Meditation Warmup

The purpose of this warmup meditation is to help you open up your body and breath so you can meditate effectively and efficiently. It can be difficult to start meditating with focus as soon as you sit on your cushion, so this will help warm you up and release tension and noise. You'll feel ready to go into deeper meditation afterward. You'll also learn how to work with basic Qi Gong practices. Enjoy

Transcript

Hey there,

We're going to be doing a warm-up meditation today.

What that is,

Is kind of what it exactly sounds like.

It's a way for you to warm up your meditation self so that when you want to go into a deeper meditation after this,

You'll get there faster,

You'll get your focus faster,

You'll be able to drop down into your body and connect with your breath more effectively.

So I'm going to be leading you through some parts of the body that are directly related to the breath,

And I'll be helping you physically unblock some of the tension there,

And then hopefully by the end of this you'll be able to have a fuller,

More rich,

More complete breath and you'll be more in touch with how your body is.

So go ahead and wherever you are,

Just make sure that you're sitting with your spine straight.

And to go ahead and just take in three easy breaths.

And the purpose of this is just to check in with your body before.

And notice the quality of that breath,

How full it is,

Where it is in your body.

And remember this,

We're going to be doing a little comparison at the end.

And on your next inhale,

Just sit a little bit taller and start deepening your breath.

So you can for now breathe in through your nose,

Your mouth,

Exhale through either.

And as you deepen your breath,

Go ahead and find your hands and we're going to rub them together a little bit.

And you'll start to feel heat build up and when it feels nice and comfortable,

Go ahead and put that at your head,

At the crown of your head.

Breathe in,

Exhale,

Feel the warmth of your hands in your head and breathe in again.

And just check in with your head if it's tense,

If it feels heavy,

Light,

Or if you just feel the sensation of your hands in your head.

And all the while breathing in,

Exhaling completely.

And now I want you to just give yourself a light head rub.

It can be wherever you feel like your head needs it.

Just kind of massage into your scalp and just feel the sensation of your fingers on your head.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Go ahead and put your hands in your lap and let's breathe in together.

And out,

One more time in and out.

And continue to breathe a little more deeper on your own.

And maybe you feel your breath reach your head a little bit more clearly now.

Maybe you can feel your breath in your head now that you've massaged away some of the tension.

And on the next breath in,

Let's go ahead and rub our hands again.

And the reason we rub our hands like this,

We generate warmth,

We generate energy,

And sometimes if we have like a stiff neck,

That warmth will just help loosen it up a little bit.

So go ahead and put your hands on your neck.

Breathe in and feel the warmth.

And check in with your neck how it feels.

And on your next breath,

You can go ahead and put your hands in your lap and just start doing some light neck rolls.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Make sure they're nice and slow.

And if you haven't already,

Go ahead and switch directions.

Breathing and making each neck roll intentional.

Go ahead and sit up straight.

Breathe in,

Breathe out.

One more time,

Breathe in and out.

Maybe you feel your breath just a little more open now.

You can feel it traveling through your neck,

Through your head.

One more time,

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

You're doing so well.

And next is our shoulders.

So go ahead,

Breathe in.

And on your breath out,

Hold your hands up and start to rub them again.

Maybe this time you can have a little intention in that chi and that energy that you're cooking up in your hands.

It can be the intention to release,

It could be love,

Or it could just be warmth.

And so when you're ready,

Put your hands on your shoulders and breathe and feel the warmth.

And feel your shoulders start to wake up.

And on your next breath,

Put your hands in your lap and start doing some shoulder rolls.

And I want to make sure to make the distinction that we do shoulder rolls outwards.

So we're rolling up and out and not rolling inwards.

Make sure you're breathing and make sure each roll is nice and slow and intentional.

So you roll up to your ears and push it back and then drop it down and breathe.

And the reason I want you to roll your shoulders outwards is because we want your energy to open up.

We want your lungs,

Your chest to open up.

And then we're going to kind of counteract what we've probably been doing all day,

Which is kind of pushed forward a little bit,

Hunched forward a little bit,

Looking at our work,

Our devices.

So we want to just slowly roll our shoulder back.

And all the while breathing.

And on the next breath,

You're going to put your hands down.

Take another breath in and out.

One more time in,

Out.

And your breath should feel a little bit more open now.

Good.

So what's after our shoulders?

Well,

We're going to move on to our chest a little bit.

And you know the drill.

On your next breath in,

You raise your hands up,

Put them together and rub a little bit.

Make sure you're breathing.

Put your nice warm hands on your heart and breathe in.

And you should enjoy the warmth of your hands,

Breathe out.

One more time,

Breathe in.

And out.

Very good.

Go ahead and put your hands down.

This one's a little bit less active.

But just go ahead and breathe in and I want you to breathe into your heart.

With each slow breath,

You direct it towards your heart.

It might feel like it's opening up a little bit there too.

Good.

So next and finally,

We're going to move on to our stomach.

So one more time,

Rub your hands together.

You feel the warmth,

Put an intention there if you like.

And on your next breath in,

Put your hands on your stomach.

And just go ahead and rub it gently.

Rub it clockwise.

So up on your right side and down on your left and just gently rub it.

All the while breathing and you'll feel your stomach loosen up,

Warm up a little bit.

A lot of the times we clench our stomachs without us knowing during the day.

We walk around with so much tension in our stomachs.

So we're just going to give it a little help,

Use some warmth,

Some light massaging to open it up.

Let's breathe in and out.

You can go ahead and stop rubbing now and just rest your hands wherever and we're going to breathe in and out.

And pay attention to your breath,

How different it feels from the beginning.

Breathe in and out.

Good,

One more time.

And continue on your own.

And you should be able to feel your breath travel a little bit more smoothly now.

From your head to your neck,

Your shoulders,

Your chest,

Your stomach and all the way back up again smoothly.

So all these points that we just massaged in Qigong,

Which is the practice of energy cultivation and movement,

They're considered to be energy gates or places where it's important that energy passes through.

And they're also places that can get stuck really easily.

If you imagine your energy moving through your body and you come across a stressful situation,

You're tired and you're still working,

You're pushing yourself.

Some of the first places to feel that are these energy gates,

Your head,

Your neck,

Your shoulders,

Your chest,

Your stomach,

They're going to feel tight,

Uncomfortable,

Painful even.

So let's breathe in together.

We feel our breath move through all these energy gates freely.

One more time.

In and out.

Before I let you go,

I just wanted to share a little bit about what we've been doing.

So we've kind of been doing massages on our physical body,

Our outer body,

So that our breath can be open,

Be deeper,

So that we can have a belly breath,

A deeper breath,

More easily.

And a belly breath in Qigong is considered to be the ultimate internal massager.

So we've just gone through a brief meditation that has helped your outer body loosen up but also is starting to help your inner body loosen up too,

So I hope this helped you a lot.

And if this is all you're going to do for meditation for now,

That's good enough.

You've dropped into your body,

Your breath has opened up,

But if you feel like doing a more intense,

Deeper meditation,

Now you're all properly warmed up.

Thank you for meditating with me,

And I hope to see you in my next class.