Thank you for joining me for this short meditation.
My name is Kara Bradley.
Go ahead and find a comfortable seat.
Place your feet on the floor,
Your hands on your legs,
And sit upright in an easy but alert way.
We're going to take some time to tune into our body and our senses,
To drop below the level of thinking,
To slow things down just enough to feel more awake and alive.
So once you're seated,
Close your eyes if you like,
And bring your attention to your feet.
Notice your feet on the ground.
Notice your hands on your legs,
Your seat on the chair,
And notice your upper body,
Alert yet relaxed.
Allow yourself to arrive.
Sometimes it takes us a few moments to arrive into the moment that we're living in.
So give yourself a moment or two to just come into your body in this moment.
And now notice your heart rate,
Your heartbeat,
Your pulse.
Notice where you feel your heart beating and pulsing somewhere in your body,
Not necessarily around your heart.
It could be somewhere else in your legs,
Your arms,
Throat,
Back of your neck.
Sometimes just tuning into our pulse can help us to become more present,
More aware.
Now notice your breath.
Notice the experience of breathing in this moment.
What happens when you inhale?
What happens when you exhale?
By moving our attention from body to heart rate to breath,
It helps us to get out of our head.
It helps us to notice something other than what we're thinking.
Now that we're more present and aware of our body,
We'll tune into our senses.
We'll start by first noticing sound.
So take the next few moments to notice what you hear in the room or wherever you are.
You may just notice the sound of an air conditioner or heater.
Maybe there's some subtle noise from a room next door.
Or if you're lucky and you're outside,
You may hear birds or even the distant sound of traffic.
You can just note the sound that you're hearing without labeling,
Just allowing your hearing sense to wake up,
To reach out even further.
And now starting to tone down your hearing sense,
We'll come into our sense of smell.
So bring all of your attention to smells around you.
Maybe you don't smell anything and that's okay,
But let's just focus our attention on our sense of smell.
Now as you allow that attention on smell to slowly turn down,
Just like you would on the volume on your car radio,
Turn that down and let's turn up our attention to our sense of taste.
What are you tasting right now?
Again,
Perhaps it's nothing.
Maybe it's toothpaste or the coffee you just drank.
Just noticing just for a quick moment any sense of taste.
We can turn up and down our awareness of our senses at will,
Helping us to wake up to what's happening around us and inside of us,
Helping us to feel more alive.
Let's turn down now that sense of taste and tune into our sensory awareness of our body,
Of our skin.
Bring your attention to your skin and notice if there's any bare skin,
Say your hands,
Legs or maybe face,
What are you sensing?
Is there coolness from the air around you?
Do you feel warm?
Turn your body now to notice how it feels on the outside layer.
Do you feel a sense of tingling?
Or again,
Maybe that throbbing.
Notice your clothing on your skin.
Does it feel tight or restrictive,
Loose and flowy,
Coarse or soft?
Just noticing sensation,
Turning up our awareness of our sensations as a way to settle our busy mind.
And now finally,
We'll turn down the awareness of our skin and the sensory awareness of our skin and we'll turn up our visual sense.
So open your eyes just halfway,
Noticing the colors or the light around you.
Looking down towards the floor in front of you or the ground,
Just notice what's closest to you.
And now you can lift your gaze,
Take your gaze out wide and notice what's up and around you.
All the way around you,
You can turn your head and take in your visual sense.
So at any time during the day,
Especially when you're feeling speedy or busy or even frazzled,
Take a moment to tune into one of your senses.
Take a moment to notice what you're hearing,
Smelling,
Tasting,
Sensing on your skin or seeing.
Using your senses as an anchor for your awareness to help you come back to the moment,
Back to this very precious moment of your very precious life.
And when you tune in,
You will feel more awake and alive.
Thank you for joining me.
Have a wonderful rest of your day.
