Hello and welcome to your meditation.
We will begin by finding our meditation posture.
So this can look a lot of different ways.
Maybe you find yourself seated in a chair with your feet flat on the floor or you might sit on a cushion or some sort of meditation bench to elevate your hips above your knees and your legs or maybe you just put together a blanket and a pillow on top of one another to give your sit bone some elevation.
And you can let your palms rest on your thighs or in your lap,
Whatever feels best for you.
And find a long spine,
So letting your posture be erect but then around your spine,
Letting your muscles and your bones soften and relax.
And if it feels good for you you can let your eyes gently close or you can always keep your eyes open if that feels better for you.
And just letting your gaze be soft,
Open and receptive and keeping your eyes focused on one point in front of you.
And we'll help ourselves arrive to this moment just by taking a few deep breaths.
So letting all the air out that you currently hold in your body.
And then take a deep inhale through your nose,
Filling the belly,
The lungs.
And then exhale either through the mouth or the nose,
Letting go,
Relaxing.
Again,
A deep inhale through the nose.
And a slow exhale,
Softening your forehead,
Your shoulders,
Your torso.
And one more time,
A deep inhale,
Gathering your awareness.
And a slow exhale to soften,
Relax,
Arrive.
And then you can let your breath return to its natural rhythm.
And take a moment to scan through the body,
Noticing the internal landscape,
If you will.
Noticing what the weather is like in the body,
If there's an emotion present,
If there's any tension in the body.
Maybe the body feels more calm,
At rest,
Open.
We can move through so much of our day without really noticing what we're experiencing in our body below the mind.
So when we arrive to meditation,
We just take a moment to check in with ourselves.
And now see if you can hold whatever you notice with a non-judgmental presence and just letting it be here in your experience in this meditation,
Not needing to change it or fix it or grasp onto it if it's a positive feeling.
And letting it slide now into the back of your awareness.
And then bringing to the forefront of your awareness,
Notice your breath.
Notice where you can most easily sense the breath.
So this might be in the sensations of air as it passes in and out of the nostrils.
Maybe it's in the space above the upper lip,
Below the nostrils.
Maybe you can feel it most easily in the rise and fall of the chest or the belly.
Or maybe you can most easily sense just the general feeling of your body taking in air and letting it go.
And wherever you rest your attention,
See if you can bring your full awareness here.
So really tuning into the sensations,
Being present with the breath as it moves in and as it moves out.
And you'll notice maybe even immediately that the attention is quick to wander and that the mind can be very active.
And so when you notice that your attention moves from the breath,
Maybe it is getting lost in thought about plans or analyzing a conversation,
Self-criticism,
Or what you're going to do next.
You just notice that the attention has wandered and then gently bring the awareness back to the breath.
Noticing the sensations of the breath in your nostrils or in the rise and fall of the chest or belly.
Letting your awareness rest here.
And if it feels difficult to be with the breath for whatever reason,
Not because your attention is wandering,
But maybe it just feels really uncomfortable in the body,
Then you might let your awareness rest elsewhere.
Maybe with sounds as they come and go.
Letting your awareness move freely from one sound to the next.
Or maybe you rest your awareness in sensations in the body.
Maybe with the tingling in the hands.
Feeling them from the inside out.
Or maybe in the sit bones,
Feeling the pressure of the chair against your bottom.
Or you might bring your awareness down into the feet.
Feeling them from the inside out and tuning into the connection between your feet and the earth below.
You might imagine yourself sitting on the bank of a river and watching as the water flows past.
In the water you might notice twigs or logs flowing past.
And you might imagine that these logs are like your thoughts.
And as they come up,
You just notice them passing by.
And then you return to your presence on the bank of the river.
And once again,
Just noticing where your attention is now.
And see if you can ever so gently guide your attention back to sounds or the breath or the body.
Right here in this moment where life is fresh and unfolding moment by moment.
