Hello and welcome to today's practice.
Allow yourself to take a few moments just to settle in,
To find a place of support and comfort.
You might be sitting or lying down,
Allowing your body to settle and choosing whether you keep a soft focus with your eyes,
Either down and forward or maybe your eyes are closed today,
See what feels right for you.
See if you can start to bring your attention just to any movement you feel in your body,
Maybe the most perceptible movement is your breath,
If that feels like a good place to rest your awareness in this moment.
No need to change anything about it,
Just notice the natural movement,
The natural rhythm,
Perhaps a gentle rise and fall.
Notice as well the places where your body feels supported,
Perhaps under your seat or even under your back and your head.
Take a moment to notice where your attention has been today without judgment.
Just with the quality of an observer,
See if you can notice what kinds of thoughts you have been paying attention to,
What kind of thoughts have been present.
We often drift into future planning,
Replaying something from the past,
Scanning for problems or simply having a kind of scattered sensation of the thoughts in the mind.
Just notice the kind of quality of the thoughts you've been having today,
No need to fix or analyze,
Just bearing witness.
Now see if you can ask yourself gently,
Where is my attention right now in this moment?
No need to force,
Just notice.
You might find that your attention lands on a sound within the room,
A thought,
A sensation in your body.
Just notice and now ask again,
Softly,
Is this where I want my attention to be?
There's no right or wrong answer,
It's simply an invitation to return,
To choose,
To come back to choice.
See if you can now,
Just for a few rounds of breath,
Pick something small to focus on.
It might be the feeling of your breath as it moves in your chest or maybe even the sensation of the breath moving in and out of your nostrils,
Slightly cooler air that you breathe in,
The warmed air that you breathe out,
Or the simple feeling of your body supported by the earth.
Allow your attention to rest there for a moment.
The mind may wander and that's okay,
See if you can gently each time invite it back.
Not with force,
But with a kind of welcoming invitation.
Each return is a moment of strengthening.
Now see if you can allow your attention to fan out a bit wider,
Even if just a little bit.
Can you become aware of the experience,
Perhaps,
Of your whole body or of a full cycle of your breath?
Or simply having a sense of witnessing your thoughts from that observer seat.
Everything held in the soft field of your attention.
You are the one noticing and in that noticing there is power,
There is choice.
Take one final deep breath in and slowly allow the breath to move out.
If it feels right,
You could take one hand to your heart and another hand to somewhere that feels comforting,
It might be on your belly.
It might be on your face or both hands to the heart.
Remember you can return to this question at any time throughout the rest of your day.
Where is my attention right now?
And then gently use these practices to invite your attention back in order to choose where you direct your attention next.
Whenever you're ready,
You might gently just start to bring your attention back to this present moment,
The sounds in your room.
Taking in whatever you see around you,
Inviting yourself back into the rest of this day.
Thank you for joining me today.
Thank you for joining me in this practice,
Wishing you well.
