This talk is about nourishing calmness in stressful times and it's undertaken in a natural environment so you may sometimes hear background noises.
Stress is caused by anything that disrupts your emotional wellbeing.
Pleasant as well as unpleasant,
All changes are impactful and initiate a natural response in the body because as human beings we're hard-wired to respond to stress in order to survive.
Unfortunately in these busy times of all connected and multifaceted activities we can be in continual stress producing situations,
Ingesting ongoing reminders of challenges we or the family or the world around us face,
Needing to manage our own thoughts and feelings within a busy and speedy lifestyle,
Constantly hyped up by our own requirements,
The requirements of others,
Online attention,
Social media and instant news and all whilst maintaining a constant vigilance of whatever's happening around us.
Is it surprising that our systems are sometimes unable to calm down?
Research shows us that mindfulness meditation stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system.
This is the system that brings the body down from the fight or flight response to the rest and digest response,
Relaxing and helping calm everything down and bringing the necessary balance to the body to rest,
Recuperate and stay healthy.
We're going to move into a short relaxation meditation so let's just take a moment to make sure that your electronics and apps are switched off and find somewhere you won't be disturbed for a while and then take a moment to find a posture or position to support both wakefulness and relaxation.
And when you're ready gently closing your eyes if you're comfortable and then just feeling and getting a sense of the body overall.
Opening your awareness to the body,
Just feeling what there is to feel where the chair touches the body.
Realising that you're breathing.
Taking a few deeper breaths,
Nice and slow,
Right down to the belly and just try and be a little longer on the out breath.
And on the next out breath consciously and mindfully letting the breath and any tension from your body go as you breathe out and then allowing your breath to settle and refine its own natural rhythm.
And now let's open our awareness and journey across the body in a conscious relaxation.
Starting with the eyes,
Allowing a softening and relaxing of the eye sockets,
The eye area,
The eyebrows.
Just softening and relaxing including now the cheeks,
Letting the jaw sag a little,
The nose,
Mouth,
Tongue.
Breathing out and as you do softening and relaxing the whole of the face.
There's no expression to be held.
We're simply softening and relaxing the muscles.
The head,
The neck,
Letting it soften and feel heavy.
Relax.
And it's just normal to get caught in thoughts during this practice.
So when you notice your attention is straight,
Just note that and gently bring it back to where we are in this meditation.
Relaxing now the shoulders,
Allowing them to fall away from your neck and letting any tension or tightness fall away with it.
Melting away,
Letting the shoulders slump and feel a little heavy as you let them go.
Allowing awareness to flow down through the arms to the hands.
Noticing the awareness of aliveness that can sometimes be felt there.
The tinglings.
Breathing out,
Relaxing,
Softening,
Releasing.
Breathing to the chest now,
Pausing to notice the energy in this area.
The heart,
Lungs.
Gently and purposely softening and relaxing this whole area.
And flowing down into the abdomen and the belly.
Noticing as you pause again the rise and fall of the belly as you breathe in and as you breathe out.
And if you can,
Allowing the breath itself to become a light anchor as we progress this meditation.
An anchor of somewhere to go back to if you become distracted by sounds,
Thoughts or feelings.
Simply acknowledging them,
Noting them,
Letting them go and returning to the breath.
And moving to the pelvic region now and resting there a moment.
Being aware of the many inner body parts.
Moving,
Processing.
Breathing and relaxing into this area.
Relaxing and releasing and then following the light energy of your awareness as it flows down and along out into the legs,
The thighs,
Knees,
Calves,
To the feet,
Toes.
Inteously releasing any tension in the legs and feet,
Letting the feet fall apart.
Opening the whole body now,
Feeling slightly heavy,
Soft,
Relaxed and bringing the hold of it into your field of awareness.
Aware of the sensations,
Aware of the aliveness and allowing yourself to simply rest a while in this awareness,
Using the breath as an anchor as you gently breathe in and out,
Fully awake,
Fully aware.
Adjusting to re-soften and re-relax the legs,
The shoulders,
The hands again.
Allowing any tension to be released and flow out as they appear in the body.
Rest awake and aware,
Open,
Relaxing,
Allowing what is here to be here because it is.
Noting and letting go of any thoughts or distractions with the out breath.
Breathing gently,
Moment by moment.
And being open and aware now of the stream of life and experience of your whole being.
Sensations,
Feelings,
Thoughts,
Sounds.
Letting the experience of life as it happens appear and disappear and in the background,
In the wakeful stillness,
Awareness.
Resting in that awareness and letting go a little bit more.
Completely relaxing,
Nourishing calmness.
Tenderness.
Good.
And drawing to a close now with a saying that you've probably heard but you may hear differently now.
God grant me the serenity to accept those things I cannot change.
The courage to change those things I can.
And the wisdom to know the difference.
God grant me the serenity to accept those things I cannot change.
