Let's start by adopting your meditation posture.
Ensuring that you feel awake and alert.
Sitting bones to the back of the chair.
Back straight if possible comfortable for you.
Opening the chest,
Softening the shoulders,
Allowing your arms to gently fall beside your side.
As you take your attention now to the points of contact where the body meets the surfaces beneath.
Points of touch,
Pressure.
Noticing any other bodily sensations that you find here.
Tingliness,
Itchiness,
Warmth,
Coolness.
Whatever's here for you.
Just see if you can become curious as to what you find.
As you take your attention up the spine,
Neck to the head.
Noticing the full height of the body.
Softening around the eyes.
Softening around the jaw.
And setting your intention for this practice.
This is a time just for you.
A non-doing time.
A time to turn up for yourself in a supportive and compassionate way.
As you notice the breath now.
And perhaps see if you can hold your attention on where you feel the breath most vividly in the body.
So this could be the nostrils,
The chest,
Maybe the belly.
Seeing if you can be with each in-breath and each out-breath.
Expanding your attention and awareness a bit further to notice the breath in the sides of the body.
Becoming aware of breath in the back of the body.
Ever so gentle expansion of the full torso with each in-breath.
And ever so gentle release each out-breath.
See if you can allow yourself to be cradled by the breath.
To be fully held by the motion of each in-breath and each out-breath.
Gentle rise,
The gentle fall.
As we now take our awareness to scan through the body.
Remembering to include any phantom limb sensation.
Just noticing the sensations throughout the body as they arise in your awareness.
Are there any particular sensations calling out for your attention right now?
Maybe some intensity?
Some discomfort?
What's it like to notice this?
To just observe the intensity?
And can you become aware of any habitual reacting against this intensity?
Any resistance?
Tension?
Just noticing the body's reaction.
Perhaps around the area of intensity or in other parts of the body.
Is there a sense of wanting to pull away?
Is there a sense of hardening up and tensing up in different parts of the body whilst you're aware of this intensity?
If so,
Just seeing if you can allow your breath to dissolve around the resistance.
Breathing in to soften.
Breathing out to allow what's here to be here.
Breathing in to dissolve tension.
Breathing out to let go.
Now turning towards the intensity.
In the same way that you may show up for a dear friend or someone you care about with an intention of wanting to support,
An intention of wanting to alleviate.
See if you can bring this same intention to your suffering right now.
Perhaps softening around the eyes.
Maybe even allowing a half smile.
Try to allow yourself to show up for yourself in the same compassionate way you would for someone else.
Breathing in.
Breathing out.
Have the intensity felt in the body is too overwhelming for you at this time?
Then you have two choices to either distract away or perhaps to expand your awareness.
To incorporate the environment external to the body.
So we're creating a larger container to accommodate this intensity within.
Becoming aware of sounds around you.
Becoming aware of the air against your skin,
The temperature,
The atmosphere.
Aware of this intensity felt in the body within this broader and more spacious awareness.
Breathing in to soften and open.
Breathing out,
Allowing,
Letting go.
And seeing if you can allow yourself to rest on the waves of the breath.
Rest within the flow of meditation.
In the flow of bodily sensations as they arise and fall all by themselves.
As you now draw your attention down to the points of contact where the body is meeting the surfaces beneath once more.
Zooming in to these points of contact.
Feeling the touch,
The pressure.
Feeling the body taken by gravity held by the surfaces beneath.
Making some preparations now to move out of this practice and into the rest of your day.
So maybe some very gentle movement or stretching.
And opening your eyes when it's right for you to do so.
