Welcome to today's mindfulness practice.
Find yourself a comfortable position in which to sit or perhaps lie down.
Making any final adjustments to get yourself as comfortable as possible.
Closing down your eyes or finding a place to soften your gaze and focus.
And as you're doing this,
Taking a moment to acknowledge yourself for showing up today.
Taking the time out for yourself to practice mindfulness and meditate.
So let's start by listening to the sounds that are furthest away.
Beyond the sounds of the music,
My voice.
See if you can listen to the sounds that are furthest away that you can hear in the present moment.
What are the sounds that you can just distinguish?
See if you can really stretch your listening.
As you're stretching your listening,
Where you're in fact stretching is your awareness.
Continue to listen.
Allowing the sounds to behave as sonar.
Helping you to locate yourself in the present moment.
In the here and the now.
And now contract your awareness to your space.
Perhaps the room that you're in.
See if you can listen to the sounds of the space that you're in.
The sound of my voice,
Music.
The sounds outside still occur,
But enhance your ability to focus your listening to the space that you're in.
Where you're really focusing is your awareness.
From here now,
Contracting your awareness once more to your immediate space.
Your personal space.
And see if you can go from listening to the sounds to the listening of the body and the sensations of breathing in the body.
Noticing the rise and the fall as you breathe in and breathe out.
Let's take a couple of breaths here.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
As you continue to breathe naturally,
Use your awareness to see where in the body you can feel the breath.
It may be in the stomach or the abdomen.
Paying attention to where you can feel the rising and the falling as the body breathes.
It may be in the chest.
You may be noticing an expansion and a contraction as the body inhales and exhales.
Perhaps the sensation is strongest at the nostrils.
Where you can feel the coolness of the air as it comes in and the warmth of the air as you exhale.
So for today's mindfulness,
I hope you enjoyed this video.
So for today's mindfulness practice,
Pick one spot,
Type of sensation,
Whichever feels right for you in this moment.
And feel the body breathing.
Try to stay with the breath all the way through.
From the beginning of an inhale,
Right through to the end of an exhale.
You don't need to force your attention on the breath,
Rather rest it gently on the sensations of the body breathing.
When thoughts arise,
You don't need to push them away or resist them.
You can notice them and leave them be.
Simply returning to the experience of the breath in the body.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
To assist us,
We use a counting exercise to help in this process today.
As you breathe in with awareness,
Upon exhaling,
Counting one in your head.
As you take in the next exhale with awareness,
As you take in the next inhale with awareness,
Counting two upon exhaling.
Breathing in again,
Counting three as you exhale.
You can continue like this up to the number five and then simply start back again at one.
Breathing in and exhaling for a count of one.
Breathing in and exhaling for a count of two.
In your own time now.
Breathing in and exhaling for a count of three.
Breathing in and exhaling for a count of three.
Breathing in and exhaling for a count of three.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Remember that the counting is a tool to assist you with your concentration and is by no means a measurement of how good a meditator you are.
Whenever your mind wanders,
Just simply come back to one.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
You may have noticed the mind wandering and when the mind wanders it really offers us a golden opportunity to cultivate mindfulness and concentration.
Each time we notice the mind wandering we're strengthening our ability to recognize our experience with awareness.
Each time we bring the mind back to the breath we're strengthening our ability to focus on an object with awareness.
Treat this as an opportunity rather than a problem.
It's about coming back to the breath not about never leaving.
Simply return to one.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in Breathing in and breathing out for a count of one.
Breathing in and breathing out for a count of two.
Breathing in and breathing out in your own time.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
And if you like perhaps try letting go of the counting for these last few minutes.
Try to be with the breath.
A brilliant tool here is your curiosity.
See if you can look at your breath with some interest in the mind of a beginner.
Following it,
The nature of it,
Its sensations in the body.
As you continue to breathe in and breathe out in your own time.
Neuroplasticity shows us that the mind is open to wiring and rewiring.
We spend much of our day often getting distracted through no fault of our own but just the nature of life.
Taking the time to sit and mindfully meditate gives us a unique opportunity to cultivate focus and attention and awareness.
As you continue to breathe in and breathe out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
As you take your last few mindful breaths gently bringing some movement to your fingers,
To your toes.
Lightly waking up the body.
Perhaps even inviting a light stretch.
And just before you open your eyes taking a moment to thank yourself for showing up today for your mindfulness exercise.
For taking the time to be with yourself.
And in your own time opening your eyes turning to the day energized and revitalized.
