This month, we expand the everyday relationships you have with the world around you. Imagine you go to a store–notice how it is to recognize that when you enter the store, you are immediately in relationship with it. You have joined the community of presences that comprises the store. Take a moment to offer gratitude and blessings to the store and to everything and everyone within it, acknowledging within yourself the inevitability of relatedness, of community, every time you move in and out of a particular space, be it a store, a park, a recreational environment, any building–anywhere at all…
Please remember never to listen to guided audio meditations while driving or using dangerous machinery.
If you’d rather see images of nature as you meditate, here’s link to the youtube version…
Recently, I participated in a conversation in front of a large group of people where a colleague and I discussed intersections between Somatic Experiencing® and other body-based approaches and Buddhist practices and concepts. What became the underlying theme for me was to convey to the audience that when we feel activated—under threat or overwhelmed—our perception narrows and we lose sight of the bigger picture. We can see this dynamic all around us at this time, where people on every side of an issue become locked into their perspective and are seemingly unable to take in new information that would widen their understanding of a given stance or situation. Also, we lose sight of all the good that’s happening in the world when we’re overwhelmed by activation.
The discussion went on to underscore the importance of being aware of our own particular activation signals and behaviors, and how essential it is to be able to manage ourselves and bring ourselves back into regulation when we notice that we are activated. I spent some time talking about the difference between the “trauma brain” and the “present-day brain”. The “trauma brain” operates within an either/or, lack-of-options framework, so when we’re activated, it’s difficult to see possibilities that weren’t initially obvious. The “present-day brain” operates within a framework of both/and, along with an ability to imagine a range of options.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a practice for this section of my website, and I do so now because of the quality of our collective human experience and expression at this time. Speaking from a perspective of frequencies, the collective frequency of our human family is expressing a quality of emotional experience that would be considered quite “dense.” Frequencies of fear, anger, hatred, suspicion are all quite intense and “thick” in the air.
Because I focus on frequencies quite a bit these days (see my video #5 in my Videos on Multidimensional Living on my website), I find myself deeply concerned about the current quality of our collective emotional well-being. Following is a variation on the Buddhist practice of Tonglen, a heart-based practice of breathing in distressing or negative frequencies, allowing the fiery Love in the heart to neutralize those frequencies, and then breathing out something more constructive or positive, be that love, peace, ease, harmlessness, etc. I think of this kind of practice, altered significantly from the actual Buddhist practice, as akin to what oysters do. We’re filtering out toxins in order to allow our collective consciousness to resonate with more positive frequencies.
As I’ve written about before, we are all affected by our human collective consciousness in every moment, even as we automatically contribute to that collective also in every moment. Quantum research has now demonstrated that we are inextricably entangled, interconnected, with everything else and that goes for our human collective presence, as well. So, the quality of the energies with which we are entangled truly and deeply matters. What we contribute to those energies through the quality of our own being and also our way of moving through the world truly and deeply matters, too.
Here’s the practice and I’ll offer some additional suggestions that you can explore if you’re not comfortable with the way the practice is set up:
Begin by settling in and taking a moment to ground yourself so that you are present, aware, and settled.
Bring your awareness to your heart space and in whatever ways make sense to you notice that your heart is filled with the light, energy, and frequency of Love. This Light is ever-present because it arises from an infinite source of Universal Love. It cannot run out, you can’t use it up.
Take a moment to also notice that this is a fiery Love. It is a purifying energy.
Now, become of aware of the distress in humanity in whatever way is comfortable for you to do so. You might focus on fear or anger or suffering. Any and all of our human negative feelings contribute to the density of our collective, shared consciousness. Choose what feels right for this time.
Breathe the negative frequency into your heart space, knowing that the fiery Love will immediately neutralize and cleanse what you have breathed in. Then, imagine that the neutralized energy is filled with, becomes, a quality, a frequency you have chosen to breathe out into the world this time—love, ease, peace, harmlessness, kindness—whatever resonates for you this time.
As you breathe out, notice that you first fill yourself with the quality/frequency of what you have chosen to breathe out. Then notice that your out-breath continues to carry the quality out to the world around you and recognize that it also becomes part of our human collective consciousness.
Do this for as long as you would like but be sure to track your comfort level. It’s always best not to over-do a practice like this. It’s more powerful than we usually realize and helping to shift the quality of our human collective is not a marathon—it’s a moment-to-moment, day-by-day process of taking the time to orient to qualities that express positive and constructive frequencies.
When you’re through, again notice your heart space. The presence of fiery Love is always there for you to experience and to share when you feel moved to do so.
When you’re ready, bring yourself all the way back, orienting to the sights and sounds of the environment around you.
If you are uncomfortable breathing in negative energy, you can begin this practice by imagining that you are surrounded by white light and that the white light begins to neutralize the negative quality right away, well before it reaches your heartspace.
If the whole practice makes you uncomfortable, here’s another one you might explore:
Begin by settling yourself in as you would do whenever you are going to have an inner experience. Be sure to give yourself a moment to become grounded and comfortably present.
Bring your awareness to your heartspace and gently breathe in and out through your heart for a few moments.
Next, imagine in whatever way makes sense to you, the dense field of our collective human emotional consciousness, a field of awareness that is shared by all of us. Allow a representation of its density to come into awareness. If you use imagery, allow an image to come. If you work more in the realm of words, let words come. If you work more in the arena of felt-sense, notice the felt-sense of the field of density.
Then, if it works for you, imagine that small points of light begin to show up here and there within the density and hold the intention that these small points of light bring the positive and constructive frequencies described in the practice above. Whatever mode of awareness you draw on to do this kind of work, the key is to notice that the density begins to fill with points of light that carry positive and constructive qualities into this collective field of consciousness.
If you don’t do imagery, perhaps there could be a sound, a word, a sensation or a feeling that you could imagine begins to penetrate our collective emotional field, conveying more positive and constructive frequencies/qualities into that field.
Take as much time as is comfortable for you to imagine more and more points of light showing up within the density and notice how that feels to you.
When you’re ready to come back, bring your awareness to the environment around you, noticing sounds, perhaps smells, and whatever you notice when you open your eyes.
These practices are forms of subtle activism, which we can all do even when we can’t go out into the world and actively work to help create a positive shift in our collective human experience. There are countless other practices in subtle activism that you can explore by simply googling “subtle activism practices.”
As with all these practices in conscious living, please remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise, allowing them to move on through without your having to do anything with or about them.
Here’s the audio version of this practice if you’d rather listen to it. Also, please remember never to listen to guided audio meditations while driving or using dangerous machinery. You may find that you need to pause the recording when you are doing the practices, as I didn’t leave a lot of time between the various steps.
A post on Facebook had a picture of Mr. Rogers describing what creates success and there were three sentences all ending in “kindness”. This got me to thinking, yet again, of the importance of kindness as a primary stance in moving through daily life. In the present state of our collective interpersonal life, adding in more kindness seems an important and useful antidote (at least in all the small ways kindness can make a tangible difference).
Thinking about kindness also got me to thinking about the relationship between heart intelligence and perception and kindness, as it feels to me that kindness arises and emerges from the heart. I recently read an article about what is now considered by science as the real possibility of a “heart brain”. Stories of people who have received heart transplants attest to the fact that the heart is more than merely a physical pump.
I’m sure I’ve written about this many times, but here I go again. Where we focus our attention, what we think about, how we engage our imagination has a powerful impact on the quality of our inner life and on how we behave and act in our world. What we attend to matters. What we imagine matters.
This week I want to share some thoughts about engaging what’s called the “imaginal realm”. When we enter the imaginal realm, we aren’t engaging something “imaginary”. Instead, we touch into a kind of language or communication that uses visual and other sensory impressions rather than strings of words. Our culture tends not to privilege awareness that operates in the imaginal realm and yet it’s one of the most powerful creative forces we have available to us.
For example, spend a moment right now bringing into awareness either an image of some beautiful place you’ve been—a place that touched you deeply, or recall a sound, fragrance, or sensation that moves you in a way that is meaningful to you. Since images are my main language in this realm, I often “see” trees that have touched me, such as the giant Sequoia I’m imagining right now. This image generates a powerful felt-sense of awe and heart-filling expansion, with my whole body-mind responding to the memory of the presence of this magnificent tree. Or, I might bring into awareness an image of one of the cats who live with me doing something amusing, something that fills me with delight and touches my heart, as well as generating a smile and a chuckle.
We know from science that our brains register imaginal experience in much the same way as actual lived experience, creating a full experience in the body (sensations) and psyche (emotional and mental states). The only difference is that these experiences and awareness arise and unfold in the imaginal realm.
