intensity of your touch for your own comfort and need.

And more intense isn't necessarily better.

So we want to be in a place where we can breathe into the sensation and find softness.

So if there's a lot of discomfort,

Let your touch be softer so that your breath can be more full.

Your belly is gurgling or this is moving your digestion around.

Allow your breath to move with the gurgles.

And I'm sorry I forgot to say this before,

But anyone who's pregnant,

You know how to take care of your body,

Definitely.

But this is okay for pregnant people,

But you would want to sit upwards and rest back like into a couch.

And your touch would want to be very,

Very gentle.

And so what we're doing here is we're helping release tension that's gathered around the diaphragm.

So you're breathing in,

You're breathing out,

You're breathing in,

You're breathing out.

And you're releasing tension.

And you're releasing the pain muscle.

And so pregnant people or anyone else with anything that you would want to be concerned about there,

Again,

Just your touch can be so gentle.

And the main palpation here can be with your breath.

So we'll continue now to let our hands move out to the sides of our waists.

And now your fingertips are kind of in line with your belly button.

And you can grab a hold of the side of your waist.

Now,

Depending on how much tissue you have here,

You know,

Grabbing a hold may be more or less possible.

So you can also make beak hands and push your fingertips together and kind of push your hands down into the sides of your waist about three to four inches to the right and the left of your belly button.

And we're going to breathe here into our bellies.

Sending breath right into the swell of your belly and belly button.

Okay.

And then final touch,

Let your fingertips find your belly button and then go about an inch or so below your belly button and press in there.

Now,

Here,

If you're pregnant,

Or trying to conceive,

Don't press.

Just place your palms over your belly and send your breath there.

And if you're not pregnant or not trying to conceive,

Then your fingertips will press down a little bit.

And again,

To the degree of your own comfort.

But we're really working with our breath here and allowing the touch of our breath to meet the touch of our hands.

And then after your next exhale,

Release the press.

If you've been pressing,

Place your palms fully over your belly,

Breathe into your whole belly.

Rub your belly a little bit with circles that go up the right and down the left.

And then let one hand rest to your belly and bring one hand to your heart and chest.

So now I want to invite folks to stay here for a breathing meditation,

If that would feel good for you.

And I'm actually going to sit up and bring this into a seated meditation for myself.

And I want to do that because I really want to be with my emotional body and mental body in this meditation.

And right now I'm asking for more intentional,

Emotional and consciousness where a little bit more than relaxation or fully like if I was going to try and let this soothe me into a place of sleep,

I might stay down on the ground.

But I want to be here actually in a kind of offering of prayer.

And so if you want to join me seated,

That's great.

And if you want to stay lying down,

Then please stay lying down because you can pray and be intentional with your mind and emotions wherever you are.

So if you're seated or lying down,

Let's let our attention continue to rest in the belly and the chest.

Our hands in touch can be here.

And now as we breathe,

Let's begin to breathe as if we're ocean bodies breathing,

Tuning in with the tidal qualities of the breath,

And allowing the end of the exhale and the top of the inhale to be places of exploration,

Maybe even places of pause or lengthening,

Inviting a quality into the breath,

Like water moving into the sand at the top of the nose,

Or a wave rolling onto the shore.

So there's no forcing of your breath,

There's no need to push out and inhale,

But following the flow of every inhale and exhale as if it was a wave rolling onto the shore.

And notice how it would feel,

And invite your body to invite this in,

To allow your breath to swell in your belly before it swells in your chest.

The wave of your breath saturating the tissues of your belly,

Spreading upwards and outwards into your sides,

Into your back,

Into your chest.

The exhales like the receding tide,

Letting them roll out gently back into the ocean of breath.

Now,

As we breathe,

I want to offer that we might give our bodies,

Our minds,

Our spirits and breath to the moment at hand.

There's a lot to feel and be present with in the here and now,

And there's a lot to remember and connect with in the beyond here and now.

Breathing like water moves through sand,

Soft,

Tidal breaths flowing into your belly,

Flowing into your heart,

Flowing back into the ocean of breath.

I want to invite us to breathe with our grief,

To breathe with the losses,

Whatever that might mean to you.

This moment,

Titrating,

Working with intention,

Allowing yourself to feel what needs to be felt and what is ready to be felt,

And allowing those feelings to become more present by intentionally inviting them in.

Holding the names,

The images,

The memories,

The knowings in your heart,

Mind,

Body as you breathe.

As you breathe with loss or breathe with grief,

See if you can continue to let your breath move through your body like water moves through sand at the seashore.

Can the movement of your breath and the softness of this fluid breathing flow around and into any places that might feel also hard or gripped,

Where the energies of fear or isolation might have certain rigidity or protection,

Defensiveness in our bodies.

And there's no grief too small or too big.

There's no grief too big,

Too personal or too collective.

So please don't judge what your consciousness is asking you to be with right now.

Now,

As we meet this grief and invite it in,

To titrate and to hold space for this grief,

For these losses with love.

And I want to invite us here to really feel into our own body,

Minds and hearts.

Feel into the ways that we know we have experienced what is the most nourishing,

The most affirming,

Heartwarming senses of belonging.

I want to invite you to access the parts of you,

Parts of your own memory body that have felt total and complete belonging,

That have felt total and complete presence with love.

And you may have felt these parts watching a sunset or sunrise.

You may have felt these parts when you have lifted your voice in song with others,

Harmonizing.

You may have felt these parts expressing your creativity.

Let's call upon the parts of our consciousness that know complete love.

Let's breathe into those memories,

Those images,

Those sensations.

Also breathing with the tide.

And in our last few breaths,

You might hum a little lullaby to yourself,

You might bring in an affirmation.

The affirmation that I want to invite,

And you can change this as you need,

Is there is something bigger here at work.

There is something vaster,

More mysterious,

More expansive,

That we are inside of.

We can't see its full shape.

There is something bigger here at work.

And in any ways that you might feel yourself connected with ancestral loves,

Or the flow of healing through time,

The possibilities of evolving consciousness,

We'll spend a few breaths there.

Like water moves through sand,

Breathing in this belonging and sense of there's something bigger here at work.

Maybe with the next few breaths,

Allow whatever feels bigger,

Or if you've been able to access a sense of love,

Allow that to expand with your breath.

Breathe it out into the space around you.

As you exhale,

Feel it getting clearer and stronger in your own body.

And to close our practice,

You might want to take a breath and inhale all of it,

All of it from the space around you.

Bring your hands together over your head,

And exhale,

Move your hands down your center line towards the earth,

Bowing as your hands come in front of your heart,

Bowing to the earth,

And offering any benefits of this practice back to the whole.