I took a moment to look around the room. Orienting is very grounding for our nervous system, and while it can seem silly (given that I know the space that I am in), I also realize that as a mammal, my nervous system benefits from orienting and creating safety before meditation.
I closed my eyes and moved my awareness from the outer landscape to the inner landscape of who I am. I can remember days when I would have tried to rush this process, but those days are long gone. I now allow a slow and gentle shift as I sink into myself, knowing that the process will look and feel different each time.
As I sank into myself and came in deeper contact with my emotions, inner sensations, and thoughts, I realized that everything in my body was contracting. I was holding tension in my shoulders, neck, jaw, stomach, and legs. As I slowly loved my awareness through my body and felt the tension I was holding, I began to feel it melt. I started to feel the tension that I was holding in my body release. As the tension melted, a softness began to fill the spaces in my body that had felt so rigid and harsh. I felt my body sigh. A long, slow sigh with a skip in the middle of the sigh occurred, and then I felt energy flowing freely through my body where I had previously been bracing.
As I noticed the shift in my body, I became curious about the tension I was holding. Why did my body feel the need to hold such rigidity? What exactly was I protecting myself against?
The answer floated freely through my awareness; I was protecting myself against life. Mmmmmmm, I thought to myself. But why? Why did I need to protect myself against life?
The answer was easy and difficult all at the same time. I was protecting myself against life because I wasn’t accessing trust. I wasn’t accessing surrender. I wasn’t accessing faith.
I could have left the inner dialogue there but chose not to. I chose to challenge my own belief systems and process. You see, I learned a long time ago that we often think that surrender is hard, but holding on (control) is actually what is hard. Surrender is easy, and I understood this, but I wasn’t meeting life with surrender right now. I felt my body wiggle and understood that I was moving through the energy of control at that moment. I knew what surrender felt like in my body, it was a relaxation, it was a letting go, it was an opening, it was expansive, it was gentle and loving and allowed for ease to flow through my body. So, I began to look for where in my body I was already in surrender. When I felt it in my heart, I allowed it to spread through as much of my body and energy body as possible: just allowing, not pushing, not trying, just allowing.
I ended up feeling like a puddle on the floor, allowing myself to be held by the universe, knowing that if I wanted to be held, it would require me to let go. You see, you can’t hold someone who is holding themselves, and as I melted into the floor, I felt my desire to be held override my desire for control.