Speaker 1: Us studious. Welcome to this stillness journal meditation. Take a
Speaker 1: moment to settle in. Find the place where you can
Speaker 1: be still for the next twenty minutes. Close your eyes
Speaker 1: if that feels ripe, or let your gaze soften at
Speaker 1: a point in front of you. Let the day begin
Speaker 1: to fall away, layer by layer, until there is only
Speaker 1: this breath, and this body, and this small pocket of quiet.
Speaker 1: Begin by noticing your feet. Feel the weight of them
Speaker 1: resting on the floor. Notice the pressure at your heels,
Speaker 1: the gentle contact at the balls of your feet, the
Speaker 1: toes spread or curled, however they are. Your feet have
Speaker 1: carried you through this whole day. They have walked you
Speaker 1: from one room to the next, from the bed to
Speaker 1: the door, from the door back to the bed. They
Speaker 1: have absorbed the shock of every step you have taken,
Speaker 1: and they have done it without your ever having to ask.
Speaker 1: Just notice them, thank them quietly in your own way.
Speaker 1: Move up now to your legs. Feel the heaviness of them,
Speaker 1: the way they support you. Notice the muscles along your thighs,
Speaker 1: the softness behind your knees, the length of your shins.
Speaker 1: You do not have to change anything, You only have
Speaker 1: to notice. This is a practice of noticing, not of fixing.
Speaker 1: Bring your attention to your hips and your lower back.
Speaker 1: So much of our tension lives here, So much of
Speaker 1: our day is held in the small of the back.
Speaker 1: See if you can soften there, even by a fraction.
Speaker 1: Let the weight of your pulvis sink just slightly into
Speaker 1: whatever is beneath you. You are being held. You are supported,
Speaker 1: the chair, the floor, the cushion. They are taking some
Speaker 1: of the work that you have been doing alone. Move
Speaker 1: to the Notice the belly rising and falling with each breath.
Speaker 1: Do not try to change the breath, only watch it.
Speaker 1: The inhale comes, the exhale goes, the inhale comes, the
Speaker 1: exhale goes. Each breath is a small, quiet conversation between
Speaker 1: you and the world. Each breath says I am here.
Speaker 1: Each exhale says I'm letting go. Now. Bring your attention
Speaker 1: to your chest. Notice the ribs expanding gently with each inhalation.
Speaker 1: Notice the way the chest settles back softly with each exhalation.
Speaker 1: You do not have to take a deeper breath. You
Speaker 1: do not have to breathe more perfectly. You only have
Speaker 1: to be here with the breath. That is already moving
Speaker 1: through you, the breath that has been moving through you
Speaker 1: since the very first moment you arrived in this body.
Speaker 1: Soften the shoulders, let them drop, even by a millimeter.
Speaker 1: We hold so much in our shoulders, the weight of
Speaker 1: conversations we did not finish, the weight of decisions we
Speaker 1: have not yet made, the weight of carrying everyone else.
Speaker 1: Let the shoulders release what they no longer need to carry.
Speaker 1: You are allowed to set things down, even for a
Speaker 1: few minutes. Even the smallest setting down is enough. Move
Speaker 1: to the arms. Notice the weight of your arms, wherever
Speaker 1: they are resting. Notice the palms of your hands, Notice
Speaker 1: the fingers. The hands have done so much to day.
Speaker 1: They have held, they have typed, they have gestured, they
Speaker 1: have grasped, they have opened. Let them rest. Now, let
Speaker 1: them be still, Let them simply be. And now the neck,
Speaker 1: the jaw, the face soft than the jaw, Let the
Speaker 1: teeth part slightly. Soften the tongue away from the roof
Speaker 1: of the mouth. Soften the muscles around your eyes, the
Speaker 1: small muscles between your brows. So much of our world
Speaker 1: lives in the face, in the expressions we wear for others,
Speaker 1: in the ones we wear only for ourselves. Let those
Speaker 1: expressions fall away, even briefly. Let the face rest, Let
Speaker 1: it remember what it feels like to be a face
Speaker 1: that is not performing anything. Now take a slightly deeper breath,
Speaker 1: just one. Let the inhill be long enough to reach
Speaker 1: the belly. Let the exhal be long enough to feel
Speaker 1: the body settle. And on the next inhale, ask yourself,
Speaker 1: very gently, what your body already knows. What does your
Speaker 1: body know that your mind has not yet caught up to.
Speaker 1: It knows how to rest, It knows how to digest.
Speaker 1: It knows how to heal a small cut, how to
Speaker 1: beat a heart seventy or eighty times a minute, without
Speaker 1: you ever once asking it to. It knows how to
Speaker 1: keep you alive every second of every day, without any
Speaker 1: praise at all. It knows how to signal a tired yawn,
Speaker 1: a flutter of an anxiety in the chest, a heaviness
Speaker 1: in the legs when you have been standing too long.
Speaker 1: It knows how to speak to you in sensation, in temperature,
Speaker 1: in the gentle pull of a muscle that is asking
Speaker 1: for movement or for stillness. It knows how to hold
Speaker 1: a feeling when grief arrives the body holds it. The
Speaker 1: chest tightens, the throat closes, the eyes water. The body
Speaker 1: knows how to make room for sorrow. When joy arrives,
Speaker 1: the body holds that too. The chest opens, the breath
Speaker 1: comes easier, the face into something that looks a little
Speaker 1: like home. What does your body know that your mind
Speaker 1: is still arguing with. Maybe the body knows when you've
Speaker 1: had enough enough stimulation, enough noise, enough input. The body
Speaker 1: says rest, and the mind says one more thing, one
Speaker 1: more email, one more piece of information, one more phone notification.
Speaker 1: The body waits. The body is patient. The body will
Speaker 1: keep waiting, but it never stops sending the signal. It
Speaker 1: just gets louder eventually, in the form of tension, in
Speaker 1: the form of fatigue, in the form of a wakefulness
Speaker 1: that will not stop. Maybe the body knows when a
Speaker 1: choice is right before the mind has weighed the pros
Speaker 1: and cons, before the mind has made its careful list,
Speaker 1: the body has already felt the answer, a softening or
Speaker 1: a tightening, an opening or a closing. The body has
Speaker 1: its own counsel, older than language, older than logic, and
Speaker 1: if you can learn to listen for it, even briefly,
Speaker 1: it will tell you things you have been trying to
Speaker 1: figure out for years. Maybe the body knows how to forgive, slowly,
Speaker 1: without negotiation. The body forgives the muscle that was strained
Speaker 1: and now is healed. The body forgives the bruise that
Speaker 1: has faded. The body forgives the sleep you did not
Speaker 1: get enough of last night by trying to day to
Speaker 1: give you more. The body is in the business of
Speaker 1: letting go of yesterday. The mind is sometimes not notice
Speaker 1: for a moment what your body is telling you right now,
Speaker 1: Not what you figure it should be telling you, not
Speaker 1: what you wish it were telling you, Just what is
Speaker 1: actually here in this body, on this cushion, in this chair,
Speaker 1: in this exact posture. Maybe it is saying I am tired.
Speaker 1: Maybe it is saying I am anxious. Maybe it is
Speaker 1: saying I am okay, I am just here. I am
Speaker 1: waiting for you to notice me. Whatever it is saying,
Speaker 1: see if you can meet it with curiosity instead of judgment.
Speaker 1: See if you can meet it the way you would
Speaker 1: meet a friend who has finally gotten the courage to speak.
Speaker 1: Just listen, just let it speak. You do not have
Speaker 1: to fix it, You do not have to talk back.
Speaker 1: You only have to receive. This is one of the
Speaker 1: great hidden offerings of stillness. It is not, as some
Speaker 1: people imagine, a practice of emptying the mind. It is
Speaker 1: a practice of arriving in the body, of remembering that
Speaker 1: we are not just ideas, not just plans, not just
Speaker 1: lists of things we have not done. We are bodies.
Speaker 1: We are weight and breath and both. We are blood
Speaker 1: moving through vessels, and air moving through lungs, and the
Speaker 1: heart that has not stopped beating once since the day
Speaker 1: we will bon sofen again. Now, let the body take
Speaker 1: a slightly deeper breath, and on that breath, consider what
Speaker 1: it would mean to trust what your body already knows.
Speaker 1: It would mean perhaps resting when rest is asked for,
Speaker 1: instead of pushing through one more task. It would mean
Speaker 1: perhaps eating when you are hungry, stopping when you are
Speaker 1: full without a story about it. It would mean moving
Speaker 1: in ways that feel good, not just ways that are efficient.
Speaker 1: It would mean letting yourself feel tired without immediately reaching
Speaker 1: for another cup of coffee, another burst of distraction, another
Speaker 1: way to outrun the body's quiet request. It would mean
Speaker 1: honoring the body's wisdom about what it needs right now
Speaker 1: in this season. In this chapter, of your life. You
Speaker 1: do not have to know exactly how to do any
Speaker 1: of this. You do not have to do it perfectly.
Speaker 1: You only have to begin. You only have to listen,
Speaker 1: even for a minute. You only have to treat the
Speaker 1: body's signal as a signal worth heating instead of a
Speaker 1: problem to be overreaden. Take another breath, this time letting
Speaker 1: the inhale, expand the ribs in every direction, side to side,
Speaker 1: front to back, feel the lungs, fill the whole cavity
Speaker 1: of the chest. Then let the breath go slowly with
Speaker 1: a long, easy sigh. Now bring your attention back, very
Speaker 1: gently to the room around you. Notice the sounds that
Speaker 1: are present. Notice the temperature of the air on your skin.
Speaker 1: Notice the weight of the body, the contact with the chair,
Speaker 1: the position of the hands. Begin to invite small movement
Speaker 1: back in. Wiggle the fingers, wiggle the toes, roll the
Speaker 1: shoulders once gently. When you are ready, let the eyes open, slowly,
Speaker 1: taking in the light, without rushing toward the day. Take
Speaker 1: one last breath, and on this breath, thank yourself. Thank
Speaker 1: yourself for taking these twenty minutes, Thank yourself for choosing stillness,
Speaker 1: Thank yourself for being willing to listen, even briefly, to
Speaker 1: what the body has been trying to say. The body
Speaker 1: has been with you your whole life. It will be
Speaker 1: with you for the rest of it. It has been
Speaker 1: your home, your vehicle, your closest companion, and it has
Speaker 1: never once asked for very much in return. It has
Speaker 1: only ever asked you to listen. Thank you for practicing
Speaker 1: with me this stillness journal meditation is complete.