Head, Lightly

For an aching head, a tight jaw, or tired eyes. The distance from the ache to the edges of the head, then looking through it.

Guided open-attention meditation · about 5 minutes · eyes closed

Listen to Head, Lightly

The player includes recorded narration and adjustable room tone. Start when you are ready. You can pause or end at any point.

About the practice

This is one of the pain series, after the four steps in Les Fehmi's Dissolving Pain. Nothing in it asks you to push into pain or to change any care you are getting; it changes the shape of attention around the sensation, not the sensation itself. The narrated explainer gives the reasoning. The questions invite an experience of space and attention. There is no correct sensation to produce and no score. This player does not measure brainwaves or confirm alpha synchrony.

Transcript

Spoken cues from the session script. The recording leaves space between these lines; pauses are part of the practice.

Settle in, let your eyes close, and let your face stop holding any expression. This session is for an aching head, a tight jaw, or tired eyes.

Nothing here asks you to make the ache go away. Whatever happens when you hear a question is the right answer.

Where is the ache, exactly? Can you find where it begins and where it ends, without pressing on it?

Can you imagine the distance from the ache to your left ear?

And the distance from the ache to your right ear?

Can you imagine both distances at once, the ache resting between them?

Can you imagine the distance from the ache to the back of your skull, and from the ache to your forehead?

The ache has room on every side now. Can you imagine it floating in that room, rather than pressed against the walls of your head?

Can you let your eyes rest in their sockets as two pockets of space, looking at nothing?

Can you imagine the space between your upper and lower teeth, your jaw held by nothing?

Now, through. Can you imagine looking through the ache, as you would look through mist, to the space on the far side of it?

If the ache thickens when you attend to it, that is useful. Give it a bigger room and look through it again.

Can you imagine the whole head as one open region, with the ache as a thinner patch of the same mist?

Can you imagine this perception as effortless? Nothing to aim at, nothing to hold.

Can you imagine the space inside your head, from ear to ear and from your forehead to the back of your skull, all at once?

Before the bell, let the space in the head join the space of the room, above and around you.

When the bell sounds, open your eyes slowly, and let them stay soft as the room arrives.

Choose another meditation or read about the method and attribution.