“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity” – Simone Weil
In meditation, a home base is the place we come back to. The sensation of the breath at the belly, the hum of a vent, the movement of wind in the grass. Some comforting or neutral thing in our immediate sensory experience that we anoint with our attention. And then we forget what the heck we were doing. And then we wake up! And then we come back.
What sounds ho-hum is arguably the most important skill a human can acquire. We can notice when we're somewhere we don’t want to be – stuck in rumination, bitterness, anger, reactivity, resistance, conviction, aggression – all the things. Instead of being helplessly subject to whatever’s causing us (and the people around us) suffering, we can notice ‘oh that's happening!’ and attempt to pay attention to something else. I say “attempt’ because of course this is an imperfect process. Our derangements have momentum. And yet the choice is there, if only a flicker. A flicker can become a candle flame, a strobe light, a new world. What we pay attention to becomes our life.
It begins with the capacity to come home to the present. This is necessary for self-regulation, and for co-regulation. It’s necessary for making ‘hey I’m here with you’ contact with other humans. It’s necessary for healing trauma, for parenting, for leadership, for observing prairie dogs in the wild, and for improvising in a comedy troupe.
Meditation is one way to get better at it. And it can be enjoyable– that feeling of really sinking into a home base, of time slowing down. The generosity of our attention invokes generosity back. We come home to ourselves.
Or maybe we just drool a bit.
Let’s find out! Short guided meditation below, recorded in my friend Tasha’s home studio. Just press play.
Jeff
A few quick notes—
New to Home Base? We have over 70 free guided meditations in our audio library, over 60 extended meditations, over 365 meditations on YouTube, and a growing number of community practice videos. New writing, new audio meditations, and new DNP live community practice sessions happen every week.
Did you find me on Calm or Happier? While the meditations I recorded for the apps live on in perpetuity, I no longer record new meditations for them. My latest work happens here; becoming a paid subscriber is the best way to support that work. I give paid scholarships to anyone who asks (email info@jeffwarren.org). If you found this meditation and post helpful, but becoming a paid subscriber isn’t an option, you can also …
Many thanks!
I can honestly say that Jeff has helped me survive these last few years. His short and very real and honest meditations on the Daily Trip gave me an anchor and a way to cope with very difficult things happening in my life. Thank you
I also wanted to mention same as some others that my very active mind, has a hard time focusing on just one home base at a time. When Jeff says: “ It could be your breath, or the sound of a fan, or the tingling in your fingers....” , I end up kinda focusing on all 3. Or I switch during a meditation . And then my mind wonders if I’m failing the meditation... ha it’s a conundrum 🙈
I’ve followed you since I did your intro series on the calm app (multiple times, it was that good). You say things in a way that helps me get it. I wonder have you ever been indecisive on your home base? Your comment about judging it and how it doesn’t matter helped during the meditation.