880th Week: Orienting to Steadiness

In these times of such challenge, I have found myself having to return to an underlying steadiness and calm again and again. This month, in my monthly posting of an audio meditation on my website, the focus is to attune to, call on, and embody the frequency of steadiness. I have understood and experienced steadiness to be a natural aspect of our deep core presence, the place in us that cannot be disturbed, no matter what may happen in our own lives or in the world at large. This doesn’t mean that we don’t register and respond to what’s happening within and around us. Instead, this place of steadiness that we carry deep inside offers an internal place of “refuge”, an aspect of our internal home base that is always steady, no matter what.

Another aspect of orienting to steadiness is that it allows us to contribute to the steadiness of our human collective consciousness. At this time, many countries around the world are embroiled in internal conflict between differing factions, religious and ethnic groups, between people fighting for rights and those in power working to limit freedoms of various kinds. So, when we look at what’s happening in our own countries, wherever we may live in the world, it’s helpful to remember that we are experiencing a global human-species crisis.

One thing I’d like to say about my belief in and experience of our human collective consciousness is that our moment-to-moment contributions matter. Whenever we experience a particular emotion or response, that experience is enhanced or intensified by the impact of all the people all over the world who are feeling the same way. Where we resonate matters, both in what we offer and in what we receive. For me, each time one of us is able to resonate with being centered, grounded, steady, or in any other way solid and stable in the presence of hurtful experience, I believe our experience offers to those who are teetering on the edge finding their center something like a foothold that helps them step into their own steadiness. We have an opportunity to support one another in every moment.

For this week’s practice, I invite you to explore your core steadiness and, when you are able to access and rest in it, to notice what it contributes to the quality of your inner life. Here’s a brief guided practice, even as I encourage you to find your own way to access and cultivate the part of you that is never disturbed. And, please remember that even though this steadiness is never disturbed, this in no way suggests that you shouldn’t feel outrage or take action that you feel is necessary to meet and then respond to situations with which you disagree.

• To begin, follow your next out-breath all the way down to the bottom of the breath and notice how it is to settle there. Often the bottom of the breath can bring you to your internal home base, where you can settle. 

• Now, notice that there is an ever-present steadiness here in your internal home base. This place is also your internal center of gravity. Notice that this is the steadiness you touch into here is an aspect of your being that cannot be disturbed.

• Take some time now to feel into that steadiness and to allow it to fill your awareness in whatever ways make sense to you. Also, feel how it can fill your body, or elicit a sensation that invites you to deeply experience the quality of this steadiness.

• As you explore your experience of steadiness, notice the quality of your thinking as you do so. How does the steadiness affect your thoughts?

• Next, explore the quality of your emotional experience as you resonate with steadiness. What does it elicit in you emotionally?

• Do any images arise that embody the quality that you feel as you explore this aspect of your core presence and being, this part of you that is never disturbed?

• Next, if it appeals to you, take a moment to remember that we are part of a collective consciousness of humanity and, in every moment, we draw from and contribute to this collective. In this moment, as you resonate with steadiness, you contribute that quality to our collective.

• Before closing this practice, take a moment to again feel the sensation(s) you experience as you resonate with your own, internal steadiness. It can become a true internal refuge, a place you can return to again and again…

• When you’re ready to come back, wiggle your fingers and toes, take a look at the environment around you, noticing sounds, smells, colors, and textures. And, please remember that even when you complete this practice, you can choose to continue to resonate with your core steadiness whenever you choose.

As with all these practices, please remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise, allowing them to move on through without having to do anything with or about them. They are just the next thing arriving on the ever-flowing stream of consciousness.