Hello and welcome to this mindfulness practice.
Today we will connect with who we are beneath our roles.
What does it actually mean to slow down?
It's hard not to sit with this question in a world that seems to grow louder and busier by the day.
And time has a funny way of warping.
As we're in the present,
It seems we can't even grasp it.
Yet a season of suffering can feel endless.
Through the ups and the downs of life,
We experience the simple middle.
The sunlight peeking through the curtains.
Maybe a bee on a flower.
The one cloud in the sky that brings a brief moment of shade.
Time is our most valuable resource.
We all receive the same amount.
It can be bottled up and sold.
And it's simply just ours for each moment.
So how do we slow it down?
One place that I've noticed urgency and rush within my own life.
Is when I embody roles.
Who am I when I work?
Who am I when I'm with my family?
Who am I with my partner?
These roles we embody throughout the day are beautiful.
But if we don't connect with our essence,
Who we are beneath the role,
We easily can feel the rush.
And more and more disconnected from ourselves.
Take a deep breath.
Gently close your eyes.
And bring your awareness into the body.
Breathing in through the tip of the nose and on the exhale,
Listen to the soft sound as the air leaves you.
Taking another deep inhale into the body and filling up the heart space,
Expanding the chest.
And on the exhale letting it all go.
Taking another deep inhale,
Breathing in all the way into the belly,
Expanding the core.
And on the exhale,
Sigh it out.
One last breath filling up the entire body now.
From crown to toe,
Fingertips all the way out and on the exhale release everything,
Softening the body,
Feeling yourself arrive in this moment.
Tuning into the present moment by connecting with where you are.
Becoming aware of the surface beneath you.
Scanning your awareness out to the furthest sound away that you can hear.
And drawing your awareness back into the sensation of your body touching the surface below.
Can you surrender even 5% more?
Feeling the energy swirl in your body on the next breath,
Allowing the energy to find balance.
The breath acting as a wind that smooths out the surface of a lake.
Becoming still.
And steady.
And on the exhale,
Settle in.
From here,
Bringing your awareness to your heart space.
Visualizing a white light in the center of your heart.
Sensing the energy that beams out from that light.
Perhaps even connecting with your very own heartbeat.
And as you connect with this light,
Experience it expanding in the body.
In all directions pouring from inside the heart out into the rest of the body.
Piercing the flesh and working its way around the body,
Creating an auric field around you.
Encasing yourself in cleansing,
Healing energy.
You're welcome.
Visualizing yourself seeing nothing but this white light around you.
And from here in your mind's eye.
Bringing yourself to a park bench.
Experiencing the beautiful sun.
The trees blowing in the wind.
Sitting in a pristine and beautiful park.
The sidewalk trimmed with beautiful flowers.
And as you sit comfortably on this bench,
Visualize yourself as a being of light.
Here on this bench.
You are nothing but your pure essence.
Releasing any attachment to your name.
Or to the roles you embody throughout the day.
And connecting with being a pure body of light.
And sensing how light it feels to experience that.
Then from here,
Visualizing a person walking down the path about to cross in front of you.
And as they approach closer,
You recognize that this version of you is who you are.
When you are at your workplace.
This person's energy is exuding off of them.
You recognize the costume they wear at work.
Who they have to be.
What they're doing.
And as they walk by,
You simply just observe who they are.
And they continue down the path until you can no longer see them.
And you return your awareness back.
Into your light body and connect with just your pure essence.
Releasing anything that came up from visualizing that role.
Letting it go.
Now from another direction,
Someone else begins to approach the bench.
And as they get closer,
You realize that this is the role of who you are when you're with your family.
Notice the outfit they have on.
The energy that they move with.
And perhaps you feel a gentle tug energetically in your own body when you observe them.
But as this roll continues to walk down the path,
Eventually it disappears and you are can bring all of your awareness back into your light body.
Releasing the visual of seeing that role and that identity.
And another person begins to approach.
And this version is a little more complex because this version is who you are when you are by yourself.
Perhaps you can notice a role or an identity of this version of you.
How do they move?
What do they wear?
Continue to observe what comes up as you witness this version of yourself.
Until you can no longer see them in your vision,
And you again bring all of your awareness back into the light body.
And as this light body,
Journey within yourself now,
Connecting to the pure essence of what you are.
This is not something you think about,
But more feel into.
What energy do you feel within this light body?
Who are you when you're not feeling rushed?
Who are you when you don't have to perform?
And allow the sensations of what comes up to fill the body in a positive,
Effortless way.
Almost as if more spaciousness was being created within the body.
Perhaps even beginning to feel formless.
And allow the essence of who you are.
To become an anchor within your heart.
Something that you can connect with at any time to remember.
Who you are.
Beneath what it is that you do,
For yourself and for others.
And as this being feeling the air on your skin,
Softening even deeper.
I'll give some space for you to experience your essence,
And trust that in a few moments my voice will return.
But for now,
Simply anchor into just being.
You bringing your awareness back to your breath.
Deep inhale through the nose.
Dropping the shoulders and on the exhale feeling yourself come back into the body.
It can be difficult.
To embody different roles throughout the day.
But when we can connect with the essence of who we are beneath it all.
Everything feels a little bit more spread out.
Create spaciousness in your life by bringing awareness.
To the roles you embody.
And when you feel yourself getting too lost,
Bring yourself back to your essence.
Thank you for joining me today.
You
