Unbutton your fly

This guided meditation is meant to help you make it through the upcoming feeding frenzy of a holiday, and still love yourself (or at least not hate yourself). For more guidance on eating mindfully, you can check out this guided meditation that I did for Dan Harris’ Substack: When You Want to Eat Your Feelings.In meditation, people are always telling us to be present in our bodies. But it’s really not so simple, and in fact it can be excruciating for some people to be in a body when shame and body image come into the picture.I’ve done plenty of work to enter some of the most blocked-off parts of my body, to explore the places where shame seems to be the most alive, and I’ve found that it’s those very places where all my intuition and power lives, too. Sometimes I wonder if mass idolization of the flat belly was Māra’s way of keeping samsāra alive, because the more I unbutton my fly (or just take my pants off entirely) and let myself completely hang out, the more fully alive and awake I become. Your support makes a huge difference. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.I suppose an important caveat here is that I’m not trying to get everyone to manspread on the subways. There are times when our happiness will be entirely about attuning to the needs and desires of others, and to see how profound a source of generosity and joy it can be to be a presence of non-harm in this way. But this kind of attunement is not in opposition to the you do you, boo of it all. In fact, being more yourself frees up the energy necessary to direct your attention and attunement to other people. Since you are no longer eating yourself from the inside, you are free to love again.I was on a call the other day with a couple of amazing people, Matthew Hepburn and Madeline Klyne, and we were planning a retreat. They’re both dharma teachers too who have done ridiculous amounts of practice. I told them about my life, which feels on the brink of explosion right now as my husband James and I both have too much on our plates, and how our hands are too full of babies to hold each other, and that I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten what color his eyes are. Both people on the call spontaneously offered to pay for a babysitter so that we could go have a night off together. They all but insisted on it. This means two nights of just the two of us, something that, in my sleep-deprived stupor, hadn’t even occurred to me to try to arrange. This is what happens when you learn to love yourself. You feel more available. In being available, you’re always looking for ways to give. You get creative with generosity. And ultimately, you feel abundant, free, loving, and content— and everyone you bless with your presence feels all of that too. So thank you, Matthew and Madeline, for loving yourselves enough to bless me. How can you be generous this Thanksgiving week? Please feel free to share your ideas in the comments below, and hopefully we’ll all get inspired to explode out of our corsets with generosity.Online talks (very soon), and the return of online classes (!)Today: Sunday, November 23rd online with Community Meditation Center of NYC 10:30-12pm ETTomorrow: Monday, November 24th online with the Durango Dharma Center 7:30-8:45pm ETI’ll resume teaching regular drop-in classes on December 10th. These typically consist of a short talk, a guided meditation, and some time for group questions/discussion. To find out more, click here: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caralai.substack.com/subscribe