Meditation: Relief Feels Good

So let's med for a couple minutes, bend over, get into a free form, and I was really thinking we'd be doing long shop asanas, and again it doesn't look like we're gonna get in a nice long one today, but maybe just sort of know that I was intending to do that and at home, like maybe more than you've been doing it lately. I shopinate seriously every day. I have a friend, his main practice was shavasana, and he would, he had a beautiful piece of classical music, I forget what it was, but it was like about 20 minutes long, and it was like the favorite part of his day, you know, like he would lie down, put on the music, and just do something like that. It's where you deliberately practice relaxing as deeply as you're able, and lying down it's easier to let go when you're lying down. If you fall asleep, so what? You'll wake up. Okay, a couple minutes here. Step one is get the alignment of your body just right. Watch yourself more closely than ever. That simply means you're getting into it more. Get into it a little bit more, and watch how you get grounded through whatever's on the ground. Watch how you grow tall. It is sort of like a little flower. The roots go down into the earth. The life force comes up through the stem of your spine, begins to bloom open up up there at the top, but then let everything bloom open and just relax. The easy summary of that is grounded, tall, relaxed, and watch yourself making little micro adjustments. Again, that's intelligence at work, putting your head on perfectly. So that's step two. You can settle into it and practice being still, and you practice being still without holding yourself still. The tendency is to sit there and not move and think that you're relaxed, but again, you'll be at your habitual level of tension. Be gently busy scanning through your field, and wherever you happen to be, let go a little bit. Now when you release tension, right where the tension was, when you soften it and release, like around your eyes or around your mouth or through your shoulders, when you release tension, immediately you'll begin to experience relief.

Relief feels good, and the idea is to relax everywhere, to release tension everywhere, like thoroughly. You'll begin to experience relief everywhere. The relief feels good everywhere, and as you get into it more and more and more, just gently, leisurely, watch how the feeling of relief transitions into the feeling of calm, everywhere, as the feeling tone of you. Be aware of the ripple of your breathing. Feel the energy that you're made out of, and just keep enjoying the moment for a couple more moments. Whenever it occurs to you, let yourself grow a little taller, experience that gentle up thought, but at the same time, let go more, which will have a nice like down, slidey thought. Let your breathing get freer and freer. Just one more minute, please.

Let your head come down. Wait for the right moment, and then open your eyes, and then let your head come back up.