I Am. . . | A Self-as-Contexting Meditation

Find a comfortable position in a quiet area and when you are ready draw this matrix and keep it in front of you with something to write with handy.

Follow along with the meditation below. A recorded version can be listened to here:

Turn your attention inward openly, and without defense. Do not search for anything, simply allow yourself to be in the presence of your own experience, available for whatever might show up.

Stay with it, and notice what presents itself to you. It will either be something that is crystal clear, or something that words fail to describe completely. You may notice that this is neither a single thought, nor a discrete feeling, nor a memory, but perhaps something else entirely, a kind of felt experience or sense.

Turn right toward this experience, stay with it, face it. Notice what that feels like to do, both for you and perhaps from the experience’s point of view. Notice what it’s like to be turned toward and seen, deliberately, purposefully.

Acknowledge this sense without having to say yes or no to it. As if you are simply nodding and saying “I see you. I see you.”

Notice any intentions, or desires this experience has, anything it wants or doesn't want for itself or for you. Invite this experience to give words to anything that’s there.

Stay with this experience for a moment longer, keep turning toward it, keep your open stance. And notice what this feels like to do.

Now turn your attention back out here, and reconnect to the space around you.

Focus on the matrix, and read the questions in each quadrant.

In the lower left quadrant, try your best to describe what experience presented itself to you. You might not have the perfect words, and that’s fine. Do your best. You may only be able to describe parts of it, the color, or the weight, or its movement. That’s fine. Do as much as you can.

When you are finished. Turn to the center circle, and complete the phrase “I am sensing something in me that is . . .”
Fill in this phrase with what you’ve written in the quadrant.

Say it out loud and let it sink in.

Now turn to the top left quadrant.

How would you typically respond to this felt sense, if you had encountered it in any other time? Not as we did here, but as it shows up to you in life.

Write your response in this box.

Turn back to the center circle and complete this phrase: “I am someone who has. . .”
Fill in this phrase with what you've written in the quadrant.

Say it out loud and let it sink in.

Now turn to the lower right quadrant.
Answer the question, who and what are important to me?

Write in your answers, and when you are done, return to the center circle.

Complete the phrase: “I am someone who. . .” and use who & what are important to you to fill in the rest.

Say it out loud and let it sink in.

Now move to the upper right quadrant, and answer the question. What could you be seen doing to move toward who & what matters to you?

When you are finished, complete this phrase: “I am committed to. . .” and fill in with the answers you’ve listed.

Say it out loud and let it sink in.

Notice that there is a You here now, who is all of these things, all at once. A You who is capable of noticing, staying with, and holding onto your experience. A You who at times struggles against your experience. A You who chooses what’s important. And a You who can commit to action.

Turn your attention out into the environment you’re in, and allow yourself to be carried to action in a direction of your choosing.