End Of Year Unwind & Reflection | Breath & Meditation

Join Abigail to gently pause the motion of this journey around the sun and take a few extended moments to pause, unwind and look back. Collect the pearls of wisdom from the journey you've been on this year, celebrate, commiserate, breathe through it all. Look back with love so you can move forward with clarity and refreshed vigour. Breathing to calm before moving into contemplation and refelction.

Transcript

So as you start to settle into today's practice,

Start by allowing the eyelids to gently draw to a close.

If you're in an environment where you feel more comfortable keeping a soft yet focused gaze toward the ground or another part of your body,

Please do that.

But if you're in a space where you feel like you can fully close down,

Go for it.

Feeling the eyelashes of the upper lids meeting the eyelashes of the lower lids in a gentle embrace.

And then letting the eyeballs and the back of the eyeballs gently soften.

Everything that your eyes have taken in up until this point of this day,

Just let that all dissolve and coming into spaciousness and relaxation in the eyeballs now.

Allow that spacious quality and that softness to move through the back of the eyeballs into the brain,

All of those synapses,

Wiring,

Firing all day or as long as this day has been going for you.

Just imagine the brain getting a little moment just to soften,

Relax,

To release,

To not do so much.

And then allow that relaxation,

That softness that we're cultivating here to ripple down through the entire length of the body now.

Just like a warm,

Beautiful shower,

The whole body starts to soften,

To drop into space.

And as you do that,

I invite you to connect to your breath,

Simply noticing the quality of the breath that is here now.

You don't have to change it at this point,

But naturally you will alter it as the awareness goes there.

Just witness how the breath is behaving.

Where do you sense the breath the most today in this moment?

And for the next few moments that pass,

Are you able to stay with your awareness gliding on the surface of the in and out breath?

Take 5% of the effort out and allow more of a receptive awareness to be present.

Softening,

Softening,

Opening,

Opening.

And from here we will start to shape the breath.

We'll be using our calming,

Serene breath today,

Where we'll breathe in for a count of four and out for a count of six.

Every time we extend the exhale breath longer than the inhale breath,

We're supporting our nervous system,

Switching into the rest and digest setting.

Letting our body,

Our mind,

Our hearts know that we're safe,

That we can pause,

We can rest and recalibrate.

So I'll guide you through the first couple of rounds in rhythm,

And then I'll allow you that space and time to integrate that for yourself.

Let's do three clearing breaths to begin.

So take a full breath in through the nose,

Fill up the entire body with beautiful breath.

And through the mouth,

Let it wash away.

Two more like that,

In through the nose,

And out through an open mouth,

Let it go.

Last one just for you now.

And washing it away.

Gently sealing off the lips,

Inhale,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Suspend for a moment.

Exhale six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One,

Inhale,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Suspend.

Exhale six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One,

Inhale,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Feel full and suspend.

Exhale six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One,

Inhale,

Bright and brilliant to four.

Surround and float in the space between.

Exhale for six and move down,

Let it out,

Slow it down.

And then continue that cycle in for four,

Gentle suspension,

Out for six.

This is the practice,

Stay with it.

Taking this the final round of serene breath,

In for four,

Out for six,

And then gently returning to an easy,

Natural,

Fluid breath.

As you return to your natural breath,

Simply notice,

Did that breathing technique create any ripples of change inside yourself?

Notice the effects of that practice.

All is welcome,

There's no right or wrong,

Just ease.

And then I'd like you to bring your awareness to your heart space.

And I'd like to bring in and invite the visualization of a ball of string that is all wound up and tangled and multi-layered and bound.

And slowly with the breath,

With this moment,

That ball of string starts to unravel itself through your awareness,

Through your intention to unwind.

You see those pieces of string coming off that mass amalgamation of knotted string.

And that free string just starts to fall off and around until before you know it,

You're getting towards the center of that ball.

And there's this whole new space,

The untangling.

Allow that image to be present in your mind,

Your heart,

Your body,

And imagine that that were happening on the inside.

To untangle,

To unwind,

How does that feel?

With this meditation today,

In order to reflect,

To look back,

First we must pause,

Untangle,

And slow down to see what's there.

So I'm going to place some questions into the ether for you to contemplate or to bring into yourself.

And this is in a bid to reflect,

To connect,

To celebrate.

So to begin with,

I invite you to cast your mind back to the start of this year.

See that version of you and look at them with love,

With compassion,

As you view them.

And notice in just a span of a year,

The journey that this person has gone on.

It might have been momentous,

It might have been quite a plateau journey,

But just notice that journey.

And as you kind of look back and feel into that journey from then until now,

I'd like you to bring forward some particular moments.

And to begin with,

I'd like you to find a moment of celebration.

Something you're honoring about what you've achieved or you've done for yourself or others.

Something that you feel proud of to have accomplished.

And those moments need to be huge because the ripples of even just a small act spread far and wide.

And as you marinate in that memory of a moment of celebration or victory,

Can you go deeper into that memory and just see who's there?

What was the feeling in your body in that moment?

And just let that live and breathe in you just for a few more moments.

Letting all that goodness just get soaked up on a cellular level,

That recognition,

That reflection of that time.

Celebrating you in that and your efforts.

And then gently letting that moment,

That image dissolve,

But allow it to be integrated into the heart space,

Saved into the heart's memory bank.

And now I invite you to bring forward a time that was particularly challenging.

Maybe that time is now and that's absolutely okay too.

Just locating that time for yourself from now all the way back to the start of the year.

And viewing yourself through the lens of compassion and seeing yourself in that moment,

That most challenging moment.

Who were you with?

What were you doing?

How did you feel?

And what did you do in those following moments to support yourself through that challenge?

And if you're in the most challenging time,

What can you do to support yourself through this challenge?

And then allowing that to be integrated in the heart space,

To be acknowledged,

Recognized.

Acknowledging yourself and your resilience as you move through that challenge this year.

And now I'd like you to gently bring to mind someone that has been present in your life this past year that has added value to your experience as a human on planet Earth.

Just one person.

I know it's hard.

Sometimes we want to have more than one,

But try and stick with one for now.

Find that person,

Bring them into your awareness and imagine how they look,

Any unique characteristics that they behold.

And I'd like you to reflect on what is it that they've brought into your life?

What value are they adding to your experience?

And just acknowledging them,

Celebrating them for their addition,

Respecting that connection between you both and then allowing that to integrate into the heart space.

And then gently,

I invite you to bring to mind someone or something that you feel you have let go of or lost this year.

You're sensing that person or that experience or that thing.

Each year we grieve,

Each year we let go.

What or who comes to mind and how do you want to honor them or that experience in this moment?

Maybe thanking that experience or that person for the time you shared and with love letting it or them gently go.

Coming back to your breath.

Letting the breath start to fill into the lower lungs once again,

Full of breath now.

And as you breathe with that awareness,

That intention,

Just noticing on the back of that reflection what's present in your mind,

Your heart,

Your body.

As you can see,

We went through a celebration,

A challenge,

A gain,

A loss.

And life is full of these multitude of polarities and various tones and textures of human experience and we're just honoring that another year lived.

And just gently sensing in,

Is there anything else you want to experience in this year before we turn the page?

Creating a little intention as to how you want to see through,

See out the last of this year.

Who do you want to do it with?

How do you want to do it?

What's the feeling inside of yourself?

As you move toward another closing of another year,

Taking all the wisdom or the lessons or the insights,

All of it with you into the next.

And ever so gently,

It's going to be a start,

A slow start to coming out and starting to maybe move the fingers a little,

The toes.

And if you're in an environment that feels comfortable to do any little movements or stretches,

Maybe that feels nice as you come out of today's reflection meditation.

When you're ready,

Feel free to open the eyes.

Reviews

This meditation brought tears to my eyes. As always, thank you! 🙏🏾✨🪷