Sit,Walk,Work (SW^2)
Softening Into the Moment: A Guided Experience
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 podcast. The show will begin after the following times. Today's meditation is called Soft Belly Breathing, and it's a tool for helping to release tension. I don't think we often realize how tense we are as we move through our daily lives. And even if we do recognize it, it can often be difficult to deal with the tension, because what do you do? You feel it in your shoulders and everywhere, and you feel it so much that it becomes normal your body becomes immune to it. It doesn't even notice that you're feeling this way. And so the practice is actually one that I picked up from Steven Levine. It is a somatic practice, and it sounds exactly like it's described. You bring your attention and your breath into your belly, and you breathe, and you relax the tension. And you repeat the process, and the attitude you bring to it is a kind, loving, curious, patient. In the words of one of my students, a tender attitude is what you bring to your practice. And so it is my hope that once you learn this practice, it becomes one that isn't just reserved from that time, because the real life is real life. And you might not be having tension in your practice, but you might be having tension at work or in your drive to work or as things come up. And so you can do this practice real time and help create a new condition for yourself. And it's more in line with, and it has your best interest in line. So enjoy today's practice. Thank you as always for listening to the Sit Walk Work podcast. You can support me by subscribing, sharing, and really just advocating for this idea of being better at the act of paying attention. Yeah, so let us start practice. Once you begin to get yourself settled, check a couple of things, right? See if you can take a nice breath in, as you want to be able to breathe, that's an important part of what we're doing here. We're using our breath as an anchor to kind of set our attention on. So being able to breathe well is usually helpful. Then make sure your hands have a place to rest comfortably, maybe in your lap or by your side, if you're lying down, you want to put them somewhere where they can be parked and still. The stiller you can make your body, the more you can experience the practice as well as anything that might come up that is requiring your attention. And then close the eyes if it feels safe to do so. Kind of bring the shades down, let the curtains drop a little bit, it sends the signal that we're taking the practice inwards, removing our attention inwards. If it doesn't feel safe to close the eyes, then just let the eyes kind of focus on a spot slightly on in front of you that isn't going to move in. You want them to be steady and stable, just like the rest of your body. And all factors considered, that combination should begin to get the physical portion of your body prepared for practice. And it's nice as you arrive to one, just kind of notice what came in with you. I like to say, notice kind of the tone of your body as practice is beginning today. Oftentimes throughout the day as we're moving about, we encounter various situations or people that might trigger or set us in a specific direction. And while that moment may be brief, when we had that interaction, it can linger, can have a little bit of a ripple. And even as you start to settle into practice right now in this moment, there could be past stuff that's in there. And here's the thing, if there is, that's okay. I'll ask you to consider, as you practice today, meeting whatever comes up with a bit of curiosity and compassion or understanding, taking that attitude will enable you to experience more and see more as you practice. [BLANK_AUDIO] And as you're resting here, let your attention start to notice the movement of your breathing. And as if you're drawing your attention in really close, feel the breath from its point of origin. So from its initial starting point, whether that's breathing through your nose or if you're congested or stuffy, you're breathing through your mouth, but feel the breath where it starts, and let your attention trace the breath through its complete cycle of inhale and exhale. When your attention begins to narrow in this way and it begins to focus on one particular object, this cycle of your breath. Something else that's present in your experience doesn't really go away, it becomes, in some cases, distractions, but rather than treat it as a distraction, you notice it, simply return back to observing your breath. [BLANK_AUDIO] Well, when your attention starts to bear down on this activity that you do, you'll do thousands of times a day. You can start to see its rhythm, its pace. You might hear the sound of your breath moving in and out. You may notice the effect that watching the breath in this way, getting close and intimate to it has on the rest of your body and the rest of your feeling tell that you came into practice with. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] And there's beauty here in the fact that the body can breathe itself. There's comfort in the next inhale starting at the end of your exhale, might even let yourself welcome in a bit of gratitude, the fact that this part of your system is working as designed. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] And as you observe here, the breath and the sensations of your body and the sounds of your environment and the feeling tone that's present, these things that often feel like they have very hard lines in the sand with boundaries, separations, they kind of all melt together, and they're just kind of changing elements moving through the space of what we call your awareness, and I want you to begin to let your awareness widen and to now incorporate your attention more on the physical sensations that are present, in the same way that you watched your breath, you observe the information glowing from your body, so that's everything from the temperature, the ambient temperature in the room, to the more solid connected points of contact as you're seated or lying down, that's the movement of the body via the breath and they're in the belly or in your chest. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Notice the sensations in there changing nature, notice the attitude about the things arising, sometimes we come to our practice with certain expectations and certain outcomes that we want, and I ask you to see if you can soften that, and rather than look for practice to be a certain way, can you find a way to rest with what is actually happening in the moment? Better and different? Any of you let your sense of curiosity and compassion take the lead. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] And when the mind starts to provide a story or a commentary or begins to add its own flavor to your experience, you can simply let your attention redirect back to feeling the body. And I'd like to take a more focused approach from just the general feeling tone of sensations in your body, to starting to narrow our attention into our belly and taking the components of tonight's practice and blending them, letting your attention and your breath meet in your belly. It can help in some cases to even rest your hand here, just to give you a tactile feeling or breathing into the belly. [BLANK_AUDIO] If you're breathing here in the belly, notice if there's any tension present there. You might notice if it has a shape or a size to it. And if you identify tension being present, can you let your breath soften that tension? [BLANK_AUDIO] Allow a little bit of it to go with each exhale. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] And it might be that as you find tension and you soften it with your breath, a new space pops up. And it's okay to allow your attention to move there. This isn't something that you do and you don't repeat, it's a matter of working with what's arising from moment to moment. Noticing how you can allow it to be. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Even if the belly isn't particularly presenting tension, you might feel tension somewhere else in the body. And allow your breath to soften into that space as well. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Letting each breath invite in a bit more softness, a little more release. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] That would be better served if you let it go. Maybe it's some silly mistake you made or something that someone said or did that in its essence is small, but it's still in there. Attached taking up space. What could it be like if you allowed that to dissolve? What could you do with the freedom in space? [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] As you did when practice started, notice the feeling tone that's present in the body. [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] [BLANK_AUDIO] As your practice closes, take your time and open in the eyes and allowing yourself to fully acclimate to your environment again. Noting the shifts in change and energy as you slowly transition out of your practice. I'd like to take a moment to just offer the merits of this practice. My wish for all of you is that not only it serves you, but it benefits all of the other people and the other lives that you touch from taking the time to do this work. 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]