Meet Yourself With Presence

Welcome. Let's start by finding a comfortable posture. So this means you're both alert and relaxed. You may be seated with your feet firmly rooted on the ground, your hands on your lap, your eyes perhaps gently lowered or your eyes closed. The theme of this meditation is to meet yourself with presence.

And so many of us don't meet ourselves with presence, with a kind, loving, curious attention. Rather, we meet ourselves with judgment or we don't even meet ourselves. Uh, we may be checked out of our bodies and minds and just navigating life on autopilot. And this practice will help you to learn ways to meet yourself with something that is already naturally there, your own presence. It's important to recognize it first and then learn how to meet what comes in your life.

You know, a situation, a thought, a difficult emotion, happiness pain in your body. All of it. You get the point here. So let's get into the practice. First, noticing the flow of the breath in and out.

No need to change your breath. Simply bringing attention to your breath. Opening your senses. Feeling your body. Now become aware of your own presence.

So this is a quality of being that you already have and already are. It may be a felt sense in your body actually, a global felt sense of being here, being alive, of noticing your experience. There are a few qualities to your own presence that when you're out of your own way, you can deeply experience. So welcome in these qualities now, like kindness, love, a kind, curious attention. The part of you that isn't judging.

That isn't refusing your experience. That isn't avoiding your experience. Get in touch more deeply with this part of yourself that is open to what comes with curiosity, actually. Not with fear, but with curiosity and love, can you invite in this aspect of who you are, your very presence? And for those of us who have a judging mind, it can be hard to find this in ourselves. So give yourself some time to explore.

And looking for my own presence that's always here it's actually loving and caring. And when you come across it, simply acknowledge it and deepen into it. So this means let go of your thinking mind, let, go of trying to figure this out and just be. Just rest here in an open way, curious, and kind about what comes including your judging mind, that's something that your presence can meet and welcome. Okay.

Now that we're in touch with the quality of presence in ourselves, it's naturally here that we. Really just need to tune into. Well, let's turn toward our experience with this presence and meet ourselves. One phrase I like to say is, 'Oh, this too. This too.' In other words, deeply acknowledging.

Oh, this is here. This too is here. This joy, thi sadness, this pain, this pleasure.This too. When we can orient to our experience from a sense of wholeness and of presence, our lives can change. We begin to learn and understand what it means to meet ourselves deeply.

And this translates out into being able to meet others, but first we meet ourselves. So let's practice bringing this presence to our body. First, sensing your whole body, all the way from soles of your feet, hips, shoulders, crown of the head. Welcoming your whole body as it is in this moment, with no agenda to change, fix, improve. But just being with yourself as you are with a quality of curiosity, of kindness.

How is it to meet your body from presence? Now bring attention to the breath, the flow of the breath in and out. Meeting your breath from presence. Again, no need to change, alter, make better. Breath has simply flowing in and out and here you are from a sense of presence and wholeness meeting what's arising. So it's very relational, this practice.

Okay. Now let's meet any emotion that is present from presence. Noticing is there an emotion that I have that's here now? Maybe peace or a frustration or something that I've experienced recently that I can take one moment to meet from presence. What if this emotion of disappointment, sadness, whatever it is, what if this emotion didn't need to be different? You didn't need it to go away. Just as my body is here, my breath is here, my emotions are here as they are, and I'm meeting them with a quality of kindness, of curiosity.

What's here? Oh, this too. This too is here. Notice the impact on your body when you meet yourself with presence. Now meeting any thoughts, memories, images with presence. Noticing.

Have you been having any troubling or challenging thoughts lately? Or is there a memory or image that keeps coming to you? Maybe a challenging situation that you're replaying in your head? If so, can you turn toward this thought, this image, this memory, and simply bring your kind, loving attention to what you're seeing, experiencing in your mind? As with the breath, no need to change, get rid of. It's just arising and returning toward in this gesture of meeting, of welcoming what's here with our own presence. How is it to meet yourself in this way, this too, this too. You can use this practice where you focus more on the presence in you that's meeting what's arising than you're focusing on what's arising. So there's this attitude of curiosity, of kindness, of love, care that you'd have for, uh, for instance, a little newborn child.

This is your own presence that you're meeting yourself with. Your body, your breath, emotions, thoughts, memories, images, joys, challenges, the whole mess of life as it were. The good and the bad and the ugly. When we're able to connect with our own presence, it radically changes the way that we move through life because we're not living in refusal, denial, ignorance. We're actually, we're living a life that is far more vibrant and alive and willing to meet all that arises in our experience.

This is one of the deep foundations of mindfulness. I appreciate you taking the time to be here and thank you for your practice.