Welcome to this practice of the vertical alignment breath.
Firstly get yourself into a comfortable seated or standing position.
You can close your eyes if you want to or lower your gaze whichever feels more comfortable for you.
Begin by bringing your awareness to the contact between your feet and the floor or if you're seated the contact between your body and the place where you're sitting.
Get a sense of the weight of you going down,
Feeling connected to the earth beneath you.
Also get a sense of the height of you going up as you may be lengthening through the spine by lifting your sternum,
Sitting or standing a little taller.
Noticing the weight of you going down,
Feeling grounded and the height of you going up.
Next turn your awareness to your breath.
To begin with just noticing your breath in your body.
There's no need to change it or control it,
Just noticing it.
Notice where in the body you can feel it.
Maybe in the abdomen or the chest,
Maybe across the back of the body or in the shoulders.
Perhaps you can notice the sensations of the air on your lips or your nostrils.
Now bring awareness to the space at the center of your chest at the level of your heart,
Your heart center.
On the next exhale allow your awareness to flow through the body down to your feet and on the next inhale allow your awareness to flow back up to your heart center.
On the next exhale allow your awareness to flow from the heart up the body to the crown of your head and on the next inhale allow your awareness to flow back to your heart center.
Breathing out to the feet,
Into the heart,
Out to the crown,
Back into the heart.
Just see if you can keep up the awareness flowing through your body with your breath.
Flowing out to the feet and into the heart,
Out to the crown,
Back into your heart.
If you get distracted or lose your place or your mind wanders off,
Just bring your awareness back to the heart center and begin again.
Breathing out to the feet,
Into the heart,
Out to the crown,
Back into the heart.
Now if it feels comfortable you may like to experiment with extending your awareness beyond your body.
Breathing out through the feet into the earth beneath you,
Breathing back into the heart,
Breathing out beyond the crown to the sky above,
Breathing back into the heart.
Breathing out into the earth,
Breathing into the heart,
Breathing out up to the sky,
Breathing back into the heart.
And again if you get distracted or you lose your place or your mind wanders,
Just notice where it went to,
Bring the awareness back to the heart center and begin again.
Breathing out through the feet into the earth,
Breathing in back to the heart center,
Breathing out through the crown of the head to the sky above,
Breathing back in to the heart center.
Now just release the flow of awareness and just become aware once again of the sensations of the breath in the body.
As this practice of the vertical alignment breath begins to come to an end,
Start to become aware of your surroundings again.
Noticing the contact between your body and the floor or your seat.
Becoming aware of the sounds around you and when you're ready lifting your gaze or opening your eyes and taking a good look around you.
This practice of the vertical alignment breath is now complete.
Thank you for listening.
