Welcome friends to the Tara Brock podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Each week I share teachings and guided meditations to help us awaken our hearts and bring healing to our world. You can learn more or support this offering by visiting TaraBrock.com where you can also join our email list. Now let's explore together the many ways we can live from the love and presence that's our deepest essence. Namaste. This fall we experimented for about six weeks with including an ad before this podcast. And we've decided not to move forward with any more advertising. Many of you shared that it disrupted the flow of your listening and I really understand it didn't feel aligned with the spirit of this offering. These teachings and meditations will continue to be freely available and your support truly makes that possible. Thank you friends. Thank you for whatever you've offered and for your continued generosity in whatever form feels right to you. Feel your body sitting here and breathing. And explore feeling the breath at the heart. Just notice the state of your heart right now. Might be the first time in a while you've intentionally checked in. So what's my heart feel like? You might sense on a physical level whether there's numbness or tightness or soreness or flow. And also if there's any emotions moving through you. The beginning of intimacy with our life is to really notice this moment. What's happening right here? What's the quality of heart mind? As you listen inwardly, you might listen for what your aspiration or intention is. What is it that most matters to your heart? You could sense how you'd want to feel or what you'd want to be in touch with. What would it be? Aware of your body sitting here and breathing. And lengthening or extending the breath. So the in breath is slow and long and deep. And the out breath is slow. Slow release matching the length of the in breath. Continuing with a long slow in breath, a long slow out breath. No pause in between. You might count slowly to four as you breathe in. You might sense with the in breath and opening and receiving a filling with energy. And with the out breath, the releasing, settling, a letting go. And now allowing the breath to resume its natural rhythm. It's your shifting from directing the breath to observing the breath. Noticing the quality of presence that's right here. Perhaps you're a little more collected. Quiet. Present. You can deepen this quality of presence by bringing the attention more fully, awake in the body. You might still continue to feel the breath as you bring the attention to the area of the brow. Let the eyes soften. Smile into the eyes, letting the outside corners lift a little, letting the brow be smooth. Feeling from the inside out, the sensations and aliveness in this region of the face. Relaxing the jaw, sensing a slight smile at the mouth, letting the tongue fill the lower jaw. See if you can relax right down to the root of the tongue. From the inside out, receiving the sensations and aliveness in the region of the mouth. Bringing the awareness now to the shoulders. You might imagine the shift from ice to water. Feeling that from the inside out, ice to water. And then water to gas. And from the inside out, receiving the sensations of aliveness in the area of the shoulders. Aware of the hands, softening the hands. Perhaps softening again. From the inside out, receiving the sensations and aliveness that fill the hands. Sensing an openness to the chest. You might smile into the area of the heart, sense a smile spreading through the area of the chest. Not to cover over anything, but to actually open to what's here. From the inside out, receiving the aliveness in the region of the heart and chest. Standing down the torso, loosening the belly. And letting this next breath be received in a softening belly. This breath. And now this one. And again. You might sense from the inside out, receiving the aliveness in the region of the belly. Continuing to scan down to the pelvic area, relaxing, opening, sensing the awareness from the inside out, receiving the sensations and aliveness in the pelvic region. Aware of the length, the volume of the legs. Right down into the feet, letting the awareness be inside the feet, receiving the aliveness and sensations that are there. Still aware of the feet, the legs, softening the hands again. Aware of the shoulders, softening, relaxing, the chest open, belly soft. Slight smiled the mouth, the eyes soft. And opening, simultaneously now, to feeling all parts of the body from the inside out. You can sense this body as a dance of aliveness, a field of sensation. Notice how nothing holds still. Now there's no boundary to the body, no place where the skin encapsulates. A field of living sensation, energy, the dance of aliveness. Letting everything happen, not opposing anything. How this dance of aliveness includes the play of sound. It's nothing to do. Sounds appear spontaneously, they're known spontaneously in the space of awareness. Relaxing back, listening to and feeling the entire dance of aliveness. You'll notice before too long that the mind drifts. Rather than resting in this aliveness, it was inside different thoughts past, future. Not to judge, it's quite natural when there's a noticing of that. To simply pause and reawaken the senses, listening to the sounds that are right here. You re-relaxing through the body of it, softening the shoulders, the hands, the belly. Receiving in awareness this play of the senses, the moment to moment. It doesn't matter how many times the mind drifts. It's the gentle re-arriving that retrames your heart and mind. Just to choose, to come back, perhaps to sense what might let go a little more. If there's something that might want to relax a bit more right now. To listen to and feel the changing moment to moment experience. With an awake, open awareness. To listen to and feel the changing moment to moment experience. Close by receiving the experience of your heart and awareness. And sensing whatever wish or prayer you'd like to offer to your heart right now. And sensing how this heart space is open and all-inclusive as you offer your prayer for all beings. And sensing the changing moment to moment experience.
