Exercise 2: Presence

Did you know that you have more than one body? Besides your physical body, you also have a emotional body and a mental body.

When you are in your emotional body, you are in the past. It is there that you nurse old wounds, replay scenes from when you were either a victim or  a victor, and re-experience a sense of scary separateness. You can get lost in the woulda-shoulda-coulda game of regret and loss. It’s where you dwell in unresolved pain.

When you are in your mental body, you live in a future that doesn’t yet exist. You worry about what may or may not happen. You’re anxious about what you can and can’t control. You can build a thousand scenarios around your angst. And then a thousand more.

When  you are in your physical body, though, you are present. Here and now, all is well. When you pause to be with your breath, when you bring your consciousness to the soft confines of your body, when you observe your bodily senses, you experience no anguish, no anxiety. Here you find stillness, ease, peace and connection to your Source, no matter what is swirling around outside you.

With that framework, I invite you to get in a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down. You’ll be here for 15ish minutes so you want to be comfortable and relaxed but not so much that you fall off to sleep (although if you do, that’s OK). Simply click Play. You may also want to have soft or chanting music on, something that is meaningful and relaxing to you. Note that there are stretches of silence, space you do not need to fill.

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Inhale deeply and close by offering gratitude to God/the Divine, to your body for serving you well, and to your Self for making YOU a priority with this sacred time. Exhale.

May you always be able to access the peace and calm within you.

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Want more? Click on Audio Exercise #1.

For more on building a regular meditation practice, visit Sally Kempton’s website.