Welcome to your practice.
Please come into any comfortable position where you can find some ease for about 10 minutes or so.
This is your practice and you have full permission to tune into your intuition and to take care of yourself.
Your eyes can be closed or your gaze can be softened downward so that your eyes might rest.
I will now invite the bell to begin.
With a sense of curiosity and exploration,
Start to notice where you are in contact with the support beneath you.
Begin to let your entire body relax into this support.
Observe any available sensations of pressure,
Tingling,
Warmth or coolness.
Slowly mentally scan your entire body beginning with your feet,
Working up through your legs,
Hips,
Torso,
Arms,
Shoulders,
Neck,
Face and head.
If you recognize any uncomfortable sensations in your body,
See if you can accept them as they are without pushing them away.
And with a gentle attention,
Notice if they slowly begin to change over time.
Try to cradle these sensations in compassion without attaching any additional story or deeper meaning to them.
Holding yourself with warmth and tenderness,
Letting this moment be exactly as it is right now.
You are here,
You are breathing,
And you are present for what is.
Now start to shift your attention to your natural breath.
Let your belly,
Chest,
Throat,
Jaw and tongue be soft and observe the current qualities of your natural breath.
Is your breath fast or slow,
Shallow or deep,
Rough or smooth,
Or somewhere in between?
Where does it seem like your breath is easiest for you to feel?
Maybe it's at your nostrils or the back of your throat or perhaps you feel the rise and fall of your chest or belly.
For the next few breath cycles,
Let your attention gently settle on the place you feel your breath the easiest and simply take notice.
One breath at a time.
Feeling the full expanse of each inhale and the slow settling of each exhale.
There's nothing to change here,
You are just noticing without judgment.
Now broaden your awareness to include any thoughts or emotions that are coming up.
Acknowledge these thoughts or emotions,
Feel where they might reside in your body,
And then let them float on by like wispy clouds moving across the sky.
You can see them,
But you don't need to get particularly caught up in any one of them.
Finally,
If you are moving on to a Yoga Asana,
Practice after this or simply continuing on with the rest of your day,
Ask yourself what you need from the next part of your practice or the remainder of your waking hours.
Now take a few natural breaths to simply be in this moment,
One breath at a time,
With everything that is and everything that is not,
Letting your true nature begin to peek out from within.
As this centering comes to a close,
If you would like,
Please take one hand to your heart and one hand to your belly.
Repeating the following aloud or silently.
May I greet my body with gentleness.
May I soften when life invites me to harden.
May I listen to my intuition with wisdom and trust it with ease.
And may I appreciate my body a little more in this moment,
Just as it is.
Now I invite you to take one full breath in through the nose and sigh out the exhale.
Thank you for your practice.
God Bless.
