So as you arrive into your practice,
Those initial few moments,
Can you come straight into body awareness and notice if there's any part of your body that wants to move or fidget.
Are you able to slowly work in stillness through the physical body over the next minute,
Just allowing the body to really arrive,
Letting the hands soften into a place of comfort.
And when you notice the hands softening,
Can you slowly work your way up the arms into the shoulder heads and let them soften too.
From the shoulders,
You notice that the jaw also wants to soften down.
And there's still this gentle awakening through the spine,
Even if you're lying down,
The spine is softly,
Subtly awake,
Keeping a lovely length to that spinal column.
So just tuning into the physical body,
The felt sense of your body,
And notice what is beneath you supporting you.
Letting the body really imprint down into that support,
Trusting that it's got you there.
Letting the head stay open and bright,
Yet softening the facial muscles,
Relaxing the brain,
Feet and legs getting heavier as you start to really,
Truly land and settle into your practice.
I invite you now just to simply become aware of any sounds that you may hear in your space and beyond.
Without too much labeling or judgment,
Can you simply listen and observe the sounds as a sound vibration?
Imagining you had never heard some of these sounds before,
What would your initial physical feeling be when you hear them?
And perhaps over the next few moments as you tune into sounds,
You might allow a color to be assigned to each sound.
If the mind travels down thought tunnels,
Are you able to take a deeper breath in,
Exhale fully and then tune back into the sounds?
Nicely done.
So that's one lovely way you can support yourself in dropping in through the physical body,
Through the sounds in your environment.
And another beautiful way we can settle into our practice is through the breath.
So simply without too much thought,
Just observe the breath that is present for you.
Can you stay curious as to how the breath is behaving?
Is it deep,
Shallow?
Can you sense it?
And as we move through time now together,
Are you able to soften the breath,
Slow it down and make it a little bit thicker,
Rounding,
Smoothing out the breath over the next few moments passing by?
And we're going to drop in this mantra to support us coming closer in contact with our breath and the present moment.
When I'm with my breath,
I am in the present moment.
When I'm with my breath,
I am in the present moment.
Because you can't take a breath from the past.
You can't take a breath from the future.
You can only take this very breath now.
So letting the breath over the coming moment support you in that present moment awareness.
Breathing here without needing to be anywhere else.
And again,
If the thought tunnels take you away,
Take a deeper breath,
Acknowledge that you drifted away and come back to the experience of your breath.
We're going to be shaping the breath a little bit from here and we're going to be moving into some belly breathing to support us grounding and arriving,
Settling in.
So letting go of whatever breath is present,
Let it go,
Go,
Go.
And then inhale through the belly,
Let the belly fill up and expand.
And then holding the breath for just a few moments.
And then exhaling slowly,
Letting the belly soften once again,
Belly button drawing ever so gently toward the spine.
When you're ready,
You inhale,
Inflate the lower stomach.
Hold the breath for a moment,
Soften the jaw,
The forehead.
And then exhaling slowly with control until you're without the breath.
Then let the breath come straight back in,
But drawing the breath down into the lower stomach.
Abdominal breathing.
And if it supports you,
It might be helpful to have a hand placed upon the lower stomach so that you can really sense that inflation with the inhale and the deflation with the exhale.
This is the practice for the next few moments shared.
Can you commit to it fully knowing that the breath is a gateway into present moment unfolding and allowing this to be a really grounding,
Supportive experience?
Explore.
Noticing where you are,
If you're in the presence of the breath or you drifted elsewhere without judgment or anything frustration wise,
Just gently navigate yourself back to the breath.
Just a few more rounds of abdominal breathing.
And notice as you come toward the end of that abdominal experience with the breath,
If anything shifted internally through that short and sweet practice.
Notice if you feel a little bit more settled in your body in the moment.
And from here,
We're going to drop in a bit further to the body because we can often get wrapped up and fixated in the attic of our mind that we forget to come down the steps into the home,
The house of our physical body.
It's a very nice place to be to meet the present moment once again.
So I'll be stating different parts of your body and the exercise of the mind is to simply draw your awareness to those parts of your body and notice,
Observe any sensation present.
I won't be doing any other description other than stating the parts of your body and the rest is up to you to explore.
Try not to make any sensations negative or positive.
Try and stay in the seat of the observer.
And today we start our body scan at the top of your head,
Forehead,
Left eyebrow and right eyebrow.
Eyebrow center,
Sensing the spot between both eyebrows.
Left eye and right eye.
Eye lids and eyelashes.
Left cheek and right cheek.
The nose.
Breath coming in and out of the nose.
The skin just beneath the nostrils.
Upper lip and lower lip.
Teeth,
Tongue and throat.
Lower jaw.
Left ear and right ear.
Back of the head.
The brain.
The entire head.
Neck.
Left shoulder,
Right shoulder.
Both collarbones.
The ribcage.
Upper spine.
Heart and lungs.
Digestive organs and lower stomach.
Left hip and right hip.
The palms of your hands.
Back of the hands.
Wrists,
Forearms,
Elbows,
Upper arms.
The entire torso,
Inclusive of arms and hands.
Both thighs.
Both knees.
Lower legs.
Left ankle and right ankle.
Top of the feet.
Big toes to little toes.
Soles of your feet.
The entire lower body.
The entire body now in your awareness field.
Head,
Torso,
Legs and feet,
Arms and hands all connected as one.
Noticing now the entire body and letting your awareness free flow through the sensations that arise and pass.
Notice,
Observe.
Be here now.
Notice where the mind goes.
Come back to the home of the body.
And with this free flowing,
Open awareness,
We're going to broaden the horizons of where your awareness can go.
So now allowing your awareness to flow freely between body sensations,
Breath,
Sounds around you and any thoughts that arise.
This is open awareness when you just open to what is present so that you can meet it without judgment,
Just witnessing all that is here.
This is the practice for the next few moments shared.
If the mind takes you down another thought hole,
When you realize that,
Take a deeper breath in and allow your awareness to open once again.
Just a few more moments of opening your field of awareness to what is present.
Feelings,
Thoughts,
Sensations,
Sounds,
All of it welcome.
When we sit in the seat of observer and witness,
Nothing is right or wrong,
It just is.
And ever so gently starting to come back into your breath,
Letting go of all of that observation and simply tuning into the breath now.
Fully in through the nose and you might even wash it out through the mouth to let it go.
Two more rinsing breaths.
And then once again,
Just feeling into the body,
Noticing how you're feeling at this time in your practice.
And in your own time,
You can close your practice by bringing some gentle movements into the toes,
The fingers,
And when you're ready,
You can blink the eyes open,
Ready to move into the rest of your day ahead.
