Hello and welcome to this trauma-informed embodied breath practice.
If this practice feels difficult for you at any moment,
If it feels uncomfortable to bring presence into the body,
I would encourage you to modify it and if necessary,
Stop.
You are welcome to have the eyes open,
Gazing down to the floor a few feet in front of you,
Or to have the eyes soft to the extent that they are nearly closed with just a crack of light coming in.
Allowing the eyes to remain slightly open will often mean that you feel less activated by bringing your presence into the body.
If you still find the practice is a bit too much,
Then you are welcome to focus the breath at the tips of the nostrils as we go through.
Don't feel the need to follow the breath into the body,
Just hold your attention gently at the tips of the nostrils.
I invite you to take a moment to settle,
To come seated.
If you need some time to adjust,
Then feel free to pause here.
Otherwise,
Taking a moment to bring the eyes soft or closed,
Resting on your focal points and just beginning to settle.
Taking a moment to find your seat,
To stabilize and to begin to gently attune your attention to the feel and flow of the breath.
Doing nothing more in this moment than noticing the breath.
Drawing into the body and leaving the body.
Noticing your body breathe,
Expand and collapse.
And as you continue to breathe,
Allowing the breath to drop a little lower,
To become a little longer.
But never feeling like you are overstretching the breath or elongating it,
Just relaxing the breath a little.
And every time the breath leaves the body,
Connecting with a sense of all the tensions in the body,
Melting and dissolving out and down into the space beneath.
Every time the breath leaves the body,
Feeling,
Sensing,
Seeing all the tension,
The muscular tension,
The inner tension.
Dissolving down and out of the body and into the space beneath.
Softening,
Softening,
Down and down.
Breathing easy,
Allowing the tensions,
The delicate and deepest tensions,
To melt down and out on the exhale.
Now staying aware of the breath,
But now shifting your focus and beginning to trace the breath with your awareness on the tips of your nostrils.
Down into the cave of the belly and back up and out again.
Knowing that the mind will drift,
That this is normal and that we don't need to become agitated or frustrated by this at any time.
We aren't focusing in an aggressive way that feels tension inducing.
We are gently laying our awareness onto the stream of breath.
Feeling it move in the body,
Seeing it journey in the mind's eye,
From the tips of the nostrils,
Down into the cave of the belly and back again.
Stay with this for the next few moments.
Gently tracing the breath from the tips of the nostrils to the cave of the belly and back again.
And taking a nice,
Smooth inhale into the nose.
Letting it go softly from the mouth and letting go of all the instruction,
All the guidance,
All the agenda and just resting for a moment.
And when you feel ready,
Gently find your way back to the present moment.
