December 1, 2012 (updated Jun 21, 2013) · Filed under Connection

Meditation: Embodying a Time You Felt Connected

Heads up! This post is 13 years old.

I used this mindfulness induction in my NVC class this week. It goes with the lesson/exercise on Resourcing/Shifting States.

Go ahead and let yourself make the transition from “getting here”/arriving to “being here”/ having arrived. However you do that.

(General mindfulness stuff) Mindfulness is….notice what is there…what you came with, what your body is doing…etc

In a moment, I’m going to ask you to let a memory arise. Don’t go searching for it–just sit with receptivity and see what comes up. Just let what happens happen.

I invite you now to allow a memory to bubble up of a time when you felt really connected and in the flow of life. It could be a time when you were in nature, and felt part of the larger world, the planet, the ecosystem. Maybe it was playing with children, and letting their aliveness stir in you a feeling of joy and play. Maybe it was in helping someone who really needed it, or receiving help yourself and feeling gratitude. Maybe it was in making art, and letting inspiration come through you, and making something you didn’t know was in you.

Maybe you’ve had many of these experiences. Let the strongest memory arise.

Now let yourself remember everything about this experience. Let it fill your senses. Feel what you were doing, and how it felt in your body.

Let yourself notice the exact sensation. Are you having an expansive feeling, of expanding outwards? Is it a rising up? Is it a feeling of being connected to others, to humanity? Do you feel grounded, rooted to the earth? Do you feel strong? Happy? Loving? Hang out in that feeling for awhile.

Now consider who you are right now. Is it the same you who came in today? The you who goes to school, or work? Or is it a different you?

Now slowly allow awareness of the group of women around you to come into your mind. We’ve each been having our own experience, and now we’re going to step into a shared experience of learning. And you can stay the you who has these expansive experiences. You can be who you really are in this group. We welcome you here.

Taking your time, and in your own way, start to wrap up this experience for yourself. Let yourself come to completion, and readiness for the next activity.

I was trying to set up the idea and experience of state-shifting from R-CS. While I didn’t explain that model fully in class, I touched on how states are neural patterns that contain whole worldviews, and we can shift between them using mindfulness. Mindfulness is also a neural pattern, but it’s an encapsulated one (pretty cool!) and so it acts as a gear shift, letting you shift from one state to another on purpose.

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