This is Alisha Davis and I welcome you to Soundbites for Serenity.
Today our theme is Ride the Wave.
Jon Kabat-Zinn,
In his book Full Catastrophe Living,
Has a quote.
And he writes,
You can't control the waves,
But you can learn to surf.
And for me,
Surfing means connecting with the wave of my breath.
And in mindfulness practice,
When you connect with your breath,
You automatically bring your attention to the center of your body.
And when you breathe fully in and you exhale fully out,
It helps your mind focus.
When you bring your attention to your breath,
You automatically center yourself.
So today,
Our relaxation practice will be to learn how to very gently and effectively focus on our inhale and our exhale as we come into greater awareness of our body and mind.
I invite you to now come into a comfortable position,
Either sitting or lying down.
With your eyes closed,
Or with them just resting so that you can pay attention inside.
And begin by allowing the attention to notice the fact that you are breathing.
Notice if you're breathing through your nose or your mouth.
And follow the path of the breath in.
And follow the path of the breath out.
Notice as the breath comes in,
The coolness,
Or how it maybe tickles in your nose or in your mouth.
Notice on the exhale,
Perhaps it feels warmer.
And just continue to follow this breath as it takes you deeper into your body.
So going down into your throat,
And down into your lungs.
And just relaxing your shoulders,
And letting that breath just fill up all of your lungs,
Your chest,
All around into your back.
And as you exhale,
Just exhale all of that breath as fully out as you can.
Just release it.
And let it go.
And then as you breathe in again,
See if you can allow that breath to deepen by softening your belly.
Imagine that the breath just gets pulled down into the center of you,
A little bit deeper as you relax.
And soften your belly muscles and the muscles in your low back.
And just become aware of the sensations in your body as you really begin to breathe more consciously and more fully.
Notice any warmth or tingling.
Notice any places of tension that perhaps you could let go of a little bit.
And you may also notice that as you're breathing in this very natural rhythm with conscious awareness,
That your mind will begin to wander.
You'll begin to think of things coming up in the next part of your day,
Or think of things that have happened in the past.
It just naturally thinks.
And when it does that,
All you want to do is gently invite it back to the present moment by being a witness to the breath.
And you may also notice as you sit and as you breathe,
You become aware of physical sensations,
Maybe an itch or a pain,
A tension.
And you'll have a tendency to want to move and adjust.
But just see if you can simply keep the sensations company with your awareness.
Just being with whatever you become aware of.
Letting go of judgment.
Just becoming as curious as possible what happens as you breathe fully and gently and deeply.
And now very slowly bring your attention from the inside out.
So beginning to move a little bit,
Beginning to become aware of sounds in the room.
And when you're ready,
Just very gently and slowly opening your eyes.
Or if your eyes were open,
Just letting them begin to come into focus of your surroundings.
And just notice how you feel after this experience of fully breathing.
Many blessings and prosperity today.
