Sit,Walk,Work (SW^2)
Breath In / Breath Out: A Practice on the End of Things
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. And what you can expect is that the practice will open up with a brief recap, followed by the actual practice itself. 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 podcasts. The show will begin after the following times. This practice was about the end of things as we just came to the end of our practice. But yeah, it was focused on how things do end in small ways and big ways, and how we meet that or resist that or do a little bit of both. It can be a dance. A lot of that was overlaid with the breath, and so the breath is a very tactile way of seeing these qualities unfold. So we started with the body just sensing the body grounding into the body, giving us a home-based operate from, and then moved into the breath and how that flowed in and out and overlaid with the body. And I kind of prompted you to consider the end of things, the end of a day, all the way up to the end of a life. There are parts that we are very comfortable with ending, and there's others not so much, and we don't touch into those at all, and so you got to sense and notice what things resonated or what you resisted, because that's really what we're doing in the practice. As we are seeing the parts of our experience that we just want to keep for ourselves and never let go of, and the stuff that we would like to avoid and never have come around. But those actions create the conditions for us to have a little psychological suffering and discomfort and so on and so forth. And so we explored the end of things, we moved into joy and gratitude, welcome in and inviting in some loving kindness for ourselves, and an opportunity to offer that to others. So that might not come naturally at first, again, that's a muscle you can build over time with this practice, so even if you just stayed with seeing how it felt to hold those concepts for yourself, perfect. And then I closed up while having you just kind of focus on what your attention was being gravitated towards. Sometimes when you're practicing, I can be directing you one place, but your mind is pulling you in all other places. So I wanted to leave space for you to explore whatever is naturally coming up for you that may have been outside of my instruction. If you haven't started to get yourself a little grounded, a little settled, take a seat, lie back, put yourself in a space where you're going to be able to kind of just sit with the practice today, put the hand somewhere where they won't fidget or move around a lot. Take a breath in and make sure you can, if you feel yourself hunched over or collapsed, maybe roll the shoulders back and give yourself a space, space to take a nice breath in. And then the final cue there is close the eyes, if it feels safe, might feel better to keep the eyes open, but if it feels safe for you, then I invite you to close on. And in closing, then we take the external world and we kind of bring the blinders down so that we can begin to work internally with ourselves so we can sit and be given an opportunity to learn about our experiences today. In meditation, one of the things that we always start our practice with is taking a seat. And that's kind of what I've given you the overview of just now when I was asking you to set up your posture, masking you to take a physical seat, but I'm also asking you to take a mental seat, and this is the seat of the witness, the observer, the one who watches the things that are happening. And this is a concept that develops over time as you practice, but you can think of coming to your practice with this attitude of welcoming and curiosity. You can see what comes up, watch it go, watch it change, see what other second and third order effects are created by its arising and moving. And hopefully through this process of being with yourself, you can start to get some truths, get some wisdom revealed about your experience and also how you work with that experience. So as you're beginning to settle in, I want you to start to feel at least four things in your body right now, let your attention just turn to a couple things you feel might be your feet grounded, maybe it's your hands or the pulse in your forms and fingers, your breath or ambient temperature in the room, and then notice three things you can hear. My voice, background noise from your environment or mine. Maybe there's a repetitive sound in the room you're in, like the clock or just some ambient noise. In this way, we open your attention to grounding you in the present by feeling and by hearing. As your attention looks to fulfill that request, you, for a brief moment or brought here, not lost in this continuous stream of thinking that happens. Part of what we're doing is we're seeing that that stream can be broken and there can be little spaces where we are in the present or we get a bit of relief from that continuous flow. Let that begin to let your attention rest where the breath moves in your body. So whether that's in your belly, you feel the breath expanding and contracting with each inhale and each exhale, or whether that's in the upper part of your chest because you kind of breathe a little bit higher. We softly let the attention rest here. the attention. for more information on our website www.beadaholique.com to purchase beading supplies and to get design ideas! Thank you. . You can feel the pace of your breath here as you observe it. Looking to see if there are subtle changes, if the speed changes or the depth of the breath changes or if there's a consistent rhythm moving in moving out. There's a sacred quality. To feel the breath move the way the body can naturally breathe itself. While your attention is isolated just to the breath you feel other parts of your body too. You feel the sense that as you sit here in practice that you're grounded to this moment. The weight of your body to the movement of your breath. the body can also breathe in the body. The body can also breathe in the body, in the body, in the body, in the body, in the body, in the body. As you're just observing the breath, the thinking mind and the other parts of the practice, the sensory information, it can pull your attention away. You might see that you get lost in a stream of thought again, you might notice something that is pulling you away from where your focus was held. That's all part of the practice that is ultimately the practice and there's this sense that we can be gentle with ourselves when we notice that it's hard to focus, that we can apply a bit of compassion and a bit of kindness and attitude towards what's happening. Then like your breath has continued to move regardless of conditions, we can just start again. Allowing your attention to expand even further and start to not only feel the breath, but feel the breath, but follow the duration of the breath from the moment it starts. Notice where the breath enters your body and then feel it as it goes down the throat and into the lungs and moves the diaphragm and feel all of that reverse itself. Thank you. a lot of you. a lot of you. a lot of you. a lot of you. And I love that the breath can teach us so much from observation, both about being willing to receive things anew and about being able to let go of things that have changed. And that concept is critical to your practice because one of the things that we're getting to the heart of in our practice is that we tend to move between the space of clinging to the things that we really like and you see it as the mind shifts changes in one thought to the next and feel it in your physical body as sensations move and change of course you can feel it in your breath. the other way. And this is the first step that we're going to be going to be going to be going to be the next concept that things come to an end. I mean in our daily lives we understand that the day comes to an end we're on the last day of the month so it's coming to an end. The year will end our seasons change. Those are all things that we openly don't bat an eye at. Then the concepts of our relationships ending that gets a little more challenging. The concept of our own lives coming to an end. And as you recognize where this is true for you you can feel into your body notice what this idea of things coming to an end does as it lands into your space of awareness. And you hold this space with that same openness and kindness to the sensations that bubble up. the way that it comes to an end. the way that it comes to an end. the way that it comes to an end. Where your attention moves when it's free and open to kind of explore. the way that it comes to an end. the way that it comes to an end. the way that it comes to an end. The way that it comes to an end. the way that it comes to an end. The way that it comes to an end. The way that it comes to an end. The way that it comes to an end. like the breath each moment has this element of beginning and ending. woven into its natural cycle. the way that it comes to an end. And as you rest here watching all the starting and stopping points of your practice. Can you welcome a bit of loving kindness into your being? you have a bit of that compassion there from observing these changing thoughts and breath and body sensations. maybe you can welcome in now a thought of joy or gratitude. just a general sense of kindness towards yourself or someone you care deeply for. and the invitation doesn't stop. just a thought because all of these pieces are working in conjunction to create your experience from moment to moment. so be sure to feel, think and then feel, or vice versa. and notice how your body responds, any images or thoughts that arise. the way that it comes to an end. the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that it comes to an end, and the way that that energy to grow within you, and maybe beyond you. [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] [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Thank you for listening to today's episode. I invite you to check out my substack 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] You