Tara Brach - Meditation: Relaxing with Life (21:38 min.)

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

This meditation begins with a body scan, and then we practice opening to and relaxing with our changing experience. The sitting closes with a beautiful poem by Danna Faulds, "Just for Now."

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. As you come into stillness, let your attention go to the area of the heart, and you might feel the breath there as you breathe in and out. Listen to your heart. Feel your heart. And ask what your deep intention is

for meditating right now, for practice tonight. What draws you? What's your heart's longing? As you sense what's important to you, feel your sincerity, the kind of purity of your intention, in the stillness, gently scan through your body and notice what might want to let go right now, where there might be unnecessary quenching or tightness,

or tension and then scanning more slowly. You might feel the eyes and soften your eyes. You might sense the smile spreading through the eyes, lifting the outer corners and let the brow be smooth. Notice the sensations that arise as you soften in that area, tingling, vibrating. You might feel a slight smile at the mouth and let the inside of the inside of the body. of the mouth smile. This actually sends a message to the nervous system to quiet, fight, flight, freeze. And genders a sense of ease and well-being, letting the tongue fill the lower palate and see if you can relax down to the root of the tongue, feeling the aliveness and tingling in the tongue, the gums, the teeth, the lips, and letting that awareness spread through

the face, you can feel the face alive, tingling, awake. Be aware of the scalp and the skull. And sense the whole space and volume of your head, the aliveness, the awareness that fills the head. Imagine the throat filling the neck and feel the sensations and the awareness there. Since you can let the shoulders relax some back and down so they're falling away from the neck and then bring your full awareness inside the shoulders. So you're feeling from the inside out and be aware of the life inside the shoulders. Places of tightness and holding, where there's movement of energy, heat, pressure. And whenever there's a sense of a real knot, let it float in awareness.

Feeling the length and the volume and the weight of your arms. And see if you can feel inside your thumbs, the tingling, the vibrating, the space inside your thumb. You feel inside the forefinger. And since the space that includes the thumb and the forefinger

and the space between them, and the where the aliveness in space that fills the middle finger. It helps to soften a little. a little, to feel from the inside out, and the ring finger, feeling from the inside out, vibrating, tingling, the space that's inside the finger and the pinky, the small finger. Feeling the volume, the space, and the aliveness inside it. And feeling the space between the fingers, feeling the space between the palm and the top of the hand.

feeling both hands simultaneously, tingling, vibrating, awareness, and still feeling the hands, that whole vibrational field, soften the eyes again, slight smile at the mouth, and you might visualize and sense a smile spreading through the heart, spreading through the chest. And this isn't to paper over anything, but actually to help access. the space that's there, the sense of a smile spreading through the chest. I'm feeling from the inside out, the region of the heart, intimate sense of what it feels like right now. The eyes are still soft, smiling, in the mouth, the hands are soft, smiles through the heart, and scanning down, let this next breath be received in a softening

belly, this breath and now again and again. Continuing with the belly soft to feel deeply into the torso feeling from the inside out the life of the belly. You might visualize and sense of smile spreading through the belly to help access that openness and aliveness. Hands are soft. the mouth, the belly is soft, receiving the breath deep in the torso, continuing with the belly soft to scan down, allowing the pelvic region to be filled with awareness. Sensing the aliveness and sensation there, the breath is received deep in the torso, feeling the legs, the length, the volume, the weight.

feeling where your feet contact the floor and the earth, places the pressure and contact and widening now the lens. You can feel this body as a field of sensation, sensing the aliveness without stopping anything, sensing the interior space that this aliveness emanates out of, including the field and sensations, the felt stream of the breath, the belly is still soft, the breath received deep in the torso, the hand soft,

slight smile at the mouth, slight smile spreading through the eyes, aware of this breathing body, and in the background, that alert inner stillness, that which is aware, when the mind drifts as it naturally will, and there's a noticing. Relax your way back into present. You might relax, open the attention, notice the sounds that are here.

Gently rescan through the body, notice where there's been piting, softening the eyes, relaxing the shoulders, letting the hands be soft. And again, softening the belly, letting the breath be rewritten, receive deep in the torso, breath by breath. Let your intention be to relax with whatever's

happening, a relaxed attentiveness, moment by moment. You might ask yourself, is there anything that wants to let go a little bit more right now? These last couple of moments, minutes, relaxing with what's happening. Let everything be just as it is. We close with a poem from the poet Dana Faults called Just for Now. Just for now, without asking how, let yourself sink into stillness.

Just for now, lay down the weight you so patiently bear upon your shoulders. feel the earth receive you and the infinite expanse of sky grow even wider as your awareness reaches up to meet it just for now allow a wave of breath to enliven your experience breathe out whatever blocks you from the truth just for now be boundless free awakened energy tingling in your hands and feet drink in the possibility of being who and what you really are, so fully alive and filled with love that when you open your eyes, the world looks different, newly born and vibrant, just for now.