Guided Exercises for
"Meditation for Sensitive People" Course
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Week 1
Exercise 1: Exploring Fundamental Consciousness - 18 min This comprehensive meditation guides you to inhabit specific parts of the body, the five core qualities, and connecting to the space within and outside of the body. Exercise 1 can be found on page 34 in Chapter 2 of Belonging Here. 
Week 2
Exercise 2: Core Breath - 8 min (Chapter 2, page 41) "[The] innermost core of the body feels like the center of our being. It feels like we are living in the center of all our experience, as a witness and completely immersed in our life at the same time. In this subtle core, we gain our deepest perspective on our environment...as we experience oneness with our environment. The subtle core of the body also integrates all of the qualities and functions of our body and being. When we live in the subtle core, we can think, feel, and sense at the same time."
Exercise 3: Attuning to the Essential Qualities of Fundamental Consciousness - 6 min (Chapter 2, page 46)
"Both Buddhist and Hindu teachings describe [this] qualitative aspect of fundamental consciousness. Buddhism teaches that this primary dimension of ourselves has the qualities of clarity, bliss, and emptiness. Hinduism teaches that it has the attributes of truth, intelligence, and bliss.... In the Realization Process, I call the qualities of fundamental consciousness awareness, emotion, and physical sensation. Although divided schematically for attunement purposes, these qualities are a continuum.... Specific, constantly changing awareness, emotions, and physical sensations pass through this unchanging quality-rich ground."
Exercise 4: Standing as Fundamental Consciousness - 8.5 min (Chapter 2, page 48)
"[Standing and walking] exercises can help you stabilize in your realization of fundamental consciousness so that it is not a state that you go into and then lose when you move through your daily life, but is rather an ongoing way of being. Standing, walking, and moving as fundamental consciousness also help cultivate a sense of roundedness, so that you do not lose your energetic roots with the ground beneath you, and so that you can maintain the wholeness and unity of fundamental consciousness."
Exercise 5: Receiving the Upward Current - 3 min (Chapter 2, page 50)
You can tag this exercise onto the end of the 'standing' Exercise 4. Excerpted from page 16: "The more evenly we settle toward the ground, the more we can experience an upward current of energy that rises from the ground and moves through the internal space of our body, making it light and buoyant, supporting our ability to sit upright or to stand. In this way, gravity works not on the body, but through it. As we become more open and balanced, we settle on the earth with our whole being."
Exercise 6: Direct Perception - 6 min (Chapter 2, page 54)
"When we inhabit our body as a whole, we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste with our whole body and being. This makes our experience of our environment fuller and richer. As we uncover the dimension of fundamental consciousness pervading our body and environment as a unity, our senses also become unified.... This helps produce the sense of "being in the moment" that is associated with non dual realization.... In Buddhism, this is called direct or bare perception."
Exercise 7: Couples Attunement to Fundamental Consciousness - 11 min (Chapter 2, page 59)
"[This exercise teaches] how to inhabit the internal space of your body, and the subtle core of your body, while interacting with other people. The deeper the connection with yourself, the more intimately you can connect with others without the fear of being displaced, or of losing inward attunement with yourself.... To inhabit the body means to gradually let go of chronic rigidities. In this way, you become softer and more open to the world around you, without losing the felt delineation between yourself and other people. The boundary produced by inhabiting your body is distinct and permeable at the same time."
WEEK 3
Exercise 8: Releasing Binding from the Subtle Core of the Body - 5:20 min (Chapter 3, page 79) "One of the ways in which the Realization Process helps to release holding patterns is by finding the pattern from the subtle core of the body. We find the center of our head (the center of the internal space of the head, between the ears), and from the center of the head, we find the area of tension within the body. Finding the holding patter from the center of the head helps to penetrate into the subtle depth of the tension. Then, holding our focus within the tension, we breathe within the center of our head. As we do this, there will usually be a spontaneous movement within the tension, either toward an intensification of the holding pattern, or toward release. We are not making a volitional movement into the constriction, but rather we are focusing within the constriction and allowing it to move by itself."
Hybrid Exercise 8: Releasing Holding Patterns- 9:24 min (Chapter 3, page 79)
This meditation is a combination of Exercise 8 in Belonging Here, and Exercise 2 Releasing Holding Patterns from the Spiritual Psychotherapy training manual.
WEEK 4
Exercise 9: Throwing the Pea - 8:30 min (Chapter 4, page 111) ""After a while, she found that she could allow the vibrations of other people pass through her attunement to fundamental consciousness, in any situation. This meant that she did not have to be on guard against a potentially overwhelming encounter. She also found that she was feeling more emotionally responsive toward other people, because she was not closing herself off to their experience.""
WEEK 5
Finding the Center of Your Head - 2:30 min (Chapter 5, page 130) This is a short recording of Judith's "trick" to finding the center of the head by humming along a line between the ears.
Exercise 10: Couples Core-to-Core Attunement - 8:09 min (Chapter 5, page 135)
"The tensions of our protective patterns make it impossible to inhabit our body fully. Instead of living within ourselves, we live in the defensive barrier that we have created between ourselves and our environment. This limits our ability to connect with other people , and it also limits our ability to connect with ourselves." p 132 "...[S]he found that she could connect with her family members from the core of herself, without sacrificing her own way of being." p 134
Exercise 11: Presence and Receptivity - 5:05 min (Chapter 5, page 137)
"For most sensitive people, the main obstacle to opening to other people is the fear of being overwhelmed or annihilated by them. If we remain within our own body, we can receive them, and allow ourselves to be moved by them, without losing the fundamental stillness and presence of our true identity. We can be present and receptive at the same time."
WEEK 6
Exploring the Body and Family Roles" - 13:45 min I created this guided meditation to help you explore the connection (if any) between the parts of your body that are uncomfortable or challenging to inhabit, and the role(s) you played in your family system.
Meeting the Suffering of the World - 14:20 min
I created this guided meditation to help you feel into the suffering of the world in such a way that you may begin to find some acceptance and support. I strongly encourage you to extend this meditation by writing an imaginal conversation with the Great Being that held you during this meditation.
Exercise 12: Intimacy and Space - 9:30 min (Chapter 6, page 159)
"...[B]y uncovering the stable, spiritual ground of her being, she would be able to tolerate, or encompass, her emotional responses. The more we know ourselves as the stillness of fundamental consciousness, the more deeply we can allow our emotions to move through this stillness, without feeling overwhelmed by them. Fundamental consciousness is the basis of our universal kinship and equality with all other life.... We had a felt sense that we were made of the same essence, the same transparency.... As fundamental consciousness, we knew, felt, and touched each other across the distance between us. "
WEEK 7
Exercise 13: How we Organized Ourselves in Relation to our Parents - 8:31 min This exercise explores how we contracted in our body in response to our parents. Do this exercise separately for each parent.
WEEK 8
Exercise 14: Walking as Fundamental Consciousness - 3:13 min (Chapter 8, page 200) "I suggest that you practice this exercise outside, feeling that the space that pervades your body also pervades the sky, earth, trees, and other forms in nature. Find a stretch of even ground, where you can walk comfortably."
Exploring Resistance - 16:36 min
This guided meditation was inspired by the woman, Ruth, in the final case study, when she said "I don't want to do this. I don't want to be here. I don't have to be here." (p. 197) Here we'll explore different dimensions of resistance: the ways in which we don't want to be our body and our personality, and the ways in which we don't want to be in this world and in this life. The purpose of this inquiry is to become aware of the unconscious ways that we are resisting fully being here. As with the Meeting the Suffering of the World meditation from Week 6, I strongly encourage you to extend this meditation by writing an imaginal conversation with the Great Being that held you during this meditation.
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These recorded meditations are designed to support you practicing the nuanced explorations and awarenesses that Judith Blackstone presents in her book Belonging Here.
TIP: play in open curiosity! This is not about perfection, it is about exploration and practice. Whatever your experience is during an exercise, invite the possibility that it is perfect. There's no right or wrong way, only your way of unfolding, one step at a time. Trust yourself and trust your process, and remain curious about the journey.... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||