Hold Your Ground

This episode is a follow-up to the previous one. Again, we're practicing looking from different centers and noticing what we perceive and how it feels to be perceived. The difference is that the person who was the innocent bystander in the last episode is now has a job to do. Okay, so same idea. Turn and face each other. Maybe you're sitting on the ground, maybe in a chair, and like always before endeavoring in any experiment, Alana, if at any time you want out of this experiment, just say stop. Here at any time in this experiment, if you want out of it, just say stop. Got it. Now, I'm gonna play the looker in this first part. Alana is going to be observed, but instead of being an innocent bystander, Alana is going to make an effort to stay grounded, meaning that as I move my awareness from my belly to my heart to my head, she's gonna really work at staying grounded instead of the natural temptation of coming with me. Okay, so both people, looker and observed, snuggle in. I'm gonna refer to Alana from now on as the grounded one. Big deliberate inhale. Exhale, let it happen, and both of you ground. Let your low belly drop, let your pelvic floor drop, like really get grounded. And then only once you both feel grounded, like then eventually to indicate you're ready, you will stay grounded as you allow your face to lift, and you're both looking at each other from your bellies now. And grounded one, which in this case is Alana, grounded one stays grounded as the looker moves up into the heart region. So the looker is like the, the awareness is in the heart, and you're looking from your heart.

Grounded one stays grounded, and the looker, you're gonna move your awareness up into your mind. Up into the region of the head. And now looker, you're gonna bring your awareness back into your belly. Now both of you are grounded. And now if you're the looker, now the request is to turn on all three centers. So if you're the looker, stay grounded as you brighten your heart, and as you let your mind open. So tune your attention in your head enough. So now that you have all three centers, and now a person that's been playing the grounded one, you're now free. Like relax your effort of grounding, and just notice what you do. Okay, big delivered. Inhale, exhale, get out of there. Now share amongst yourselves. If it helps, we're gonna also share. So Alana, what did you notice? Well I noticed that as soon as you came up into your heart, it was hard to stay grounded, and I naturally wanted to move with you from the heart, and then up into the head, and so I just like had to find my belly, and had to find my pelvis, and had to feel my sit bones in order to stay grounded. So it was there's a little bit of effort there, and what I noticed is that you're very grounded, and it was really hard to actually move up and away. Like there was such a strong connection here that I really had to work. It was like I had to leave the party to kind of calm up into my heart, but I noticed that with you being grounded, when I came up into my mind, it didn't hurt so much. I didn't, it didn't feel, it's like it didn't have as much juice to be able to move into the measuring, and the critical, and the judging, and the observing. Like I didn't, it felt protected somehow from your grounding, which was super interesting. I don't know if I've ever totally felt exactly that, so that was kind of fun. Again, your experience might be different, but the play is to start to get used to sharing from subtle, less obvious details with each other. Okay, so we're gonna repeat, and we're gonna switch roles, and you switch roles to at home. So again, I'll lead it, but I'm gonna be the grounded one, even though we all know the truth about that in this situation, and Alana's gonna be the looker. So both of you at home, big deliberate inhale, exhale everything, let all happen, and both of you ground. Soft in the belly, down through the legs, and then wait only once you both feel grounded. Like you'll keep your awareness in your belly, and then eventually you will let your gaze lift to your partner, so that you're really looking from the belly.

And now grounded one, you're gonna stay grounded, okay, while the looker makes an effort to bring his or her awareness up to the heart. Noticing what it's like to observe from the heart as your partner stays grounded. Grounded ones stay grounded as looker moves his or her awareness up into the region on the head. Grounded ones stay grounded and look or now bring your awareness back down to your belly. So go back into your grounding, and then if you're the looker now start to turn on all three centers. So maintain your ground as you let your heart brighten, and just like we were doing in Tadasana now, let your skull find her alignment so your mind can expand. So you're not leaving the mind and the head behind, you're just aligning. And now grounded one, you can relax the project of staying grounded and notice what you do. Okay, gently big delivered inhale, exhale, get out of there. Since I was the grounded one, I'll share first, I also experienced similar to Alana. As soon as she went up into her heart, I was like, like a puppy. Like I was like, I want to go with you. And then it was like, go back down, like sit. But then when you went up into your mind as opposed to it feeling painful, I'd felt protected. It was like there was a salve going on. But I also felt so far away from you. It was like you, it was almost like you retreat, retreated. It was a feeling of, we're so not connected right now. It was really interesting. And then when you, when you kind of like turned everything on, I felt safe again. I was like, we're okay, because that's how I responded. Would you notice? So I noticed that when we were both in our bellies, felt very quiet and restful. And then as soon as I started to move up into my heart, I felt this rise of energy. And I felt you very still calm in that restful quiet space. And then as soon as I moved up into my head, I just felt like disconnected from you. It's like, where did we go? And then when I went back into my belly, it was like, oh yeah, here we are. We're connected. So again, you might have a totally different experience that you and your partner might be sharing about.

What is true for you is true. Okay. And, and the, the, the play with this experiment, like we've been playing with this for years and it does, it changes and it shifts. Your homework from this work, you know, with a partner is to just be continually vigilant to notice when you're observing something, where you're observing it from, you know, are you observing it from the mind? You know, are you judging something, measuring something? Are you observing it from your heart? Are you observing it from the belly? And depending on what's happening for you in any given current situation, you might need to turn one of these on, you know. Okay. We'll play with that a little bit more in our next episode. We'll play with the meditation on dialing all three of these in. Thank you for playing. Thank you, Alana.