We'll begin by finding a comfortable position,
So this might be seated or lying down.
If you're lying down,
Your arms can rest along your sides,
Palms facing up.
Let your legs be wide,
Your feet fall to the side.
And if you're seated,
Find a long spine with a sense of alertness to your posture,
But also a sense of ease.
Your hands can rest on your thighs or in your lap.
And then once you find your posture,
You can allow your eyes to close,
Or if you would prefer,
You can allow your gaze to rest on a point out in front of you.
Let your gaze soften.
And take a moment just to arrive,
Whatever that means for you.
Maybe it means taking a few deep breaths.
Maybe it means tuning into your body and just noticing how you're feeling in this moment.
Just knowing that there's time and space right now just to check in,
To take some deep breaths.
Just to allow yourself to press pause on the day,
Whatever's happened so far or whatever has yet to come.
Just think of this moment as a container within all of that,
To just be,
To rest.
And you might invite a sense of softness into the forehead,
Relaxing any tension that might be there.
Letting that spread through the face and to the temples and the cheekbones,
And to the lips and the mouth and the jaw.
You might even unhinge your jaw and move it left and right to release some tension.
Let the tongue be soft and feel gravity pulling on your shoulders.
Just notice how naturally there's this sense of letting go in the body when we tune into gravity.
Feeling that sensation all the way down the arms and into the hands,
And letting the hands rest in an easeful and relaxed way.
Just inviting yourself to release tension,
To let go,
Again just remembering this container that you're in right now,
This moment to pause.
And now let your awareness rise back up into the heart space,
Seeing if you can sense into your beating heart.
And with each inhale,
See if you can welcome in a sense of spaciousness.
You might bring to mind the image of a vast blue sky,
Maybe imagining this sky in your heart area.
And if you feel any sense of tension or tightness in the chest,
Just allow that to be there within the space.
So welcoming in this space is not a way to cover up any tension that might be here,
But to really allow it and to hold it,
In a sense.
And now let that feeling of spaciousness and softness expand down into the belly.
With each inhale,
Seeing if you can soften the belly just a little more.
And again,
Tuning into gravity,
Feeling the pull of gravity on your body as your awareness moves down into the pelvic region.
Maybe feeling the pressure of the seat against your sit bones or the floor against your hips.
Sometimes I like to imagine that there's a weight in this area of my body that's holding me down and keeping me rooted.
Now letting your awareness slide down the legs,
Sensing the weight,
The volume,
The length of the legs.
Coming all the way down into the feet.
And sensing the feet against the floor,
Maybe feeling the pressure of the points of your feet as they meet the floor.
And tuning into any sensations in the feet,
Any tingling,
Vibrating,
Coolness or warmth.
Maybe there is a sense of numbness,
And that's fine too.
Now let your awareness expand to include the entire field of aliveness and vibration,
Sensations that is this body.
Feeling from the inside out yourself as a living,
Breathing being,
Alive.
Allowing there to be space for tension and ease,
Numbness and tingling.
Just allowing all that's here in the body.
Now sense where you can most easily detect the breath in the body.
Maybe it's the in and exhale as it enters and exits your nostrils.
Maybe it's the rise and fall of your chest or your belly,
Or maybe there's just a general overall sense of the body breathing.
And just see if you can rest your awareness here in this place.
You might imagine the breath is like a dear friend,
And you really want to hear this friend and listen to what they have to say,
But you're out at a busy restaurant and it's loud,
So you really have to lean in,
Listen and focus.
Bring this same kind of attention and attentiveness to your breath.
Naturally you'll notice that the mind likes to wander,
And this happens for all of us.
When you notice it's just an opportunity to return back to the breath,
To come back to this moment.
And again,
You might relax the forehead and the jaw,
The shoulders,
The belly,
And just noticing if any of those areas had tightened up once again.
And you can always come back and invite these areas of the body to soften.
And then maybe you bring your awareness back to the breath.
Just letting there be an effortlessness here with the breath,
Just letting go of any sense of control,
Of needing to control,
And just see if you can relax into the pull of gravity,
Into the natural ebb and flow of your breath.
Noticing the body as it breathes itself.
Wendell Berry writes,
In the dark of the moon,
In flying snow,
In the dead of winter,
War spreading,
Families dying,
The world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside,
Sowing clover.
And you might begin to lengthen your inhales and your exhales,
Welcoming more oxygen into the body.
Maybe bringing small circles into the wrists and into the ankles,
And take a big stretch overhead,
Blinking your eyes open,
And coming back to the day.
