Embodiment Meditation

Hi. I'm Tom McCook back here at Pilates. Anytime, very happy to be back. I'm here with Aaron and Aaron, and we are gonna do an embodiment meditation together that I think you'll find very useful to be able to come into yourself, get more present, relieve tension, and see it as something that you can always come back to to cultivate presence and a sense of well-being in yourself in a short window of time. So the first thing we're gonna do is just stand with our feet directly under our sit bones. And just come into sensing ourselves in terms of gravity. So I'd like you to just center the weight on your feet and just take a couple breaths. And on the exhale phase, imagine you're settling down into your feet, but you're also lengthening and straightening.

So our first order of business is just to come into the present moment and sense what's happening for ourself on a feeling level. Just take a couple breaths like that, sensing that you can let the weight settle down, but you can also lengthen and straighten at the same time. I just take one more big breath like that. And now just rock side to side on your feet, and that would just thinking of our body from a left to right perspective sensing feet, knees, hips, ribcage, in between the shoulders and between the ears. And then just slowly come back to the center and just notice, can I center the weight left to right?

Now take a few breaths into your width, feel the width of your body. Notice you can expand the ribcage, relax the shoulders, let the center of gravity stay low. And one more big breath like that, and then rock forward and back on the feet. And imagine now we're just sensing our depth, front to back, You could also think of it in terms of where we've been, where we're going, and just slowly let the movement become smaller until you can center the weight on the feet front to back left to right. Now just take a couple of breaths into your depth, feel the back of the body, the front of the body, and one more big breath like that.

Now put one hand just below the belly button, we'll call this your center of your body, actual centers directly in front of the sacrum, but you could also call this from an energetic perspective, your center of action. So just breathe into your center. And on the XL phase, let your center drop down and feel the weight into your feet. So you're just getting aware of your center of your body and where we move from in life. One more big breath like that.

Then put your hand on your heart center, and we'll call this your center of compassion, center of grounded awareness, good feelings, goodwill. Now, breathe into your heart center. And one more breath into that area. And then touch between your third eye or in between your eyebrows and consider this your head center, center of clear thinking, awareness of time and awareness of your horizons of where you're going in your life or even being in touch with the mystery of life and just take a breath and just become aware of your head center. And let the arms drop.

Now imagine you can align up all three centers on top of each other, center of action, center of compassion, center of clear thinking, soft knees, your ground in the ground, and just take a moment to notice what do I value in my life? Line up all three centers, and just say, I'm just I'm just getting more aware of that I want to be awake and present in my body, I'm going to bring that to my meditation. And just imagine if you flipped a switch, you could turn all three of those centers on so you can sense that you more embodied and you're in yourself. Now from there, we're just gonna have a seat. So have a seat on your cushion.

And just so you know, you don't have to sit on a cushion. You can sit in a chair. You just wanna have your spine relatively straight. And just, I'll say a few remarks about meditation. So meditation's been going on for a long time, thousands of years.

But in the last fifty years or so, there's been a ton of research by science And the basic bottom line is is that the conclusion is Tom meditation is good medicine. It's been proven to be helpful for lowering blood pressure, help regulate our emotions. Develop self awareness, improve our mood for stress relief. So it's actually been proven through thousands of research papers to be really good for us and something that you can integrate into your life, and I have found for myself, it's been super valuable as a combination with mindful movement. So we're going to go through a series of contractions from our eye level think of in the body as these bands.

And there's been a lot of somatic research around bands where we hold tension on our body that blocks the flow of energy blocks life flow. And inhibits our ability to respond to life. So through contracting and releasing, you can sense your body more, and the way into the present moment is through sensation, because that's the only place that it happens is in the present moment. So when you're sitting up nice and tall, we're going to start just by taking a few depressed into the body so you just feel the breath. One more big breath like that.

Now, we're gonna begin at the eye level. Imagine there's a band around the eye level, and now I could close your eyes and just squeeze the muscles around the eyes and contract them for about three or four seconds. And then as you let them go, you can keep your eyes closed, but just let the whole area like a band soften. And stay with that relaxation for a couple more breaths. And then notice can I even go a little deeper? Can I let it relax even more?

And now just staying with your breathing, staying with the relaxation, come to your jaw level, jaw and neck. I'd like you to contract the jaw. You can even squeeze the teeth, contract the neck, two or three more seconds with the contraction. And now just slowly let it release and dissipate, sensing the relaxation, let there be a little space between the teeth, and now see can I even go a little deeper? Can I let it relax a little bit more? Now put your attention on your upper thoracic area, heart, upper thoracic, and just tense the muscles in the chest, upper back and shoulders, hold for another second or two.

Now slowly let it relax and dissipate. Relax the jaw behind the eyes. Notice can I let it relax even more? Now at your shoulder plexus level, which is the top of your abdominal wall, contract the top of the abdomen, diaphragm, hold, and now to see it dissipating, softening, relaxing, ribs softening, letting the energy flow. And now coming down to your pelvis, think of your pelvis, which is your glutes, your pelvic floor, your lower abdominal wall, contract your pelvis contracts the bottom of your hips, hold the contraction, slowly let it release and dissipate, spread, Can I even go a little deeper? Can I let it relax a little bit more?

And now bring your attention to your legs, contract the thigh muscles, the calves, See the muscles hug in the bone, and now gently let it soften, release, spread. So you're letting the fluid flow through the muscles, letting the breath drop lower in the body. In the belly soften. And now your feet tense your feet, hold, and now let them slowly release, let the toes soften, see the fluid flowing through your feet. And now we're gonna tense the whole body, all the bands at the same time. So eye band, jaw, neck, upper chest, solar plexus, pelvis, legs, feet, even include the hands, contract it all, hold for two more seconds.

Slowly let it release and dissipate, spread. Now go a little further into the relaxation. Relax behind the eyes. Now, bring your attention to your breathing, and see if you can just notice either following where it enters your nostrils as you breathe in or follow the rise and fall of your belly or your chest, whatever is easiest for you to stay with. So now as you let the body relax in, just bring your attention to your breathing.

And just notice when you're going into a meditative state and you're trying to bring your attention to whatever your object of concentration is, for now, we'll say it's the breathing. It doesn't mean you're trying to prevent yourself from thinking. All you're trying to do is gently and consistently, when you noticed you've wandered away from the object of concentration, to steer your attention back. So just bring your attention to the breathing, just start to notice the inflow, either as it enters the nostrils, to rise and fall of the belly, and see if you can stay with it till the end of the exhale, letting the body whatever way it wants to breathe from that relaxed place that you've cultivated through the contraction series. And whenever you've noticed the mind is wandered to planning, thinking of any sort, Just when you notice, gently steer your attention back with any need to judge the wandering mind. And we're going to stay there for a few more minutes.

It's useful you might notice when you breathe in that as the air comes in through the nostrils, the air is a little cooler. When it comes in, you might notice as it exits, it's a little warmer. Chantly bring the attention back to the breath. Now I'd like you to bring your attention to your heart center, and take a few breaths into that heart center, that area of compassion, goodwill, benevolence, acceptance, consider that that place in you that doesn't grasp or push away, that place that accepts things as they are. And from that place, that place of goodwill, acceptance, from that open heart, as best you can, just see if you can stay with the breathing, stay with whatever sensations are coming up from you, as you stay aware of that place in you that's open and can be with what is.

And let's take five more conscious breaths. From that open place. I'll give you a road into the present moment as through the sensations in your body, bringing your awareness sensation, which is another way of saying feelings. And the breath. So you're cultivating that muscle of attention.

Take one more conscious, big breath. And as you get towards the end of the exhale, just softly let the eyes come back into the room, And thanks for joining us. I hope you enjoyed. I hope to see you again, and all the best Tom you. Thank you Pilates anytime.

Thanks you guys.