Hi there,
My name is Amber Clyde and I invite you to close your eyes.
If closing your eyes doesn't feel comfortable,
If you feel dizzy,
If it feels unsafe,
I completely understand,
You can just merely gaze at the floor.
Just let your eyelids kind of drop down so that if you have anything around you that those things turn into mere shadows and maybe kind of fuzzy shapes.
So we want to find an erect spine.
So we can say that someone is maybe pulling a string from the crown of the head and lifting you up.
And if you're lying on your back,
Just kind of snuggle down into the floor and see if you can lengthen a little bit more from head to toe.
And then just take a couple of moments and tune into your body.
So when I say that,
All you're doing is taking a peek at what the body might be telling you.
Are you feeling uncomfortable in the low back?
And if you're lying down and if that's the case,
You can always bend your legs and draw the knees together.
Let the feet come a little bit wider than your hips and let the knees fall together so they can rest against one another.
Notice if you have any tension in the neck,
In the shoulders.
You can let your arms feel heavy.
Notice that your fingers feel light.
So we don't want to hold any judgment on what's happening in our body.
If something hurts,
Make yourself more comfortable.
You never have to sit in any position that does not feel good.
If you have something that is persistent,
Maybe a little ache,
I always invite my students to kind of say hello and welcome.
I compare it to maybe a child who's trying to get attention and the parent is ignoring them for whatever reason and they just keep persisting and persisting.
Maybe that makes sense to you.
I always like to welcome any kind of sensation,
Good or bad,
Into my body.
So let's bring our attention and awareness to the breath.
So at first you might just notice,
Yes I'm breathing,
But I'd like you to take it a step further and notice the cool air at the tip of the nose as you inhale.
And the warmer air as you exhale at the tip of the nose.
And then maybe you start to hear the breath.
And perhaps you start to notice the sounds around you.
And if that is the case,
And it might be because I just pointed them out,
Draw your attention back to your breath.
Maybe the cool air on the tip of the nose.
Maybe the warm air as you inhale.
And now notice for a moment where the breath goes as you inhale.
Does it fill the lungs and you notice that your chest expands?
The rib cage widens.
Or does the breath go into the belly?
Where the belly starts to expand.
And the belly button moves towards the spine as you exhale.
Again,
No judgment,
There's no right or wrong,
We're just noticing.
Where is the breath moving to?
And then I would like to invite you to notice the quality of your breath.
Have you noticed that it slowed down a little?
Does it feel agitated?
Shallow?
Deep?
Long?
Short?
Notice the quality of the breath.
Breathing in and out.
And then bringing your attention back to the tip of the nose.
We're going to follow the breath all the way down as you inhale.
So when you breathe in,
Feel the cool air at the tip of the nose.
Feel the lungs or the belly expand.
And then as you exhale.
Let the belly pull in.
Feel the chest collapse.
And then feel the warm air push out of the nostrils.
We're going to do this a few more times.
Cool in the warm air.
And then when you're ready,
You'll slowly start to bat the eyelashes open.
Let a little smile come to the corners of the mouth.
Take a deep breath in.
And then we're going to do the same thing.
And then we're going to do the same thing.
And then we're going to do the same thing.
