Hi,
My name is Alyssa.
Thank you for joining me in today's meditation.
Today we will be investigating,
Responding versus reacting.
So often in life we immediately react to external circumstances.
If we can take a moment to pause,
We can then move into a better,
More intelligent response.
Go ahead and get comfortable where you are.
Closing your eyes,
Beginning with some intentional breaths.
The air of your body breathing.
Consciously extending the breath.
A nice,
Full,
Deep in-breath.
And then a long,
Slow out-breath.
Feel enough so you can feel the sensations of letting go.
And then again,
Full deep in-breath.
Feeling the chest,
Feeling the lungs.
Slow out-breath.
Feeling the sensations as you release.
The breath coming in,
The breath going out.
So you're matching the length of the breath.
Breathing in,
Opening.
And breathing out,
Releasing,
Letting go.
Softening and relaxing.
Now allowing the breath to resume its natural rhythm.
Letting your body be breathed.
Noticing the quality of presence that is here.
Taking some moments to gently scan through the body.
You might sense the area of the brow just letting the brow be smooth,
Your eyes soft.
And clenching your jaw,
The tongue resting on your lower palate.
The area of the throat.
The aware of the sensations,
The aliveness that is there.
Pulling your shoulders from the ears like taking off a heavy backpack.
Bring the awareness inside the shoulders.
See if you can sense the space inside the shoulders.
Letting the hands,
Letting them rest in an easy way.
Allowing the natural movement of energy.
Just as a cup can be filled with water,
This whole body can be filled with awareness.
Feeling the chest from the inside out,
Bringing awareness to the heart.
Letting this next breath be received in the belly.
This breath.
And now this one.
Bringing your awareness to the belly and the energy,
The aliveness there.
Feeling it down into your pelvic region,
Aware of the length and volume down your legs.
Feeling the feet from the inside out.
Feeling the earth filled with aliveness,
Following up through the feet to and throughout your whole body so that your body is like a field of sensations.
No outside or inside,
Just this whole sense of aliveness.
Being here fully in the moment,
Bring forward a situation or person,
Maybe a conversation to mind,
Something that has brought forth disappointment,
Anger,
Frustration.
I want you to become aware of your physical body and its response.
The more familiarized we become with the physical alarms,
The quicker we can pause and come into the present moment.
We want you to sense the possibility of meeting whatever is here,
Even if that means allowing the body to feel uncomfortable.
And as we step into these thoughts and physical sensations,
I want you to begin noting them and an example would be,
This is anger,
This is anxiety,
Fear,
Loss,
Frustration,
Impatience.
Whatever's here,
Just meet it with some kindness.
Again noting it such,
I am feeling fear,
I am feeling anger.
Can be helpful to check and see if your attention has run off into thoughts or stories.
It's very normal and if that is the case,
It's a beautiful opportunity to practice creating that pathway back to breath,
To presence.
Without judgment,
We just relax back into the attention of the body and the breath.
Reopening to the moment that's right here.
See if you can fully relax with what is happening.
Now can you say yes to what is here,
Relaxing the attention back open.
The more we practice pausing when these feelings arise,
The better chance and opportunity to bring in an intelligent response versus an emotionally filled reaction.
As you go about your day today,
Try to pause when you sense something arising.
Put it,
Breathe,
And see if you can allow these things to move through you quicker.
And if we do react in a way that we're not proud of,
Remembering that we can always come back and begin again.
Thank you for your practice.
Namaste.
