Impermanence
Courtney Watson
The why behind an embodied practice:
Every day, changes, struggles, joys arise and fall away.
Sitting with each emotion as it comes up, being with the sensations in the body, feeling into the fear, anger, struggle, joy is a skill that is cultivated through breath and body awareness.
When we can “be with” each feeling as it arises, look at it with a curious, beginner’s mind. We cultivate a skill to help us manage stress and challenging emotions and appreciate pleasant feelings in each moment.
Approaching the difficult, the pleasant, we come home to the body, knowing that this moment and the sensations that arise are fleeting, that it is like this now, and will be different in the next moment and the next.
As we learn to sit with the body, noticing those physical sensations, tightness in the chest, constriction in the throat, airy-ness in the forehead, pain in the shoulder, warmth in the heart, the light feeling in the jaw…each of these sensations experienced tie directly to a pleasant or unpleasant thought.
These thoughts & emotions can take over, spiral you out into reaction, hold onto fear, anxiety, trying to find a way to let it go, avoid it, or grasp at the joyful moment, never wanting it to end.
When we sit with these moments, we create a strong awareness of the mind's habits, recognizing the thoughts as not real but just thoughts, and can breathe in, be still, and with whatever it is that is present.
By sitting with the pleasant and unpleasant, looking at each with kindness, recognizing judgment, attachment - embracing it all with a kind heart, and seeing that it is all a part of this precious life.
Our perception will change - next week, next breath, next year. We can be grateful for this moment as it is and find the stillness and wisdom here.
Mindfulness practice gives you the time to drop in, to recognize thoughts as just that, notice the sensations in the body when those thoughts arrive, allowing you the space to be with and know that this struggle, this joy is temporary.
Impermanence is a truth of life; with meditation, you witness the ever-changing landscape of the mind, of moments and see them without judgment, bringing ease and light to this present precious moment, the only thing we have.
Sitting beneath the waves of emotion, watching them above you as you float just beneath, where stillness is always found.