The Yogabliss on-line Moving into Meditation class met in the sanctuary of our homes this morning. Coming together – even in digital space – gives me such a boost. Your presence lessens my sense of loneliness and isolation. Thank you so much for being here! Now, more than ever, we need to feel our connectedness – with each other and also that sense of true belonging with our own being . . . We’re adapting to living our lives at home. Still – we can easily get carried away by reports of what is happening to our family members, our friends, our communities and our nation. It takes a bit of energy and a bit of faith to interrupt the momentum of fear that insinuates itself into our lives. I’ve been reaching out for support as part of my daily practice. This week I enjoyed a Tara Brach’s beautiful talk about R.A.I.N. This is the technique that Tara teaches on how we can work with difficult feelings through a process of Recognition, Allowing, Investigating and Nurturing. It inspired the guided relaxation we explored in our class today.
Guided Relaxation
Even when nothing is happening, life is happening. Stillness is a form of action . . . in the rests and the pauses healing happens in our lives. Nature reminds us of life’s persistency as trees and animals awaken from winter’s sleep. Stillness readies us to re-enter the world anew.
Relax and feel yourself arriving . . . the physical sensations of being alive . . . just noticing where your mind is drawn . . . if it wanders away from your body bring it back to what is surfacing most vividly . . . being curious about the natural expressions of breath without trying to change them in any way . . . Feel the heaviest parts of your body meeting the earth . . . slowly shifting awareness from your feet and upwards to your head . . . As your body relaxes, your breath becomes lighter . . . more shallow . . . sometimes there are pauses between the exhalation and the inhalation . . . Can you let yourself be curious about the utter stillness between breaths . . . and the breath hunger that urges the body to breathe again? The miracle of breath naturally returning again . . . and again.
Sensing your heart’s response to this emptiness, to this stillness . . . feeling the earth calmly abiding . . . supporting you in silence . . . in the next in coming breath . . . exploring a gradual letting go into the arms of the earth . . . feeling all the sensations of being held . . . the ongoing support vast enough to hold all experience . . . even those fears that naturally arise during times of great stress and uncertainty . . .
Hospice carer, teacher and author Frank Ostaseski writes:
In getting to know our fear . . . To transform fear into courageous presence, we need love. . . . love and fear are two sides of the same coin. Fear is the contraction side; love the expansive side. . . .
In slowing things down we can recognize that we are actually feeling fear. Right now we can bring to mind the current of anxiety that is coursing through our lives.. . . We can explore where these currents move through our bodies. . . . the places that feel contracted . . . We can allow them to be there. . . . to belong . . . We can relate to them in a truly intimate way, learning what they have to teach us . . . We can offer ourselves comfort . . . allowing all that is human to belong in the expansiveness we create in allowing . . . welcoming all parts of ourselves in awareness . . .
Frank suggests that to befriend fear, we need to feel safe. When we are held in loving arms we learn to trust . . . Loving arms become the holding environment from which we can venture out into the world . . . belonging . . . trusting . . .
We can think of awareness itself as this holding environment. When we sit and attend to our bodies we can offer loving attention. We can practice being held. Starting where we are . . . on the chair, the cushion, the bed or the floor. Can you feel them beneath you, holding you up, surrounding you? Can you relax just a little bit more into the support you’re give?. Can you enjoy the next effortless in-breath . . . and out-breath?
We can call to mind the many things that enable us to live . . . the comfort of our homes, the nourishment of our food, a simple cup of tea . . . We can practice being held . . . following the currents of feeling support as they course through our bodies . . . can we abide within those inner places of safety?
Frank suggests that
. . . . when we feel the safe holding environment of awareness embracing us, it allows our fear, pain, and ugliness to come out and show themselves and to be gently held without judgment so that they can be healed. We feel the support and courage to go beyond our previously limiting beliefs. . . .
Feel how you are held . . . There is nothing more you need to do, nowhere you have to go, and no one you have to be. Just being held in the heart of kindness and letting be. And just as we are being held and nurtured . . . we can cultivate a loving awareness in our feelings can belong.
Reflect on how this earth holds all beings. Reflect on how this earth is connected to a solar system and vast universe. We all are interconnected. Our bodies and the earth, the sun and the stars, are composed of the same matter—the same basic particles, joined in different ways. Feeling into that sense of connection and interconnection that we are all made of stardust. Feeling that sense of being home in your body and mind with a true sense of belonging and connection.
Just breathing in and out, feeling the grace of this universe . . . and being at home in your being. We are resting in a vast field . . . Even when nothing is happening, life is happening.