Body & Breath Awareness

Welcome, and thank you for joining this practice. As you may know, the body plays a vital role in our mindful journey. Throughout this practice, you’ll be invited to bring awareness to various parts of your body as both an anchor or reference point for your attention as well as a source of information about your state of being.

Transcript

Well,

Hello,

Friend.

Welcome here,

And thank you for joining me for this practice.

As you may know,

The body counts for everything on our mindful journey.

It is the first foundation of mindfulness and for great reason,

Because it continually provides us a source of information about our state of being.

So throughout this practice,

We'll be invited to bring awareness to various parts of our body as both an anchor and a reference point for our attention,

And also this opportunity to explore the more subtle layers of our current experience.

So let's begin.

Beginning by finding a comfortable position for our body,

Whether we choose to maintain a seated position or come into a lying down position,

Just taking a few moments to find a shape for your body that allows for a greater settling or a noticeable sense of stillness.

To emerge.

And then maybe offering a few conscious breaths,

Breathing in through the nose and slowing down that in-breath to where you can really sense the sensations of that inhalation.

The experience of expanding,

Opening,

And then slowing down that exhale to where you can really experience the subtle sensations of that release,

Of that softening in the body.

And then with your next in-breath,

However you choose to breathe,

Notice how it supports a mild upliftedness through the trunk of your body.

And then as you exhale,

You may sense a deeper settling through the sit bones,

Through the pelvis.

And you can hang out here for a few moments,

Exploring how the inhale lifts the upper half of the body,

And the exhale brings that sense of weightedness through the lower half.

And then as you breathe in,

You may discover the tips of your ears lifting upwards.

And then as you breathe out,

You may notice your shoulder blades drop.

And then as you breathe in,

You may notice the liftedness of the eyes,

Even if the eyes are closed.

And then as you breathe out,

You may experience a deeper settling within the eyes as if they were settling back into the eye sockets and coming into greater stillness.

And then with that next in-breath,

You may notice the sides of your mouth gently lifting upwards to the outer edges of your eyes.

And then with that following out-breath,

You may experience a releasing of your jaw,

Of your tongue from the tip to the root.

And then on that next in-breath,

You may experience your upper palate and the roof of your mouth lifting and expanding and broadening.

And then as you exhale,

You may notice your gums softening,

Even more so around your teeth.

And then on that next in-breath,

You may explore the space between your eyes broadening.

And then as you exhale,

You may notice your cheeks,

Particularly from the top of your jaw,

Underneath your eyes,

Wrapping around your chin,

Softening.

And then on that next in-breath,

You may observe the back of your neck lengthening.

And then as you exhale,

You may notice this invitation to draw your chin in and up,

Allowing for even more space on the back of the neck.

And then with that next in-breath,

You may feel the natural curvature of your spine,

Whether it's sitting upright or lying down.

And then as you exhale,

You may notice the muscles that support your spine gently draw in,

Kind of hugging the spine,

Offering protection.

And with that next in-breath,

You may feel your collarbones spread and the front tips of your shoulder blades widen.

And then with that exhale,

You may notice the back tips of your shoulder blades hug even more tightly in towards the spine,

Offering another layer of support.

And with that next in-breath,

You may feel energy moving through your arm bones into your hands as if they were lengthening.

And as you exhale,

You may experience a sense of gravity taking a hold where the arm bones kind of rest more fully.

Even the finger joints kind of soften into a point of stillness.

And then with that next in-breath,

You may explore your abdomen,

Expand,

Feeling it more into that belly breathing,

Deep abdominal breathing,

Where the diaphragm can fully descend on that in-breath.

And then as you exhale,

You may experience the very gentle contraction of the abdomen that lifts the diaphragm up to gently press the air out of the lungs and disperse it out of the body.

And maybe hanging out with this experience for a few breaths,

Really supporting your diaphragm to move in its full range of movement.

If you really pay attention,

You can sense that lifting and lowering of the diaphragm,

And that may just be represented in the rising and falling of the belly and those sensations that characterize it.

And still feeling the breath in the body on that next in-breath,

You may notice how that breath moves into the lower back,

Helping to create space.

As if it was spreading the vertebrae of the spine and creating space between the back,

Hips,

And the pelvis,

And the tailbone.

And then as you exhale,

You may feel again the weight of your seat,

Of your sit bones,

Of your hips,

And how this experience supports a deeper settling,

A greater sense of stability.

And then with that next in-breath,

You may notice how it moves through the channels of your legs,

From your hips to your toes,

Lengthening,

Energizing.

And then with that out-breath,

You may discover how the thigh bones,

Shin bones,

Knees,

The feet,

All the bones in the feet begin to settle and give way to gravity.

Now just taking a few moments here to notice perhaps a greater sensitivity to this body,

That your being inhabits.

Discovering a greater sense of aliveness.

Continuing to feel the breath in the body.

Choosing to notice wherever it feels most prominent,

Where it feels like it's originating from.

And then from there,

Engaging in whole body breathing.

So breathing with your whole body.

As you breathe in,

Maybe noting whole body.

And then as you breathe out,

Whole body.

Or as you breathe in,

Whole.

And then as you breathe out,

Body.

You can just very quietly,

In the privacy of your own mind,

In space of awareness,

Softly note this experience as you directly explore it and sense it.

So it's a very,

Very simple process.

Visceral experience.

And once it's noticed that the mind has wandered,

There's this invitation to immediately return to the landscape of the body and to scan the body.

Noticing if there's any residue left behind from thinking within the certain areas and regions of the body.

And it's often a very good practice to check in with the eyes,

The mouth.

The shoulders,

The belly,

These central hubs of tension,

And then releasing them.

And returning to your foundation,

Whole body breathing.

Full body awareness.

And if your mind continually gets snagged into some thought pattern,

Some narrative,

Commentary,

Then you can always return to just noticing how the breath expresses itself in various parts of the body,

Or just those very soft invitations to notice different parts of the body and how we can open and soften how we can lift and ground,

How we can lengthen and expand.

And though we may think that this is just a physical practice of being aware in our body this way,

We may discover in time or already be discovering that the body is a mere reflection of the mind and heart.

So when the body is open,

Relaxed,

And receptive,

So is the mind and the heart.

They work together.

So that's why we continually lean on the support of our body in mindfulness practice.

Never straying too far from our foundation,

From our home,

From this vast,

Bewildering,

Exciting,

Endearing,

Mysterious landscape of our body.

So tension in the body equals tension in the mind.

Release the tongue to release the mind,

And then receive that next in-breath,

And noticing the release of that next out-breath.

And returning to the whole body breathing,

And not forgetting to smile.

So the back of the head lifts as if the base of the skull was being gently lifted upwards,

Away from the spine,

As the chin slightly tucks,

And the chest opens,

The belly expands,

As the muscles along the spine and the upper arm soften.

And the hands and feet are equally weighted,

Or the weights distributed equally between the limbs.

And the body rests in complete stillness,

Allowing the mind to follow suit.

And from this place,

The heart is filled with goodness,

Appreciation,

Joy,

Friendliness,

Kindness,

Compassion,

Encountering all things like a friend.

And before we come to a close of this practice,

Sharing some of this merit that's been generated from this time in quietude,

And contemplation,

And restfulness.

I'm spreading thoughts of goodwill,

Maybe starting with our own body.

May this body be well.

May our heart be happy,

And may our mind be free.

And spreading those thoughts of goodwill to those that we love,

Wishing for their body to be well,

Their hearts to be happy,

And their minds to be free.

And including those that are neutral or difficult in our world,

In this practice of goodwill,

Or in this field of metta,

Of loving-kindness.

Wishing for them too,

For their heart,

For their bodies to be well,

For their hearts to be happy,

For their minds to be free.

I'm feeling the ever-widening circles of goodwill to include all beings,

Seen and unseen.

May all beings,

Bodies be well,

Hearts be happy,

Minds be free.

Thank you,

Sweet one,

For your practice.

Best wishes.