The Most Powerful 10 Min Meditation: Who Am I? | EP 83

Welcome back to the Healing and Human Potential podcast.

This is a special episode where I'm going to guide you on an embodied inquiry into the truth of who you really are.

And so, rather than giving you more concepts, this is an invitation to discover for yourself what remains when you question all your identities.

It's a meditation inspired by Dorothy Hunt, and let's dive into it now.

So, go ahead and find a comfortable comfortable position.

Gently letting your eyelids fall shut.

Taking a nice, slow, deep breath in through your nose.

Holding on the inhale.

Just sipping a little bit more breath in

and releasing any tension or worries.

Taking another slow, deep breath in through the nose.

Holding on the inhale.

And releasing, letting go.

And just become more present to the sensations that are still holding on in your body right now.

Maybe there's some tension in your brow, your belly.

And just releasing it.

Letting yourself really be held by the chair that supports you, the bed, wherever you are.

And bringing your attention more fully present to this moment.

Just leaning into what's actually

here now outside your mind,

in your body.

Just feeling the aliveness that's pulsating through your hands and your feet.

letting it expand in your awareness

and just letting go resting more fully in this moment

and i'll be asking you a series of questions that you're just invited to answer for yourself based on the experience that you're having right now

without going to memory to find the answer.

And so, based on your present experience right now,

how many toes

do you have?

Without relying on an image of the past to tell you, just tuning into your direct experience in this moment.

Find out.

If you don't go to memory to tell you

what's your address,

explore what's here and now to discover the answer fresh in this moment.

Without going to the mind to tell you, where were you born?

Without referencing a past image to show you an answer,

what shape are you?

Do you have a shape without memory?

We can find any shape from memory, but is it available to you right now based on your present experience?

Beyond the pattern of the mind projecting a past or anticipating a future, just here now.

What job do you have?

Without memory, what color is your skin?

What color are your eyes?

All these ways that we've defined ourselves without the benefit of a past, are they here now?

If you don't go to a memory to tell you, what's your name?

Do you have a name?

Based on your direct experience right now,

how old are you?

When all these things aren't here because of not going to memory to tell you, what's your actual experience?

Who are you?

What

are you?

The answer won't come in thought, so instead of looking for an answer in the mind, just discover what's here behind the thoughts

or in between the thoughts

all images ideas and judgments of who you are are only passing stories that come and go

But what do they come and go within?

They're not actually here when you're not thinking them into existence.

So who are you when you're not referring to a thought to tell you?

What's piercing through your eyes right now, even with them closed?

Notice what's noticing.

Without labels telling you who you are with a name, an occupation, an address, a shape, or even gender, without any of these ways we've identified ourselves, what's still here

deeper than all of those.

When all those fall away, what still remains?

What's still present underneath all of them?

None of us have the experience of completely disappearing.

Something's still here.

This felt sense of I am.

Not I am Joe or I am Sarah, just I am.

Now drop the I

and drop the am

Be here

as what you truly are.

This awake, vast, spacious awareness.

There's nothing you need to do to be more of what you already are.

Just notice this peace and freedom underneath all the thoughts and identities.

Perhaps you've felt even briefly what it's like to simply be this open space of awareness.

And in a few moments, I'm going to invite you to very gently and slowly begin to open your eyes to take in the images of the world around you from this same vast presence.

So often, when we open our eyes, we start labeling things from our past conditioning.

But whether the mind is active or not, there's a deeper spacious awareness that's always available beneath the surface of thought.

So, go ahead and gently open your eyes from this place,

letting in the sounds and the sights of the environment around you.

And just begin to feel into your own experience how it's possible to be here,

even when thought and memory return.