Video – Witnessing Through Your Whole Body

Witnessing Through Your Whole Body

By remaining softly present in our bodies we can feel immediately when our minds are creating pain by refusing what is. Bringing steady neutral attention to the body sensation gradually releases the pain and as it does, the mind becomes clear.


Today I really want to talk about what it means to witness in our whole bodies, and how when we bring the light of that deeper consciousness, that embodied consciousness, to what our minds create, to the dreams that our thinking and beliefs create, we can dissolve them back into the very energy from which they arise and in that way empower ourselves. So witnessing in the whole body means that you take enough time– maybe not that you sit for half an hour, or an hour, or two hours once a day, but that 20, 30, 50 times a day you stop for a while. And you place your awareness in your breath, in your body, and you just attune. You just bring your attention into your body and sense, feel what’s there.

So let me slow down for a moment. Feel your breath. Allow the breath to link you to being present in your body. Don’t try to focus too hard on your body, don’t try to control your breathing. Everything’s natural.

And you can hear your senses are alert, awake. Sounds. Whatever’s present. One breath, another breath. Focused mind, perception’s vivid. And the spaciousness of mind. It’s not a spaciousness you can visualize, it’s the fact that consciousness in its deeper essence is limitless, has no beginning, no end.

When you turn the light of that consciousness on some construct of your own mind, some dream about the unfairness of life, some dream about what you have to do, or some judgement of yourself for not accomplishing or doing what you want to do, as I’ve said, you know your mind is lying when you feel a contraction in your body. But if you fight against the constructions of your mind, you just set conflict again inside of yourself. There can be no fight, no rejection, no judgment.

You just bring the light of this consciousness that is more present to you when you’re fully in your body. It’s not that the consciousness originates in your body, it’s that when you’re in your body you’re in the present moment. And in the present moment, that deeper consciousness is more there. And if you turn that consciousness toward the mental construct, the story, the story’s dynamic, and you have no judgment, your mind is neutral, you don’t have to resist, you don’t have to reject. You just acknowledge, I’m looking at what my mind is creating cognitively and what it’s creating emotionally. It will soften.

Last night I had a really quite astonishing dream. I dreamt that I was pregnant. And I could feel the baby growing inside of me, and that I was also the father of the baby. And, in addition to that, I knew there was another father. And I didn’t know who the father was, but I knew this he was the shaman of the community. And I knew that no one had told him that he was going to have a baby.

And while I was dreaming this, I became aware I was dreaming. And the first part of that awareness was, oh, I’m dreaming that I’m having a baby, at which point I was fully aware I was dreaming. And as I turned my attention toward the dream, there in my sleep the dream dissolved. And it became this space of openness, with a– actually, in openness, it is hard for me to say what it was. It was just– the dream dissolved, and there was just space. And I realized I was in my bed and that my body was at peace, and at that point I became awake enough, in the ordinary sense, to realize how fascinating– Just by turning that deeper awareness toward the dream, the dream dissolved.

It was a beautiful dream, there was no desire to dissolve it. All dreams dissolve in the light of our essential mind, in the light of our essential self. And that gives us freedom. That really is the source of freedom. But it starts by witnessing in your body, by feeling who you are and how you are, and knowing that as soon as there’s contraction, you’ve begun to identify with the mind. The limited mind. And that contraction will simply dissolve the moment you turn that neutral nonjudgmental consciousness.

It has no agenda, it’s not trying to fix you. It just looks. And in the light of that consciousness, all things lose their form if they have no true essential reality. And the energy that was beginning to take shape as a negative structure is released into you and becomes a pathway for your heart to expand into a deeper yes to this moment. So keep practicing coming back to your body again and again, coming back to this breath, how you feel this essential moment, 25, 30 times a day. Remember, remember, that’s the path.

Thank you. Journey deep.

Hi, friends. Only a few days to the gathering in Montreal on the 15th, 16th, and 17th of May. It’s a chance for us to really look at the inseparable nature of intimacy with ourselves, how we clear the places inside of ourselves that limit our ability for a deeper connection to ourselves, which, in turn, enriches our connection to others. So a good piece of work I know it will be. Look forward to many of you being there.