Welcome. My name's Cory Muscara, and this will be a meditation to work with tinnitus. There will be several layers to this meditation, each designed with a particular purpose. And it's important to know upfront that the orientation of this meditation will be not to get rid of the tinnitus, but to start to shift our relationship to it and be able to find peace within this experience. Of course, the ideal scenario would be for the noise to go away.

And there is that possibility that the intensity of it will reduce with a meditation like this. But the avenue we're taking toward that is reducing the amount that we are fighting against this experience, because there's often another layer of stress, frustration, anger, and suffering that arises when we fight what's here. So we'll see if we can let down some of that resistance and find some ease within the dis-ease. Let's take the first few moments to settle in. Find a comfortable posture, may be seated, lying down.

We'll start by taking a nice deep breath together. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Letting the body start to settle in inviting the jaw to soften the teeth. Don't need to be clenched right now, inviting the shoulders to soften the belly and then the hands.

We can't force these areas to relax, but we can invite them to. And if you notice that there's any other place in the body that you're holding tension, just bring your awareness there and invite those areas to soften. Maybe the feet. The muscles in the face,. The neck.

Often when our minds are holding tension, especially when they're resisting and abrasive experience, the body can accumulate some of that tension as well. So here you have the opportunity to just invite the body to soften, invite the body, to start to disengage a bit. Doesn't need to be holding on. Doesn't need to be gripping. Another a deep breath.

In through the nose. And out through the mouth. Good. And as you sit here, just become aware of the fact that you're breathing. It doesn't have to be long, deep breaths.

You could just breathe normally. Feeling the air, move into the body, expanding the lungs, the belly, the chest. And then move out of the body on an exhale. We're just feeling the simplicity of this breath. of the fact that you're breathing.

Or, we might say that this body is breathing you. And you may notice that the mind wanders off, to the sounds or to thoughts. And as that happens, for right now, just allow these experiences to come and go. Or to be in the background, kind of like clouds passing through the sky. If you were walking down the street, there's a lot that you can pay attention to and the clouds are still above you, but it doesn't mean we necessarily have to look at them or give them attention.

So here we're just feeling our breath. The sound may be there, the thoughts may be there, but we're giving a bit more of our attention to the experience of the breath. Letting the breath be a reminder that there is more right with you than wrong with you, and more right in your life than wrong in your life. Because on the most fundamental level you're alive. And see if you can just feel the goodness of this breath, this body breathing.

You're not broken. You do not need to be fixed. Now this next step may feel counterintuitive, but we're actually going to turn our attention toward the sound, toward the noise that may be there. And as you contemplate doing that, there may be a sense of gripping or anger that arises, or fighting. And so we're just going to tiptoe toward that experience.

And as you do, notice what thoughts arise, what emotions arise. And what we're going to do is give the noise a color. So we're going to envelop it with your favorite color, whatever that is. And imagine that color as maybe a water or a powder or a gas, and it's just infusing the sound. It's becoming the experience of the sound.

So now when you experience the sound, see the sound, feel the sound, it's also accompanied by this color. So you just start to watch what the color is doing. Is it really vast? Does the color take over your entire experience? Is there movement within the color? And are there edges to the color? So maybe the color is like a cloud and you can actually see an outline of the color. So maybe hang out around the edges of that outline. The edges of where the sound is and where the sound is not so intense.

Or remembering that any intensity of sound is also intensity of color. So the two become one representation, one experience. And if you want to bring other colors into this experience, you may. Watching them interact. Watching them dance in your mind.

Just notice what it's like to experience the sound in this way. Without having to get rid of it right now or change it. We're decorating it. We're playing with it in some sense. So we have one or a couple particular colors for the experience of the sound.

Now we'll give another color to the space around the sound. So outside the boundaries of the current color that we have. So, if you were to identify parts in your experience in your field of awareness, where maybe you don't notice a sound as much, or maybe it's place in your body, or maybe it's the experience of the breath, we want to give some colors to those areas, the areas that aren't so identified with the sound. Just starting to play around with that. Noticing what colors you might give to those areas.

Maybe they overlap a little bit with the color of the sound. And that's okay. We're just starting to notice some distinctions and some other spaces in our experience. And it's okay to have a little fun with this and have some fun with choosing what color you would put in what place. Or if it's confusing or frustrating, you know, you don't have to worry so much about making it perfect.

Maybe it feels like there's no other colors. It's just the sound, and that's okay. And just be with the one color of just that sound. And let it be expansive. And make it your favorite color.

And so what you may have is something that might feel like, or look like a lava lamp. These different colors arising, surfacing bubbling, clumping together, morphing with one another, releasing. And the whole idea here is we're just noticing what it's like to take a playful relationship to this experience. And we'll start to turn our attention more toward the sound again, just noticing the sound. If there's a color involved, that's okay.

If the color dissipates, that's fine too. And we'll bring a quality of curiosity to the sound. Watching it be there. Becoming interested in what it's doing. Does the tone change? Does it get louder and then softer? Is it just on the right side or the left side? Simply watching this experience.

Noticing that you have this capacity to observe without creating extra frustration, extra tension. The sound is not trying to cause you harm. It's not trying to ruin your life. It's not trying to create agitation. It doesn't have an agenda in that way.

If we let it do whatever it's going to do, without fighting against it so much, and it won't push back on us as much. Who you are is much bigger and more expansive than any sound moving through your experience. Can you tune into the spaciousness of who you are? Of what else is present for you in this moment? Sensations in the body. The experience of your breath. Other sounds that you might be able to hear.

We can narrow our attention in on just one experience. We could also make our attention broad. And anytime we look at something, there's always going to be space around that thing. And right now we're tuning into the space around the sound. Seeing the other aspects of our life that are here.

The other experiences that are here. And they can still be there while the sound is in the background. Maybe sometimes really trying to join the party. The sound might feel like an annoying neighbor. Maybe we just haven't had the opportunity to meet that neighbor yet.

Sometimes when we sit down and actually have a conversation with them, we see that there's more to who they are and what they are than the initial judgments that we had. Even though we might not love the person or like the person, maybe there's a bit more understanding and compassion for them. So as we move toward the end of this meditation, perhaps sitting down at the dinner table with the sound. If we were to personify it, we can give it a shape, color, or an identity. Just imagine that you're sitting down and having a conversation with it.

Could be at a dining room table. It could be on a park bench. And you're both acknowledging each other's presence. And feel what it's like to be in the presence of this being, this experience in a friendly, curious way, as if you were meeting them for a meal or a conversation. And with anything in life, we can't control what other people are going to do or what other things are going to do.

But we can influence how we relate to these experiences. So if there's anything you'd like to say to the sound, this being that's sitting beside you, to help shift the relationship to one of greater ease, friendliness, feel free to offer that. And you may say, I see you. I hear you. I'm here with you.

I don't necessarily know why you're here, but as long as you are, I'm not going to create more suffering for you. You can exist as you are. And sometimes, I'll sit down next to you. And sometimes, I'm going to have to go for a walk. And maybe I'll see you.

And maybe I won't, but if you're going to be here, then I can learn to be okay with that. And perhaps there is some larger lesson that you're here to teach me that I'm not aware of. And making a final embrace between the two of you. Taking a breath together. And then dropping back into your own experience, back to your own breath.

Feeling the air move into your body, expanding your lungs. Feeling that goodness, that aliveness. And feeling the body it deflate on an exhale. In a moment, I will ring the bells three times. And as I do, just let your full presence be with the sound of each bell until the third bell dissolves into silence.

When you're ready, you can start to reorient yourself back into the space. Invite the eyes to open. Maybe wiggle the fingers and toes. And you may have noticed some reduction in intensity of the sound during that experience, but if not, the primary orientation was in reducing the suffering that comes from fighting and pushing against the experience. And the interesting thing that starts to happen there is, often when we fully accept, embrace and become okay with an experience that's here, it's only then that the experience actually starts to change or move away.

So it's an interesting phenomenon that occurs. But in life, there are always going to be experiences that we don't want. It's an inevitable part of being a human. Whether it's tinnitus, whether it's old age, sickness, death, a relationship breakup, a job loss, these are aspects of what it means to be a human being. And so I think this is an experience that you can look at on a deeper level as something that might actually help you find greater peace in other areas of your life.

As you start to pacify the mind that pushes and fights and gets angry toward the experience of the sound, you might watch that carry over into other parts of your life. Ultimately, leading to a greater sense of peace within a lot of things that might not be peaceful. So taking that broader perspective of what a deeper purpose or meaning there might be for this thing can be really helpful when there are experiences that we can't explain or that we have to live with on a regular basis. So you did great. Know that you can come back to this meditation at any point that you'd like.

And as you do it on a consistent basis, you'll notice that some of the strategies that we've developed here will become a natural part of how you relate to the sound in your day-to-day life. I wish you the best of luck. And until we meet again, take care.