Latest / Willow Healing Matters Podcast / Meditation Doesn't Have to Be Still: The Breathwork Secret That Changes Everything | Will Johnson

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Meditation Doesn't Have to Be Still: The Breathwork Secret That Changes Everything | Will Johnson · Willow Healing Matters Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Willow Healing Matters, the podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: We are so excited to have you joining us on this journey
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: where we explore different ways to empower your soul,
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: whether it's healing in your kitchen or all the way up in the corporate world.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Come with us as we look into different ways to heal your mind, body and soul.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Hey everyone,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: it's Catherine Crestani with another episode of Willow Healing Matters
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: and today I am joined by Will Johnson.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: He teaches a form of meditation practice that awakens body and liberates breath.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Letting go of the stone garden statue posture of the Buddha coming over from Asia,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: his practice is highly motile as breath is felt to move through the entire body,
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: not unlike how a wave moves through a body of water.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: The result is true awakening beyond conventional mind.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: So a big welcome to the show, Will.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Nice to be here.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I really enjoyed how you introduced me.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: You've done your work.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: What we're going to talk about here today is, yes, practices coming over from Asia, Wonderful.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But every time these practices move into a new culture, they change.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a lot of what I feel tuned to.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: I feel too that a lot of people get scared about meditation, right?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because they think that that is the expectation that they have to sit there
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: and put their mudra fingers on and then say, oh, and hope to find that quietness.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, that's that's interesting.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the sitting posture itself,
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: the orientation coming over from Asia,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: it's what I call the stone garden statue of the Buddha posture.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the notion is just to sit frozen, still, without moving and entering into the practice.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for most people, that can be hideously painful, sitting very, very still like that.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: What it also does, it completely suppresses the breath.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And You were mentioning as we were getting started that the practices
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: that I've been exploring,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: that I'm sharing with people,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: they're about waking up the body from its slumber under these straitjackets,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: holding yourself still, relaxing, coming alive, and breath comes alive.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Breath can truly be liberated from this.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: What passes as normal for most people, we're hardly It isn't even like sniffing.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's hardly any air going in and out.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then here the Buddha is saying, is culminating instruction.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Is that, no, no, no, don't just focus on small breath.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Figure out how a breath can move through the whole body.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So he's talking about a large energetic
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: and life current opening that's altogether natural, but taken by very few.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: I feel that that's why there's been this bigger push and shift towards breath work, right?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like a lot more people are realizing the power of the breath combined with
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: a meditative practice rather than just sitting there and trying to focus
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: on your posture or focusing on, like you said, smaller breaths.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, once again, I'm so grateful for the traditional teachings, right?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're incredible.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And yet,
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: every time the teachings migrate to a new territory,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: they interact with whatever's going on in that territory, psychological.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Reality, Spiritual Issues, whatever.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the teachings completely change.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the easiest example of that is what happens when the teachers
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: from northern India climb the Himalayas onto the Tibetan Plateau.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they meet the indigenous Bampo people already with
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: a very well-established spiritual tradition.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So what passes
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: as Tibetan Vajrayana today looks much more like traditional Bampo religion
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: than it does with what the Buddha said.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Was doing in India so many centuries earlier.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So the same thing is happening as it comes to the West.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And our culture is wildly different, you know, hyperkinetic.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so much stimulation.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a feudal agrarian culture.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I thought of this,
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Catherine,
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: that in Southeast Asia, Tibet, China, Japan,
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: practitioners,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: or people that were doing sitting practices probably got up before dawn and were out
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: in the fields working.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: All day and working their body and working hard and say,
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: whoa, let's just sit down for a moment and not move.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's my sense of where that must have come out of.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it does not work anymore.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sitting very,
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: very still like that and so many people that want to become meditators simply find
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: that, well, they're not up to it or maybe they're not something or other enough.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because putting ourselves in this frozen mold of hyper stillness, It's not right.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't feel right to the body.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, for me, it quashes, it squashes the awakening that naturally wants to happen.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: You hold yourself still,
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: you're creating more pain and tension in your body, and you can't breathe.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: The Buddha says breathe through the whole body.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you're holding yourself still,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: like a stone garden statue of the Buddha, It's not going to happen.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're, you know,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: to get that breath, whole body has to awaken and it can't sit still like a statue.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I feel too like it links into the nervous system too, right?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're already in fight or flight,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: the last thing you want to do is sit there and sit still.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're in fight, you want to move.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're in flight, you want to move.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: So the last thing you want to do is sit there in stillness.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Unless you've gotten to the point where you're in freeze, then maybe it's okay.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't put those kinds of expectations on myself.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: But what I do know is this,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: that how we breathe so much determines how we are in our body
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: or they're direct reflectors of each other.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was saying,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: most people,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: and people are listening to the podcast right now,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you just put your attention right up at your nostrils and,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: we're listening or we're doing something or we're driving or reading a book,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: and without changing a thing,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: you examine how you're breathing,
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: very, very little air is going in and out of the body.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of breath creates kind of a physiological effect on the body that is what?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of numbness and pain, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it creates a quality of consciousness that is generally lost in thought,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Enmeshed in self-image, look at it, it's what passes as normal in our world.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: We have to get good at that to function in the world of form.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: But these teachings are saying,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: hey, look, there is also an expanded world that you can have direct experience to.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're going to breathe that way,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: have that effect on the body and mind, it's not going to happen.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: So when the Buddha says, now figure this out.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: As you breathe in, breathe in through the whole body.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: How could you do that?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: As you breathe out, breathe out through the whole body.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, we have to bring the felt presence of the body back to awareness.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: when we're lost in thought,
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: enmeshed in self-image, come on, we are most of the time, right?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: To function in that way, you have to put almost like a blanketing shroud over the felt presence.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Shimmering,
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: palpable,
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: tactile presence of body on every part of the body down to the smallest cell.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's vibratory shimmer.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can feel it.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: But ordinarily, we feel none of it, lost in thought and hardly breathing.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: So first of all,
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: it's a matter of welcoming the body back to felt life,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: these little pinprick blips of sensations.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Everywhere in the body.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you can just invite them to come back to felt life.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a shift.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, then, it's very important.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then you want to greet them with this gesture of letting go or relaxation, right?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because they've been in fight or flight.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: For, you know,
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: for so long,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: because they've been shutting themselves down at the surface,
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: the service of the mind of lost in thought.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then the second thing,
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: and you spoke of it in your opening, a breath that breathes through the whole body.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Body has to be so awake,
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: so relaxed,
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: that as breath,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: the diaphragm is struck, that's a force that can cause transmitted motions.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout every joint in the body,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: right up through the top of the head and down through the bottom of the feet,
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: with every breath you take, and then you read that.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of my favorite Lines are examples of how this breath works,
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: so you can experience breath moving through your body,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: not unlike how a wave moves through a body of water,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: just right through the whole thing,
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: and it gets lusciously relaxed,
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: and then that breath has a very different Physiological effect on the body,
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: obviously, and we're moving breath by breath.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're undulating through the spine.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Spines aren't columns in a Roman temple.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Everything starts coming alive and consciousness starts shifting automatically and on its own.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's not as though we have to sit here and struggle.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I want to be aware.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want to try to bring my mind back.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be aware.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get awakened.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get enlightened.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: That game is over.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's just sit here.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And ride this current,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: surrender to breath,
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: surrender to this feeling presence in the body and be willing to ride
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: and let it take you wherever it wants to.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, be willing and open.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's the other part.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and it is interesting.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and my background is very much a somatic background.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was a personal student of Ida Rolf.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So the work was about really working deeply into the body.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And she was,
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: people don't know this about her,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: but what we're talking about here today is This comes from her, primarily.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: She had this thought that if we could play with upright balancing,
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: everything could let go in the body.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: All these holdings, these tensions, physical, emotional.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that would,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: she said,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: that would kind of liberate very powerful energies that would start moving through
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: the body, resulting in an evolutionary transformation of consciousness.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's what got me, you know, to study.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: With her.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that simply happens spontaneously.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: From struggling with what our mind tells us, oh, you need to do this, Will.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: You should do that.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not right.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now do this.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now try this.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: To a place where I'm just going to enter into the experience of my body just like a little kid.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: How can it feel the best?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want to just start letting go of all the unnecessary things.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Holding that was not letting me breathe.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was strangling me.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then you let go of the holding and suddenly these larger,
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: they're almost like a swoon, a onset of inhalation.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: You just let go.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of, in a sense, surrendering the weight of the body to gravity.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't fight it anymore.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this much larger breath comes in and consciousness changes on its own.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're no longer just locked down.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Inside the monologue and the self-image, something opens up much, much, much, much bigger.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's altogether natural.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's available to everyone, but it's taken by very few.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's strangely where,
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: we fear kind of the,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: well, refocusing ourselves just to start feeling the body because you know what?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't been feeling it for so long,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: and a lot of times we feel places,
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I can understand now,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't wanted to feel that,
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: but to have the courage to just,
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: okay, I'm just going to settle back into experiencing what's actually going on here.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but maybe I want to go on or what I think should go on, right?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: But this is it.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is me.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then one breath at a time, that knot is, Can start coming undone.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: One of my all-time favorite Rumi poems.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you know what?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can't untie this knot by listening to fairy tales.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: You got to do something inside yourself.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So this to me is what practice is.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I feel a lot of the time I've been talking about this too
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: because there's this whole, like,
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: from a relationship point of view,
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: this loneliness pandemic people are talking about.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're more connected than ever and yet we're so lonely.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: And when I talked to people, I said there's nothing wrong with being lonely.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's just people are afraid of being with themselves and people are afraid of being
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: with themselves,
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: yeah.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: And they're afraid of feeling their body and what might come up.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I've had somatic sessions, so I know exactly what you're talking about.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: You just sit there and observe and acknowledge,
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: and then all these things come up and your body knows exactly what you need
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: because your body is one of your greatest signs.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: people talk about angel numbers and things like that,
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: but your body knows what you need in that moment too.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: The body doesn't lie.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not capable of doing it.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: it's interesting because when people start doing body scans
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: and just putting their awareness in their cranium,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: oh, there's sensations there, right?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you can just stay there and sit and observe and let it happen.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I always like to greet the sensation that's accepted the invitation to awaken.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like I say,
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: with this gesture of kind of loving,
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Relaxation,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: letting go that allows whatever that force is behind that sensation
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: to emerge even more palpably.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And look,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: all of us have in our bodies,
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: whether from physical sources,
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: emotional sources, whatever, what I call these somatic black holes.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they're places, oh, well, that's my place where I have the pain.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that place, like a black hole, it sucked all the vibratory life energy.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Out of adjacent tissue, not only that, it sucked motion out of adjacent tissue.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that, whoa, it just becomes stiller and stiller and stiller.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: that's what we have to open to,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: for those of us who are doing our best at being courageous, you know, because it is.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: The things that can come up can be intensified.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, if I know that it's okay, and okay, who is that?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: If I, whoa, I let myself feel this place in the middle of my back.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: I already know you don't feel that.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa, it's intense.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's strong.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: What is that coming through?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And just let it come through and wait for the next breath, right?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to say something about what you're saying about being lonely.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know, look, we had COVID.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was terrible for single people.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then I know one of your interests is how technology,
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: social media, that, oh, we're going to connect people more and more.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't do it.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it disconnects us in ways.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: nothing,
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know, matches this, you know, intimacy with, say, a real other human person.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And nothing matches the intimacy of my relationship with With the feeling,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: the experience, what's sitting here in this location and space talking to you.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: But we run from that.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: We run from that because we're afraid maybe it's not going to feel good.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm doing something that's not okay.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we avoid ourselves, right?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then we've been so conditioned.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we've been so conditioned that pain and everything,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: instead of sitting through the pain and allowing it to happen,
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: oh, what's the quickest way we can numb it?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: And what's the quickest way we can disconnect?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I often say that running from yourself, it's a race you can never win.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're not going to win that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean,
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: it's interesting what you're talking about,
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: because there's a somatic world with wonderful, wonderful practices now.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Peter Levine's somatic experiencing, different kinds of work, Hakomi.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then you will also get practices like
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: the very powerful sensation-oriented Dharma practice coming out
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: of Burma that's taught by Esanguenka.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And these are practices you'll set, and they do, they force you to do that.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's observe.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's sensation everywhere in the body.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Put your mind in these little parts of the body and observe.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is wonderful, powerful practice.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Where I go with that.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: However, and I did a lot of that practice and it was so important for me.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I actually remember the day I was in private.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: I did a lot of self-retreat
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: early on.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was on the 12th or 13th day.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I was putting my awareness in my body and sitting and sitting.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly something happened.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, oh, wait a minute.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: If I play with kind of upright balancing, almost like...
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: A dancerly thing.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't have to hold on to anything to stay sitting up.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can relax in a way that I couldn't before.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then what happened, my whole body started moving in response to the breath.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I got, okay, there's the upright.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: It allows you to relax.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then let everything move my body.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Beef with Goenka Vipassana and Ubakim Vipassana.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not really a beef.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: It worked incredibly well in the orientation of the culture in Asia.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Coming over here, I want to see that practice.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's sensation-oriented.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not really body-oriented.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because holding your body very,
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: very still like this,
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: and there's hardly any breath that comes through, it's not being loving or kind.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if we could,
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: in a sense, evolve those practices, as I believe, they need to happen over here.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that yes,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting,
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm not only,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not just observing sensation,
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm inviting the sensation to come alive, and immediately relaxing it.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the relaxation is a fist lets go,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: and sometimes it's always holding back on that big inhalation.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess for someone that is contemplating meditation and gets freaked out,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: what are some easy tips that you can give them to?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Dear, you know,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: probably it makes sense if you've never,
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: ever done any sitting practice is to get some guidance,
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know, and it exists everywhere all around the world.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Just you're going to know you're going to be sitting down.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: OK, here's like a short version.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Of what I would do with someone.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sit down.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if you're cross-legged or in a kneeling bench or sitting in a chair.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: But the first thing I'd ask you to do is pay attention to your sitting bones.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: They contact the pillow that you're on.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Most meditators' sitting bones might as well be cement tin pegs.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: They don't move.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're secure.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: But if I'm playing with this upright body as...
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is kind of a dance of balancing.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: How can I just totally let go through my body, but, oh, I have to play with balancing.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's the upright.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Play with it.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Second one, invite your body to come awake.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Body, oh, there's sensations everywhere.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Cranium, yeah, there, I feel something.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and I let it go, and you go through your entire body that way.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the third and final one for me is this,
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: the Buddhas,
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: a koan, gradually start surrendering, just letting go at the onset of inhalation.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like free-falling through space,
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: but if you're playing with balance, you don't fall over.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: At the onset of inhalation and a much larger amount of air starts coming
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: into your body and exiting.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the body just stays in constant, Undulating motion.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that's in a sense how I approach sitting practice.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And look,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: between the two of us,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: we both know that is, I'm considered a somewhat radical character.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: In the Dharma world,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: because I'm going very much against this,
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: very, very still, very still, very still, just watch your mind.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: This to me is not about the mind so much,
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: observing, observing, look at all these fundamental mindfulness practices.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: What are the good news stories on our planet, right?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're wonderful.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: They get the monkey mind out of control.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Even the Buddha talks about that as foundational, okay?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then you want to awaken this experience that moves through the body and figure out a breath.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, it just gets stronger.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it gets deeper.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'm looking at that kind of thing.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I like when people get their mind in order,
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: doing fundamental practices, but then go to the Buddha's culminating instruction.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about focusing the mind.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's about awakening the body and liberating the breath.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: It just is.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't even mention the word mind or awareness.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Opening instruction, be aware, be aware of breath at front of the body.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Nostrils, watching, in and out.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Very small.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful practice.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Very hard.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: As you watch the mind going off, you come back.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the culminating instruction, it's about awakening the body.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say, as you breathe in, be aware that you're breathing through the whole body.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: He says, as you breathe in, just do it.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, breath affects physiology.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Physiology manifests consciousness.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 100%.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, my son's bunny just decided to hop into the room and I was like,
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: there's an extra present here.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: He is more than welcome.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, what is that?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I have to check myself because I'm like, is that a spirit showing up or is that real?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm a firm believer that find what works for you, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I will tell people...
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to go swimming and that's where your meditative time is,
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: it allows you to come back into yourself and your body, then swim.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: If it's gardening, garden.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Where do you get that peace and where can you get those deeper insights?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: For some people, I know it's walking.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny because sometimes if I'm rushing, I want the stillness.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes if I'm in the stillness all the time, then I want the movement.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's really learning what's right for you and how to tune in with your body,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: which is what I feel everything you teach is, Will,
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: because it's what does your body need once you allow it to move,
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: once you allow that breath to fill you up.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is about becoming you.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is not about,
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: okay, I'm going to put myself now into a mold of a spiritual being or something.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's craziness.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: My approach to this sitting meditation practice, it is very physical.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: the majority of my students, you know, we love doing the formal sitting practice.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: But then it's obviously taking it out into the world, what I call the radiant mindfulness.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then,
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: because this practice is so physical,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: I also really encourage people,
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: find some kind of physical practice in your life that you also bring in.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because we have to create a body that, frankly, is strong enough.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: At one with itself enough to allow these larger flows of breath and energy,
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: you know, to make their way through.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And some people do hatha yoga and people are doing qigong or running
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: or different kinds of aerobics or five Tibetan rites or spontaneous dance
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: or swimming or gardening or walking the dog.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And people say, yeah, well,
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: but is there a best form of physical exercise to support This kind
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: of luscious awakening that you're talking about, my answer is absolutely there is.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one that you feel the most drawn to and that you enjoy doing the most.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: End of story.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's, again, just the learning really to trust yourselves.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Find out what works for you.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: You said it well.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: A hundred percent.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: And also trust what you need in that moment.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: And this is where I learned this through I was doing Pilates.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, my body's constantly sore.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: Even though I go every week three times a week,
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: why is it not getting stronger or why is it not shifting?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: And what I realized is it wasn't because I was doing a class,
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't allowing my body to do what it needed in that day.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: So some days my body might feel tighter and it doesn't want that pushing.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Other days it might feel looser and I can be stronger and put the weight up
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: or whatever that might look like.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: So then when I started doing my own practices at home,
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: like doing yoga and just putting in whatever my body felt,
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Then if I was having a day when my body felt stiff and it didn't,
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: okay, I just want to stretch today.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: This is what my body needs.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it's allowing yourself to flow.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I like that you brought on too that your body needs that to be healthy,
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: to accept that energy.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because a lot of people in the spiritual community forget that if you want
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: to hold higher frequency,
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: if you want to connect in with higher realms,
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: if you want to do the next level of your spiritual practice,
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: You have to bring your body along with you.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: You sure do.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: And if it's not ready or open or you're not looking after your health and listening
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: to when you need to rest and everything else that's happening with it,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: you will not be able to hold the frequency.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: You will not be able to hold it.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's really true.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of meditators in the Buddhist world,
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: they were drawn there because, oh, I could just sit here.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to do anything with my body.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-uh.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't go work that way.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, it's not.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: And as we start to finish our time together,
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: we'll ask the guests that come on the show,
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: if you could heal or change something in the world, what would it be?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just encourage people to start breathing.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Some people ask me, what is your practice about?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's how much permission I can give myself to remember the onset of the next inhalation.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: How much can I surrender to the fullness that is appropriate in this moment?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, just breathe.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: Breathe.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Just breathe.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: And don't underestimate anyone listening.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Don't underestimate the power of breath.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: I have had some incredible breakthroughs just breathing.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: And you can't even explain when you let yourself drop into your body in
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: that deep theta state just through breathing, what can come through.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: And if people want to come and learn from you,
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Will, or come work with you, what's the best place they can find you?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, my website is www.embodiment.net.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of information on the website, a lot of the offerings that I do.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I do a Saturday morning online sangha throughout the year.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: People come down here sometimes to work with me.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Occasionally I have groups of people.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, beautiful.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you have books too.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Where can people find your books?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, anywhere, really.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Any of the major outlets, Amazon lists all of my books, and yes, there are a lot of them.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's just a lot of them.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there are.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've ended up writing a lot of books.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that's part of the passion, you know, finding this, I've got to share this, right?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly, 100%.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm talking about.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: I do know what you're talking about.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you so much, Will,
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: for sharing a different perspective of meditation and also the importance
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: of letting your body and your breath do the work with you and to support you
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: through life.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: And for everyone listening,
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: if you enjoyed this episode, as always, feel free to like, share, subscribe.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: Or if you know someone that could really hear this
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: because they always tell you meditation is too hard, maybe send this to them.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because It doesn't have to be.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have to be hard.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be painful.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: That painful.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I'll make sure to pop Will's details in the show notes so you can go
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: and find him if you want to connect with him.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: And Will,
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: thank you again for being on the show and thank you for sharing some
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: of your knowledge with my listeners.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're really welcome.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: I very much enjoyed this with you.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to Willow Healing Matters, the podcast.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: We have so much love and gratitude that you are taking the time out of your day
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: to empower you on your healing journey.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: The views shared by the person being interviewed might not necessarily reflect that
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: of the host and should be used in your own discernment.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Trust what resonates with you and follow your heart and soul guidance.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you have any underlying medical conditions or mental health concerns,
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Remember to activate, align, heal, empower and find love in everything that you do.