Coming into Balance | Bonus Meditation with Sebene Selassie
Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris- 1,756 views
- 5 Mar 2021
Coming into balance is about accepting that balancing is a process, not a destination. Sebene will help you make the most out of the process.
About Sebene Selassie:
Growing up, Sebene felt like a big weirdo. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and raised in white neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., she was a tomboy Black girl who loved Monty Python and UB40. She never believed she belonged. Thirty years ago, she began studying Buddhism as an undergraduate at McGill University where she majored in Comparative Religious Studies. Now, Sebene is a teacher, author, and speaker who teaches that meditation can help us remember our inherent sense of belonging, that our individual freedom affects absolutely everyone and everything, and that our collective freedom depends on each and every one of us. Sebene is a three-time cancer survivor of Stage III and IV cancer.
From ABC, this is the 10 percent happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hi, guys, it's Friday, so it's bonus time, and today we've got a guided meditation about achieving balance in shaky times. Our teacher du jour is fan favorite Severna Selassie, who knows a thing or two about achieving balance amidst turbulence. She is a three time cancer survivor. She's also, as I think many of you know, a fantastic meditation teacher in a very good friend.
So here we go now with seven Selassie. Hi, this is Simone. In this meditation, we'll be coming back into balance by settling into our body and breath. Joseph Goldstein likes to say that anything can happen at any time after three cancer diagnoses, I know that's true. But it doesn't have to be a life threatening health diagnosis, all sorts of things can throw us off balance. We long to be in balance after one of these disruptions, but throughout our lives, they're constantly small and large moments of balancing.
The process of meditation includes constant micro adjustments that allow us to practice balancing. Let's get started. Start by bringing awareness to your posture. Making sure your back is upright and your chest is open, so your breath is not constricted. You also want to make sure that you feel a sense of relaxation and ease. So allow any holding to just naturally soften. You can close your eyes or keep them open with your gaze softly on the floor or something in front of you.
And let's start by bringing awareness to the sensations of sitting here. What do you notice? Be curious about your body. Is there a particular sensation that strong or clamoring for attention? Simply bring awareness to what's here right now. And at some point, you may notice that the mind wanders or gets lost in thought, rather than seeing this as a problem, can you use this as an opportunity to rebalance by reconnecting with the body? Now, take a moment to connect to the breath.
Where do you notice air entering and leaving the body as a physical sensation? So not just thinking about the breath, but really feeling the breath. Maybe with the belly rising and falling. Where with air entering and leaving the nostrils. There's no one way to be with the Brett. Just make sure it's something that you feel a sensation. And again, when thoughts arise or you lose the connection with the breath, invite this as part of the process of balancing.
Simply returning or relaxing into the sensation of breathing. Coming back to balance is about accepting that balancing is a process, not a destination. Going out of balance is to be expected as a natural fact of meditation and of life. And we can meet it the same way we meet any experience in our practice with kindness and awareness. You can open your eyes now. Thank you for meditating with me, and I'll see you next time. Thank you to seven.
One quick announcement before we let you go, we are looking for a podcast marketer. If you love this show, if you love marketing and building relationships, we would love to have you on this team to help us grow both the 10 percent happier podcast and our future shows, which we're going to start rolling out soon. So please apply at 10 percent dotcom careers. We'll see you back here on Monday for a brand new episode.
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