Better Posture Techniques for Meditation and Life | Day 2

Learn how to use external and internal postures to access a deeper level of awareness and relaxation. Includes 5 minutes of meditation amidst the ambient sounds of nature, birds, and background traffic.)
         ( This episode was formerly on the the Pure Light Project Podcast)

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Chapters

• 0:02 Exploring Presence Through Posture and Breath
• 19:22 Embarking on a Calm Inner Journey

Transcript

Andrea Mai: 0:02

Come over to PureLightBookshoppe. com and check out my newest book, T the Calm Way. And now let's get into today's presence session. Good morning, welcome to today's presence session. My name is Andrea Mai and I'm going to take us into a place of exploration, so I'm really glad you're here and joining me. What is presence? What does that really look like? What does it mean? It's an experience for me that you can talk about it, and that's great, but the reality is, until it's a felt, lived experience, it's kind of meaningless. It's just a concept, an intellectual idea, a trendy word, and so what I want to talk to you about today, and then we're going to practice together, is why, why show up For me and that is where I will speak from, for it is this absolute relaxation in the body. Even when circumstances might seem really jarring, there's a natural relaxed state that's available to us at all times, and we can really meet things as they arise, without labeling them good or bad or awful or anything. We can just experience them directly. And the other part of that is that the nature of reality, the true nature of reality, whatever you call that, in your experience, in your life, it may just be the basic ground of all things. It may be that you recognize that as a connection to source or to god, and you may simply enjoy the experience of it and not give too much thought to it. And that's beautiful, it's all, it's all good. For me, it is the natural state and everything else is layered on top of that, and so how do I peel back the stories and the, the stuff that is ising, it is blocking it. That's why I practice. That's what I've so been looking forward to sharing on this podcast and to sharing the experience of hopefully with you, the experience of hopefully with you. Yesterday we talked about calm, abiding or peaceful abiding practice, shamatha, our presence practices. Let us start to settle in, to really settle down into our bones. So today I want to go a little bit deeper with that, and part of the reason that I like to focus a little more in the beginning on on posture is because it sets us up for an easier way to access the presence, and so today I want to talk a little bit more about posture. We'll talk about outer posture, our external physical posture, and then we'll talk about our internal posture and then we're going to work with it. We're going to sit together for about five or ten minutes. My aim is to keep these between 15 and 20 minutes long so that they're doable on a daily basis. And so, as we talk about the external posture, the physical posture yesterday we talked about vertical alignment One of the things to support that is having a good seat. Having a good seat and by that I don't necessarily mean the thing, the object that you're sitting on, although that definitely can make a difference If you're in a chair that doesn't support you, or if you're, um, on cushions and they're too soft or they're too high or too short. Uh, if you're seated just on the ground, you know, and you can't get comfortable, how do you begin to come in to a place of, of natural rest and relaxation? And so there's things we can do with our body, no matter what what the seat is, that we're the, the object that we're seated on, and part of that is you can rock your body back and forth Once you take your position on the seat. Once you take that position notice, let's do that right now. So you've taken a position, notice how you feel. We talked yesterday about leaning too far forward or too far back, but what is it that really supports you right here right now. One of the best tips I ever received early on was that you can actually take your hands and just sort of on each side, spread, spread your buttocks apart just a little bit so that you have more of a stable base, and you'll notice that this also kind of releases pressure in the hips and the low back. Just take a breath together after you've tried that and just notice if you need to modify your position just a little. Notice your overall posture and now take a moment and just line yourself right up from the top of your crown down to your seat. So you've created a good stable base and let's just extend that, expand that. Imagine just like a rolling wave moving up your spine. You might move your body as a wave, just rock yourself open, flex, curl, breathe, roll your shoulders just a little, roll your neck just a little to elongate it. Chin is facing it kind of straight, but tucked down just ever so slightly. Notice the play between that and if you sort of have your neck cranked up, your head or chin pointed up and then find the center place between tucked in and overextended upward and then soften down into that, into a more relaxed place. I Our hands are really important about if they're there to support you. So, notice again, I like to sit very naturally, very casually. Notice again, I like to sit very naturally, very casually, with hands placed down on my thighs and or my kneecaps. So it depends again on are your arms long or short, are your legs long or short? These simple things, these simple things. What's beautiful is to, if you bring your elbows in towards your body and raise your hands up in the air and then just let them fall naturally and feel how that feels. I know this seems quite basic, but these are the things that support us, so that we can sit quietly and spaciously without as much distraction. I Okay, now, today I also want to speak briefly about our internal posture, because it supports and goes hand in hand with this external posture, and so the internal posture is one of poise, of regalness, but also like a very comfortable regal, and poise is the exact word that I've found to describe that. And so, no matter how you're feeling and we can feel many, many ways when we come to this practice every day we can meet the joyfulness and the neutralness and the sadness all at the same time, just allowing them room to bounce off of you the inner posture, allowing them room to bounce off of you. The inner posture is one of open curiosity and willingness, willingness to show up and connect with yourself, willingness to show up and meet what is and to let go of everything else, at least for the time that you're playing with this presence practice. So let's begin with those things which I've shared with you today about inner and outer posture. Work with those today. I will bring us in very gently and we got a good posture, a good seat let's take a breath together. Jo We're going to take three breaths Inhale each time a little more forcefully and exhale each time a little more forcefully so that you exhale the stagnation from your belly and your lungs. And let's do this together inhale once, exhale, inhale second time more deeply, make it audible, exhale and the third time inhale again even more vigorously, exhale, and if you need one more time, let's just do it again, a nice deep, all the way in and out. And now we will sit and in five minutes I will bring us out of this so that we can wrap up Thank you, so, so, thank you, so. Thank you the Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and get some more water, thank you. So Now we end our practice for today. I hope that you are able to take this practice out into your world, into your day, and continue to find ways to experience it in everything you do today. Inner posture and outer posture go with us everywhere, not just sitting for a bit of practice. That's why we practice so that we can meet the day with that same sense of casual, legal, comfortable in our own bones kind of way. Come back tomorrow for the next presence session and have such a good day. over to www. purelightbookshoppe. com and check out my newest book, The Calm Way: a Journey out O ut of the Weeds and into I the Wilds of true T inner I freedom F. Come Get your copy today

Andrea Mai: 20:31

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