Hello dear one.
Today I wanted to offer you a meditation practice,
A breathing practice,
That's been so helpful in my life.
I've shared this practice with a lot of adults and a lot of teens and the teens in my life called this the dental floss breath.
I love that name.
It speaks perfectly to how clearing this breath is.
Do you ever feel like you're just trying to go through your day but there's all this gunk in the way?
There's stuff tripping you up,
Thoughts about what had just happened or thoughts about something that happened a long time ago or maybe just concerns about what's to come and the whole system just feels kind of clogged up or cloudy.
Of course when that's going on it's not bad,
It's not wrong,
But goodness it can just be so helpful to have a way to work with it,
To have a way to clear the system.
I talk a lot about the conditioned mind,
The mind that's been shaped by family,
Society,
School,
Culture.
Things get gunky within the conditioned mind.
So again this is one practice that can support clearing.
In the clearing it can be easier to rest in who we are.
So visualize that the breath is out in front of the body and as you inhale draw the breath in from the front of the body.
Bring it into the center of your body and as you exhale release the breath out the back side of the body.
As you inhale draw the breath in through the entire back side of the body,
Come into the center of the body and then as you exhale release the breath out the front side.
Now visualize that the breath is to the left side of the body.
Inhale,
Draw the breath in through the entire left side of the body,
Come into the center of your body and then as you exhale release the breath out the entire right side of the body.
Inhale,
Draw the breath in through the entire right side of the body,
Come into the center of your being and then release the breath out the left.
Now visualize that breath is above the crown of the head,
Draw the breath in through the crown of the head,
Come into the center of your body and then exhale the breath out and down into the earth.
That's the entire cycle.
Once you get it down you can practice that on your own in any moment but for now I'm going to keep going and you can just follow along with my voice.
Once you've got it you could just turn down the volume on my voice.
If you get it before I drop into silence.
So again visualizing that the breath is out in front of the body,
Inhale,
Draw the breath in through the entire front side of the body,
Come into the center of your being and exhale the breath out the entire back side of the body.
Inhale,
Draw the breath in from the back side of the body,
Come into the center of your being and then exhale the breath out the entire front side of the body.
Visualize that the breath is to the left side.
Draw the breath in through the entire left side of the body,
Come into the center,
Release breath through the entire right side of the body.
Inhale,
Draw breath in from the right side of the body,
Come into the center,
Exhale,
Release breath out the left.
Now visualize the breath is above the crown of the head.
Inhale,
Draw the breath in through the crown of the head,
Come into the center of your being and then exhale,
Breath out and down into the earth.
Inhale,
Draw breath in from the earth,
Come into the center of your being and then exhale breath up and out the top of the head.
And then repeating this dental floss clearing breath again,
Visualizing the breath in front of the body.
Inhale,
Drawing breath in from the front,
Coming into the center of your being.
Exhale,
Releasing breath out the back.
Inhale,
Drawing breath in through the entire back side of the body,
Come into the center of your being and then exhale the breath out the front.
Visualize the breath is to the left side of the body.
Draw breath in through the left side of the body,
Come into the center of your being and then release breath at the right side.
Draw breath in through the right side,
Come into the center,
Release out the left.
Visualize the breath is above the crown of the head.
Inhale,
Draw breath in through the crown of the head,
Come into the center of the body and then exhale breath out and down into the earth.
Drawing breath in from the earth,
Come in the center of your body and then exhale breath up and out the top of the head.
And again,
If you've got this pattern now,
You could turn the volume down on my voice.
I'll do it one more time with the simplest of cues.
Breath in front.
Breath releasing out back.
Breath drawing in from back.
Out front.
Breath from the left.
Releasing out the right.
Breath in from the right.
Releasing out the left.
Breath above the crown of the head.
Releasing out into the earth.
Breath coming in from the earth.
Releasing up and out the top of the head.
Staying with this simple dental floss breath for as long as you like.
Just resting into the rhythm of the pattern.
Feeling it like the rhythm of the sea of waves in and out.
Clearing the system.
Clearing the conditioned mind so that what's ever-present can shine brightly.
