Resting in the Stillness Underneath Stress: A Meditation with Dr. Rick Hanson

I offer these every week along with a short teaching. Just click the subscribe link below to be notified through YouTube when I post the recording of the latest one. Or if you'd like to join me live, which I'd really welcome, go down into the description section below and follow the link along to be able to sign up for free. [Music] So find a posture that is kind and comfortable for you and helps you to remain present and alert. It's okay to sit, to stand, to walk, or to lie down. The four traditional postures of meditation. It's okay to have your eyes open or closed. or alternating from one to the other. Meditation is such an opportunity to come home. [Music] And as our minds in modern society typically race about for most of us, mine included, it's really nice to have this opportunity in meditation for the body to catch up to the thoughts that race along. So, I like to take a little time when I meditate to, you know, move around a little, adjust my clothing, sit up a little straighter as we come home to the present. That means coming home to our bodies. And it's helpful to find aspects of body sensations that are a comfortable home for you. That might depend on the person, especially if you have health problems or a history of trauma. And if you'd rather come home to a more general sense of the space you're in, that's fine, too. Perhaps coming home to central feelings, healthy core feelings like kindness or lovingness or gratitude. As is traditionally taught, I'll refer to a coming home to the breath, but feel free to come home elsewhere if you like, as long as it works for you. You can let awareness move around in your body, sensing and easing in the different places where awareness lands. You could take a few especially deep breaths. Being aware of the sensations of air flowing in and flowing out. neurologically tuning into internal sensations that are neutral or positive such as I think for most of us um the internal sensations of breathing with the air flowing in and flowing out. Chest rising and falling. Diaphragm moving as we inhale and exhale just below the rib cage. Tuning into these internal sensations, an aspect of interosception, helps to bring us into the present, helps to disengage from distracting verbal activity. Ready. Helps to reduce rumination and mind wandering. And tracking internal sensations of breathing naturally brings an immediacy of knowing that in the present we're basically okay right now. There's enough to breathe. We're going on being in a vital primal embodied way. You're basically all right right now. While breathing, continuing to notice that you're basically all right right now. And with that knowing opening to and allowing sense of relief and reassurance in the present and a releasing of anxiety in the present as we meditate. Can you let yourself feel basically all right right now? This is a bodily sense of easing, a relaxing of defendedness in the body. You might look around where you are and recognize that you're all right where you are. The knowing of basical rightness in the present is a profound freedom. It's a profound inner peace. We can take the sense of fundamental allrightness in the present when it's true as an object of meditation. There may be pain, there may be worry or sadness. And in the midst of these, we can find a fundamental underlying sense of basic peacefulness. Basic all rightness. A simple sense of being. whatever the future may hold. Noticing even saying to yourself what is true in the present. I am basically all right right now and now resting in being. disengaging from becoming in the present. With a natural widening of awareness, comfortable in the present, we can open our bodies, relaxing any guarding or bracing in the body. As long as you're all right in the present, spaciously aware in all directions. Feeling the grounding in your body in the present. Moving a little if you like. Stabilizing. Feeling the stability of simply being. Letting awareness be wide and open. and gently inviting some heartfelt feelings such as kindness, compassion, lovingness. Staying simple, focusing on feelings rather than any complicated relationships. You can explore what it's like to rest in the present comfortably with a spaciousness of awareness with a heartfeltness spreading outward from you in all directions. You can get a sense of whatever is beneficial here spreading down and into your body establishing itself in you. You opening to it, giving over to this establishing of presence, ease, openheartedness. Rather than striving to come home, we can already be home. We can already be established in our true home. Underneath all the pain, underneath all the straining and stresses, under the conflicts, under the complications. Our true home is always already here, underneath it all, containing it all. Our true home is in the present underneath it all. A peaceful sanctuary. [Music] [Music] [Music]