Sit,Walk,Work (SW^2)
Noticing the Shift: Finding Ease in the Flow of Life
"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?" And I read a quote that said, "Nothing is easy for the unwilling, but with willingness anything is possible." And that's from Desmond Tutu, and it's a reminder to me that your ability to show up here new for the first time or returning is always something that you should allow yourself a bit of gratitude for. Things are not permanent, things are not perfect, and things are not person. And the more you sit, the more you learn that those conditions and qualities are very true to your heart qualities, your soft, your compassion, your kindness, your gratitude. Those qualities are always present, but they require our attention to see them, and they require a renewal, so we have to go back to them. Sensations are a physical reminder that everything's a bit impermanent when you really put it under the microscope of your attention. It isn't to say that things go away, it's just to say that things change. They have, and they flow. They might come back around only in a new version, which is slightly different. This part of the practice is not personal. It's got the same built-in and permanent qualities as our breath is. Yet when we begin to make it personal, it lingers and stays around, almost like holding our breath for too long. And that things don't have to be perfect in order for them to be good. Welcome to the Sit Walk Work Podcast, a show about paying attention. My name is Dominic and I'm your host, and today is a guided meditation. If you find today's episode valuable, please share with your friends and family, and feel free to leave a review wherever you listen to the podcast. So really, all you need to do is make sure you're comfortable for the next 30 minutes, seated, lying down. Either one of those variations are fine, and if you need any props or any support for that, now's your time to get it. There's power in your willingness to be here. And I read a quote that said, "Nothing is easy for the unwilling, but with willingness, anything is possible." That's from Desmond Tutu, and it's a reminder to me that your ability to show up here, new for the first time, or returning, is always something that you should allow yourself a bit of gratitude for. This works hard. I think that's why it doesn't happen a lot. We don't pick it up unless we choose to. And so keep that sense of willingness as we move through practice. For now, make sure your posture is set nice and stable. You want to place your hand somewhere where they're nice and comfortable and won't take away or distract you from the practice too much. We want to be able to take a nice full breath in and a full breath out. If it feels safe, I'll invite you to close your eyes and bring your gaze inward. Because that's where a lot of the work happens today is on the internal. Getting to know ourselves in this much more of an intimate way, if you will. The first thing I'll ask you to pay attention to or recognize as we open up practice today is what's it like in there? Meaning what's going on inside of you? What did you bring to your cushion today or to your seat today? And as you drop that question in and you see it run through your mind a little, you can feel it in your body. You might notice it in your breath. This isn't a situation where there's a right answer. We come to this mat with a variety of thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, beliefs that kind of make up this version of ourselves. So I ask as we explore these today that you bring a bit of gentleness and grace to the exploration. Sometimes we have very rigid ways of thinking on how stuff should be. But with that willingness, we apply a bit of softness in. We get to see how things actually are. So the first thing I'd like for you to drop your attention into is just feeling your body, feeling your breath moving in your body, feeling the weight, the density that's present. You can find it in your sit bones or if your feet are firmly planted on the ground, you might feel it with the hands in the lap. Or if you're lying down, you'll feel your body resting against the surface that's supporting you. And the goal in feeling your breath move through you and noticing sensations that are present. It's just to witness that stream of movement and breath. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] As you let your attention rest here, the simple idea of focusing begins to bring everything else in the background to the foreground so your mind might get distracted, might get pulled away into thinking or into a sound you hear or a story starts to play. And I want you to think of those as opportunities, opportunities to return your attention back to your breath, back to feeling your body in this way. Sensations are a physical reminder that everything's a bit impermanent when you really put it in the microscope of your attention. [BLANK_AUDIO] It isn't to say that things go away, it's just to say that things change. They ebb and they flow. They might come back around only in a new version or slightly different. [BLANK_AUDIO] Just like every sensation you feel. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] There is a softness that gets developed as we practice. As we learn to kind of meet the tasks of practice with that willingness and a little bit of curiosity to kind of see where things are alike and where things are different and where we're trying to make things different. And so our attention moves in broad ways but it also can narrow. So begin to bring your focus into your breath and isolate that feeling of breath along with the entire process, the flow of breathing in and out. So feel the breath as it comes in through your nose or through your mouth like at the start of your next breath. And notice how you can feel the breath as it comes in and then as it expands out through the body. You might notice that that inspiration of breath really fills up and then kind of finds this natural pause. And then as the breath expires and cycles out and you breathe out, it does the exact same thing at the bottom of the breath. So see if you can sense that and feel that within your breathing pattern. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] And as we move our attention in this zoomed in way, you might find there are things that are really tugging at your attention. They continue to come up to the point where it's difficult to hold it on the prompts that I'm providing. And should that be true for you today? I want you to take that same focus that you're giving to your breath and give it to the thing that's most arising in your body. Because the sense of impermanence that lives in your body sensations and you can see in your breath are qualities that are present in all parts of your practice. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Still with your breath. The next time you exhale, I want you just to hold the pause at the bottom of your breath for a couple seconds longer. Just to kind of feel the stillness that's present. But be mindful, because if you hold it too long and you don't let your inhale return, that can obviously generate a stress response, a reminder from our bodies that it's okay to let things go. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Again to relax your attention from the breath or any other object that might be holding in in this moment. [BLANK_AUDIO] As you sit here and explore these aspects of your awareness, the mind is ever present, like the breeze blowing through. The forest, the mind is wrapping your experience in the form of stories, in the form of random thoughts, in the form of that inner critic that sits behind the scenes. And so with the sense of letting go, with the sense of willingness, we turn our attention to kind of our state of mind in this moment of what it's doing, from a place of neutrality. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Back in time can move us forward in time, and it can also put us right here in the present moment. Maybe notice if you're thinking patterns, where are they in time? Do the thoughts feel helpful or unhelpful? [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Notice the moving energy, like your breath, like your sensation. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Allow your attention to soften from its focus on the mind, and let it just rest softly on this space, this really spacious quality of your practice. That for all of the moving parts of your experience, there's always enough room for it all, like everything fits. As you turn your attention towards the spacious qualities present, [BLANK_AUDIO] Notice that it can be supportive to have this foundation that rests against all the movement of the mind. [BLANK_AUDIO] Like the sky is steady and the clouds move, this sense of awareness in which your experience happens. [BLANK_AUDIO] As a place that allows you to connect to the softer parts of our practice, compassion, a bit of kindness, a bit of gratitude, letting your attention rest on those qualities. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] We often overlook that so many things had to line up for this moment to be true. For you to be taking practice, for me to be offering practice. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Our attention is the differentiator, where you place it determines what you see. [BLANK_AUDIO] And that things don't have to be perfect in order for them to be good. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] With the sense of gratitude and compassion of softer heart qualities. Begin to release your attention, meaning to not really hold your focus in any one place. Just let yourself be present, just with all of it. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] I wanna thank you for your practice today in creating this moment with me. [BLANK_AUDIO] Thank you for listening to today's episode. I invite you to check out my sub stack where we are building a community of like-minded individuals to discuss all topics related to the idea of paying attention. I hope to see you there, but until then, with Metta, may you be well. [BLANK_AUDIO]