A Meditation on Stable and Centered in a Shaky World, with Dr Rick Hanson

I offer these every week, along with a short teaching. Just click the subscribe link below to be notified through YouTube when I post the recording of the latest one. Or if you'd like to join me live, which I'd really welcome, go down into the description section below and follow the link along to be able to sign up for free. So take your place in meditation. Settle into it, occupying your chair or cushion or other ground you're settling into. Recognize your companions in meditation, such as a cat. I've spent a lot of time in catitation, eyes open or closed. And no need to rush in any way, and no need to rush in settling in. Take your time, it's okay. It could be helpful to move around a little bit, loosen your belt, sit up a little straighter. It's helpful in general and helpful if you have had any kind of trauma history or are feeling anxious at all, it can be really helpful to look around a bit and let it sink in that you're in a safe setting, in the present, certainly in this moment, your setting is safe enough. And giving yourself the gift of opening to the sweet reassurance, the relief, ah, as a vulnerable animal, that your little burrow, your little den, your nest is safe enough. Because you're safe enough, that awareness can move through your body and you can be aware of and release tension, any kind of bracing or guarding. You can open up, you can afford to let go. As you settle in, you can find an uprightness, a dignity in your posture, without strain, a sense of your chest opening, maybe rising a little, perhaps the head also rising a little, maybe the chin tucking in, upright and committed to meditation. If you like, let attention rest in the sensations of breathing, such as the sensations of breathing in your belly and lower abdomen, and let attention settle in the diaphragm area, just below your ribcage, the base of breathing, feeling the movements in that part of your body as you breathe in and out. And as you do this, it may be that there's an awareness of some anxiety somewhere and you can be letting go of that as you tune into breathing in the area of the diaphragm. And as you breathe in the diaphragm, you can have a growing sense of calming, tranquility, peacefulness, letting yourself enjoy this peacefulness or any other wholesome qualities of mind, even as the Buddha put it, delighting in peacefulness or other aspects of well-being, delighting in the sense of sinking into, coming home to, as a key aspect of the spiritual path. Breathing in the area of the heart, keeping it simple, being aware of related feelings, such as compassion or kindness or love, you could explore a blending of uprightness in your posture and way of being, combined with lovingness and open heart, upright and loving, soft in the front, firm in the back, both open and grounded. You could find a related blend of lovingness and peacefulness, perhaps with qualities of strength and the uprightness, a natural emergence of important ways of being that the Buddha pointed to, in which we can rest our mindfulness, in which we can rest our awareness, and even take as objects of meditation. While staying aware of the body, we can become absorbed in a blending of peacefulness and lovingness as we absorb those qualities into ourselves, simply staying with the sense of lovingness, peacefulness, as you stay in touch with breathing in the body. You're not trying to hold on to lovingness, peacefulness, or any state of mind, it's more that you're falling back into, you're allowing and opening to, natural, beautiful qualities of being.