This is Janine,
And welcome into this practice.
Today I'm offering you a practice that invites in a sense of simplicity,
And this can be helpful because life at times can feel overwhelming and often is incredibly complex,
And this is due to the fact that we are relational beings,
We're interacting with people on a professional level,
Social,
Familial,
And that can create a lot of content to sit with.
Also whatever is going on in our bodies,
Hearts,
And minds at any given moment as well can invite in a lot of complexity and at times again these feelings of being overwhelmed.
So I find coming back in simplifying practice,
Having a single point of focus,
Which today will be breath,
Invites in a sense of calm.
So let's begin.
Allow yourself to start to notice the body breathing itself here,
And this is something that's so interesting is that we don't need to will the body into breathing or do anything to make it happen.
It's always here in the background of experience,
But we invite it into the foreground and that in itself can be incredibly helpful to connect to this preciousness of life.
And the simplicity of being with an inhalation,
Noticing how that feels,
Exhaling the breath out and noticing how the body naturally wants to let go,
This exchange between outer and inner,
Inner and outer,
Noticing how on the inhale there's an active quality of drawing in,
And then a more passive quality of letting go as you exhale.
And we're not needing to do anything else here,
We're just noticing how it feels to breathe,
Perhaps feeling the texture of the air moving in and releasing,
Or the felt experience of expansion and contraction,
Or even a sense of buoyancy in the heart center when the lungs expand and the air draws in,
Filling up completely all the spaces in our interior,
And then this lovely rootedness that happens when we exhale out and that connects us to the earth underneath.
Inhaling this connection to life itself,
Breath,
And letting go of the minutiae of the day or anything else that was going on.
It's okay if the mind wanders now and then or you notice a point of distraction.
That's natural for the mind to want to go into other places,
But there's this lovely opportunity to then return again with every round of breath to hear.
This moment,
This body,
This breath.
Every round of breath is like hitting the refresh button,
Just like we clear our screens or defog a mirror.
The breath can do that to our internal atmosphere.
An invitation to space and groundedness.
A sense of fluidity with every wave of breath.
So nothing is static or held or stagnant.
Every breath we take is one we haven't done before,
A new beginning.
A new beginning.
So let's take a few more rounds of breath like this.
Drawing the breath in deeply and fully throughout the whole length of your being.
And then a nice full body release out.
Rising and falling.
Expansion,
Contraction.
Buoyancy,
Rootedness.
Which ultimately allows us to rest in that middle point between the two.
And perhaps taking one more breath in.
And if it feels okay,
Pausing at the top of the inhale and just allowing yourself to be full here.
Full with this life force.
And then when you're ready to release,
Allow the jaw to let go,
Just a little bit exhaling out through the mouth.
And then slowly come back into the space that you're in.
Noticing how you're feeling.
Noticing the resonance of this practice and the simplicity of this practice.
How less is more in so many ways.
I hope this has been a benefit.
Thank you for practicing with me here.
Take care.
