Surrender + Magic
Welcome to Day 1 of Surrender + Magic! Here are your instructions for the day:
Day 1, Part 1:
The meditation.
Listen to this meditation before proceeding. You can listen to this meditation as many times as you like throughout the day. It can be especially helpful when you find yourself being agitated or overthinking about potential future events.
Day 1, Part 2:
The exploration.
From the space of ‘baseline’, I’d like you to take a collective look at the noise on the surface, explore it, and explore finding distance from it. Then, find something else to focus on that is bigger, and deeper.
After doing this, head over to the Mighty Network if you’d like to discuss your observations and findings.
Day 1, Part 3:
The interaction.
Do the first meditation again, and get used to this action because we’ll be using it all week.
From this place, start looking at what you pay attention to:
-Open a social media page and see how you feel as you scroll through it. Does it feel like it’s pulling you towards that surface noise, or are you able to stay in your body and aware of your surroundings as you read?
-Pay attention to conversations you have with others and the directions that these conversations take. Notice your body as you do. Do you start to get pulled in the direction of the surface noise at times, with certain topics?
-Pay attention to websites you check news sources you read. How do they make your body feel? Are you able to stay embodied and present?
-Pay attention to the music you listen to, films you watch, books you read. How do they make you feel? Do you notice that some pull you out of your body, and some draw you deeper in?
The key with all of this is to pay attention to how your body feels when you look at these things. Your brain will say things like ‘that must be bad because it’s X’ or ‘there’s no way that can affect me so it doesn’t’. Our brains LOVE overriding the body’s messages. But the body does not care at all what the brain thinks, and the body reacts instinctively.
Let the body guide this. If there are things that you have trouble distinguishing the answer to, set it aside, and come back to it later.
Once you have gathered data, you don’t need to do anything with it, but I do have advice...
Make boundaries with the things that drive you into a state of nervous system agitation. Sometimes it’s unavoidable (say when a relative calls), and if that happens, then make space afterwards to go for a walk, or meditate, or watch funny videos (check the ‘inspiration’ section of the mighty network).
Oftentimes it’s actually easy to say to a person ‘I’d love to talk about something that feels good instead of something that is stressful.’
Aside:
When you start clearing your input, you’ll find that something starts to happen:
You’ll feel a lot less agitated, and
You’ll start feeling some of the fear and sadness that are underneath. These are ok. You’re not alone in this.