Is seated posture the best? If so, how do we make it more comfortable?

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In this episode, I discuss:

• 01:18 - Grounding & Check-In
• 03:30 - Preparing for Today's Exercise
• 04:40 - The Importance of Posture and Comfort
• 08:34 - Playing with Props
• 14:43 - Exploring Foot Positions
• 18:53 - Meditating in a Chair
• 20:40 - Body Scan Meditation
• 25:25 - Walking Meditation

Image of seated meditation postures.

Episode transcript:

"...I want to keep musing today on the physical aspects of meditation, meditation postures, what we tend to envision as the goal or the ideal, why or why not that might work for a lot of people, what some other options might be.

And then, as always, we'll do a little bit of exploration and a practice together.

But let's begin with a little check in. Coming into the moment, coming into our bodies, noticing how we're feeling. Wherever you are at, notice the connection of your body to whatever you are resting on. Take a moment to really pause and get curious about perhaps it is your feet connected to the earth, perhaps it is parts of your legs, your glutes, your hips, your back body. Wherever you are connected to your surface, allow yourself to feel that ground, feel that connection, feel that foundation.

Then let that awareness start to gently grow, expand, travel to the rest of your physical body. Notice any spaces of discomfort, pain, tightness, tension. Then also notice what's feeling good, what's feeling strong, supple, energetic.

Allow that awareness to expand to the sense of your breath. Notice the feeling of an inhale. Notice the feeling of an exhale. And then take a deeper, fuller, longer, more expansive in-breath. And a slow, complete out-breath.

How are you feeling? Where are you at today?

We will come back to a bit of body awareness, body exploration later on in today's episode.

So, just know that for today's little investigation, experimentation, you will want to gather a variety of props. This could be yoga, meditation props if you have access to them. Things like bolsters, mats, blocks. But for most of us, this is going to be some throw pillows or throw blankets, some bed pillows, couch cushions, folded up towels. Get creative.

And then also we'll be working with a few different seats. So a chair, a couch, a bench.

So you can go ahead and pause and gather those things now if you'd like, or you can wait till a little later on.

Because first, I want to dive back into this idea of meditation postures, spinal alignment, and comfort and ease.

When we are moving into a meditation, particularly if it is a kind of meditation with more openness, more silence, less guided, so perhaps something like a mindfulness meditation where we are simply focusing on sensations in the moment, the more comfort and ease we create in the physical body, it's likely that the easier that will make the whole process for us, because we are less likely to get distracted by a leg that has fallen asleep, a back that is in pain, a shoulder that is spasming.

And if we are choosing a seated meditation posture, then we can invite as many different props as we need to help create that comfort.

We can sit on a variety of different surfaces to help create that comfort, and we can experiment with a variety of leg positions.

So, what are the benefits of choosing a seated meditation posture over a different position or some movement?

Drum roll.

Have you figured it out?

The benefit of a seated meditation posture over any other posture is going to be if it works for you and feels best in your body.

There are a lot of people who really enjoy seated meditation.

And there are plenty of people who enjoy something else.

So if you can find a shape that works for you and it's comfortable, and you feel like you can get the ribs aligned over your hips, and you can find that nice long back without creating any tension, then that is absolutely wonderful.

And if you have a hard time finding that comfort, and you still feel like you want to work on it, you want to experiment with different things, you want to keep trying, if you just sit long enough, maybe it will hurt less.

I would encourage you to maybe do a little bit of investigation, a little bit of self study.

Is there any shoulding there that's maybe coming from some cultural conditioning, some media exposure, the way that you have seen things done, rather than really allowing yourself to find the shape that works best for you?

And what are the potential downsides to a seated meditation posture?

So I talked about this a little more in depth last week, and I just kind of hinted to some of it.

But really, it's just, is it causing pain?

Is it causing discomfort?

And then is there a way we can change the props, change the seat, or throw it out and do something completely different to create a better situation?

So let's go ahead and start to move into a little bit of that investigation and experimentation.

If you haven't already, go ahead and pause and take a moment to do a little walkthrough of your home or your office or wherever you are at and gather up some cushions, pillows, towels, blankets, blocks.

And then as you do that, also kind of check in with your environment and notice what you've got as far as seats, stools, benches, chairs, couches, where you could do a little bit of exploration as well.

The first thing I want you to do is a little reminder for yourself of what it felt like to find neutral spine in either standing or lying down.

So as we did last time, find that comfortable stance or lie down on your back with your knees bent and the soles of your feet on the floor, and play with a little bit of pelvic tilt, pulling the pubic bone down toward the floor as the belly draws out or up, and then pulling the tailbone down toward the floor as the belly pulls in.

And then see if you can find that space right in the center, where the pelvis is neutral, you're not spilling water out of the front or the back.

If you're standing up, the ribs are stacked right over the hips.

For most of us, we've got just a little curve to the low back.

And now we'll try to find this shape seated.

So I'm going to have you start by seated on the floor with legs crossed, crisscross applesauce.

And for some of us right away, this is already going to present discomfort.

We'll only be here for a moment.

In this seated shape on the floor with legs crossed, see if you can create a little bit of that pelvic tilt rocking forward and backward.

And then can you find that neutral spine, neutral pelvis?

A lot of us cannot, sitting right on the floor, and that's fine.

Some of us can, sitting right on the floor.

And also, even for a lot of us who can find that neutral spine, neutral pelvis sitting right on the floor, if we were to sit here for a very long time, we still might find some growing tension in the low back, some pain at the hips, or the knees, or numbness in the legs, which we can shift and change by elevating the hips.

So go ahead and grab a block, bolster, cushion, rolled up towel.

Go for something that's going to give you at least a couple of inches of lift to begin with.

And then we're going to place that lift only under the hips, only under the sits bones, glutes.

So there's nothing under the rest of the legs and the feet.

And once you get the hips propped up, I'll have you first notice if this changed the relationship, the height of your knees and the height of your hip joint.

So a lot of us, when we sit right on the floor cross-legs, our knees are actually sticking up in the air.

And ideally, we want to get to the point where our knees and hips are at the same level, or our knees are even a little lower than our hips.

Notice that first.

And then start to play with that little pelvic tuck.

Again, little rock back, little rock forward.

How does this first level of propping change the experience of either being able to move the pelvis or of the sensations in the pelvis, hips, or of the sensations in the low back?

Does it create any more or less ease in settling into neutral?

Can you find neutral here?

And then go ahead and grab yourself another pillow, cushion, towel, whatever you got.

Try to get another couple of inches.

And we'll do the same thing.

And we are searching for this sweet spot of getting the hips high enough that we create comfort in the knees, comfort in the hip joint, neutral pelvis, nice, happy spine, ribs over the hips.

And we can rest here in this erect spine without feeling like we have to force hold ourselves upright.

So I'd like to give you the option to play around with a few more levels here.

Sometimes you will see people sitting on props that are maybe six or eight or ten inches high, and the knees sort of waterfall down in front of them.

So go ahead, pause, play around, come back when you're ready.

Did you find your right level of cushioning?

Were you surprised?

Was it either lower than you thought that you might like or higher than you thought that you might like any particularly interesting things that you noticed either around your ability to move or sensations in the legs or hips or spine?

And then I also want to play around with some different foot positions here.

If you found yourself up on a higher cushion, your legs might have already naturally opened out into a more open shape than you're used to.

If you're still right on the floor or close to the floor, and or if you have pretty flexible joints, one shape that you will often see, particularly in a more yoga-based meditation practice, is called lotus.

So this is when we've actually pulled the toes up onto the thighs.

So the legs are crossed, but the feet are pulled in nice and tight, and the toes are resting on top of the opposite thigh, full lotus.

This is a big move for a lot of us.

Our legs and hips just don't do that, and that's okay.

And then we also have half lotus.

So this is when you have just one foot pulled up onto the opposite thigh.

So those toes are in nice and tight, but then the other foot is underneath.

And then sometimes you'll hear the cross leg position, referred to as quarter lotus.

And then my favorite, particularly because I am comfortable with the hips elevated a bit, is called the Burmese style.

So this is actually both feet resting down on the floor or the mat, and one foot is just resting in front of the other.

So if you didn't move through those as I was talking and you would like to, again, for a lot of us, especially if we're tighter or we don't do this a lot, or if we're up on a high prop, I would just skip lotus and half lotus.

You don't even need to play around with there.

But, you know, cross legs, one leg in front of the other.

Switch right leg, left leg, feet closer in, feet a little further out.

Come back when you're ready.

And now we'll change up our shape, change up our props a little bit.

And we'll come around to another still seated option, but quite different in how it feels in the body.

And this is called Seiza.

So this is our kneeling meditation posture.

So for some people, they can actually just sit the glutes right down on the heels.

Again, for many of us, that is a lot.

There's a lot on the knees.

And if you try that, again, you may notice it's a little harder to find a lot of movement in the pelvis.

It's a little harder to find neutral pelvis.

So you could either take one of your towels or blankets, and you could make a nice big roll, and then you could lay that roll right across your achilles, just inside your heels, and then sit down on your roll.

So this is not much lift, but it's an interesting place to start.

Just a little more space, a little less severe bend to the knees.

Move the pelvis there.

Could you find neutral spine?

How does this feel throughout the body?

Or you could take one of those towels or blankets, fold it up into a square or a rectangle, or take one of your smaller pillows or a bigger pillow and fold it in half, or yoga blocks, if you have yoga blocks, and actually place that between your feet, creating a higher platform, and then sit your glutes right down on that pillow or stack of pillows, or blankets, and now we've created a little more lift, even less severe bend to the knees.

And go ahead and notice how that feels in legs.

Hips find a little movement.

Could you find neutral spine?

Now we will mix it up again.

Set your props aside.

We'll take a little walk around your space using some different higher seats.

I would invite you to start which, with every seat you identified, that is lowest to the ground.

So maybe this is a small stool or the edge of your couch.

And once you get yourself there, go ahead and plant your sits bones.

So if it is a larger surface or a softer surface, you are pretty close to the edge.

And then if you are on a lower surface, again, notice the relationship between the height of your knees and the height of your hip joint.

And then start to slowly slide those feet out away from you until your knees are at the level of or a little lower than your hips.

Find that pelvic tilt.

Find that sweet spot.

Find your neutral spine.

Notice how it feels.

And then slowly move yourself to another seat in your space.

Perhaps this one is a little bit taller.

And we'll do the same thing.

And again, I invite you to play with as few or as many seats as you like here.

Go ahead, pause, come back when you're ready.

We'll end with a little body scan, a little check in.

Go ahead and come back to whichever seated shape felt the most interesting or the most supportive or created the most ease in your body today.

So going back to the floor with a bunch of cushions, finding that kneeling shape with some cushions between your feet, or coming back to a chair, stool, bench.

If you need more time, you can go ahead and pause again.

And allow yourself to come back to that sense of a neutral pelvis, a neutral spine.

Can you stack the ribs right over the hips, finding length without tension, and settle back into an awareness of the connection points between your body and your surface?

Feel the ground, feel the support, feel the foundation.

Is there anything that you could adjust, that you could shift in your position, in your relationship to your seat or your props?

To find even a little more comfort, even a little more ease.

Allow your awareness to begin to travel up to the rest of your body.

Gentle, noticing without judgment how your body feels in this moment.

What information, sensation, feedback does your body have to share with you?

Allowing awareness to travel to your knees.

How are your knees feeling in this position, in this moment?

And to your hips, your whole pelvis, how does your pelvis feel?

Notice sensation in your low back, in your belly, in your mid back.

Allow awareness to travel up to the upper back, broaden across the shoulder blades, to the shoulder joints.

How do your shoulders feel?

Allow awareness to travel down the arms to the wrists, hands, fingers.

Bring your awareness back up to your neck, the base of your skull, your scalp, brow, temples, and jaw.

Bring a gentle awareness without expectation or judgment to the sense of your breath.

How does your breath feel in this position?

Easy or labored, full or shallow, fast or slow?

Take another big, expansive, full breath in.

Easy, full, slow breath out.

Notice how your whole cell feels, your body, your nervous system, thoughts, emotions.

And if you found an easy seat that works well for you, awesome.

And if you'd like to continue to experiment a little more, next week we will dive into walking meditation and meditations while walking.

There is a difference.

And perhaps we'll find that that works better for you...."