Transcript
A (0:00)
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B (0:13)
It's the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody. Time for a bonus meditation. Today we're going to focus on the body, specifically the jaw, which is a place many of us hold tension even when we're not aware of it. Our meditation teacher du jour, my great friend Jay Michelson, is going to walk you through the different points of the jaw where you may be clenching and you may find that this relaxes your mind as well. A little bit more about Jay. He's a writer and journalist, rabbi and meditation teacher, keynote speaker and scholar of religion. He really does it all. He's also written 10 books, most recently the Secret that Is not a secret, 10 heretical tales. His 2022 book The Heresy of Jacob Frank won the National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship. He holds a JD from Yale, a PhD, a Jewish thought from Hebrew University, and a non denominational rabbinic ordination. Here we go now with the polymaths.
C (1:19)
J. Michelson hi, this is Jay. A lot of time in meditation it's the little things. In this guided meditation I'm going to show you a very little thing, relaxing tension in the jaw that is the single most effective tool in my personal meditation toolkit. Now in this meditation we're going to move very slowly, so try not to jump ahead. We'll begin by settling into the present moment. Find a comfortable still posture. Maybe close the eyes or not as you prefer. Feel the physical sensations of the body in stillness, the breath rising and falling. Now let's direct the attention away from the breath and up the body to the jaw again. Try not to change anything just yet. Just check out the physical sensations along the jawbone. Start at the center. Are you gritting your teeth? Maybe. Gently relax there. Then move just a bit toward the left side, kind of underneath your left cheekbone. Any tension there? Any holding? Just gently relax. And now to the right side. Same spot but on the other side of the face. See if you can let go a little bit more. How does that feel? Finally to the hinge of the jaw just underneath your left ear. Almost every time I meditate I notice tension here. Whatever the reason, let go, unclench. Notice if there's been any shift in the mind, if more relaxation is present or ease. And one more time, bring the attention back up to the jaw to see if you may have re clenched just in this little bit of time and letting go again. Finally when you're ready, you can open your eyes if they've been closed. Have a great day.
B (6:24)
Thank you Jay. You can find more meditations like this one over on the Happier Meditation app. And you can learn more about Jay and me over on Substack, where we both have active newsletters and communities.