Today,
We are going to practice the art of noticing,
Observing,
Becoming aware of,
Discerning.
Notice where your breath is right now as you settle into stillness for the next few moments,
Laying down or sitting,
Getting comfortable,
And allowing your eyelids to feel heavy.
Noticing where the resistance is in this moment and guiding your breath there for an inhale and a release on the inhale,
Filling your belly up like a balloon and an exhale,
Bringing the belly button to your spine,
Guiding your breath with ease,
The rise and the fall of your life force,
Your existence.
Noticing,
I want you to imagine that you are walking down a road between two forests and there's greenery as far as your eye can see.
I want you to stop at the edge of the forest,
Inhaling the fresh air surrounding you,
Releasing any judgments of this moment,
Noticing the environment you are in.
I want you to allow yourself to enter the forest along a path that you found on the roadside.
As you take a step in,
Noticing the earth beneath your feet.
Are you wearing shoes or are you barefoot,
Grounding yourself deeper to the earth?
Are you walking on grass or a dirt path?
Notice,
Look at the lush green forest surrounding you.
What type of trees do you see?
What are the details of the leaves?
Notice as you allow your belly to rise and your belly to meet your spine.
Notice if there's any tension in your body or in your mind.
I want you to imagine the leaves are changing to various shades of yellow,
Orange,
Red,
Purple and brown.
It's now autumn and you can feel it nipping at your nose.
Autumn is the time of harvest,
A moment to acknowledge growth and expansion,
Something we must do every year with ourselves.
Our lives go through cycles of growth,
Harvest,
Death and rebirth.
Just as we see in nature,
We are in harvest,
Noticing the growth and expansion.
Notice the change,
The luscious colors,
The smell in the air,
The coolness in the wind,
The feeling in your heart.
Notice,
Allow the belly to rise and your chest to follow,
Allowing the chest to fall and the belly to follow,
Bringing your breath deeper,
Slower,
Rooting yourself in the present moment.
It's the time of harvest,
The time to gather all the things that have sprouted from the seeds you've been planting.
Notice maybe you notice there isn't anything to harvest or it's not what you thought it looked like.
Notice it's okay for this season of you.
You showed up here working on planting the right seeds to harvest the life you want.
Notice our choices every single day are the seeds we plant.
Our habits truly produce outcomes.
It doesn't arrive as fast as we normally want it to.
Notice how that makes you feel,
Or your inhale and your exhale to slow down a bit more,
Pulling the last bit of air into your mind's eye,
Allowing the belly to fill,
The chest to rise,
And oxygen to move to the head as it releases the same way that it came in,
Allowing the exhale to allow you to let everything go.
Just like the trees in the forest you are imagining right now,
We have free will,
Free will to grow,
Free will to wither.
We get to decide what our lives look like,
What a gift that is.
You can say farewell to the forest and find the darkness behind your eyelids.
Remember that nothing is instantaneous.
It's the repetition of habits every single day that shape your life.
So why not live the life you want to live?
Notice.
Let's take a few cleansing breaths before we awaken to the world.
Inhaling through your nose and audibly exhaling through your mouth.
Let's inhale together and release.
Exhale slowly,
Let it all go.
One more time,
Inhale and release and settle into the stillness for one more moment,
Remembering this feeling of ease and simplicity,
Allowing the breath to flow naturally.
You can find some movement in your fingertips and in your toes,
Rolling out your wrists and your ankles,
Gently moving your neck side to side and then the other direction,
Finding stillness for one more second.
And on your next inhale,
Raising your hands up high like it's your first stretch of the morning.
And on the exhale,
Releasing everything,
Allowing your eyelids to gently find the light,
Awakening you to the room.
Notice where you are.
Notice how you feel.
Spend the day practicing the art of noticing.
