Hello and welcome to this meditation.
I'm Christophe and I'll be your guide.
Let's start with taking a deep breath in and out together.
And you may want to place one hand on your heart and the other on your belly,
Or you can simply rest your hands in your lap,
Whatever is comfortable.
This may sound a little strange,
But I invite you to bring everything to this moment.
There is no need to block things out.
Meditation,
As I'm sure you have experienced by now,
Doesn't work that way.
So there's no need to pretend that certain things are not playing on your mind or whatever.
Maybe there's music playing somewhere,
Maybe your neighbours are making noise,
Maybe the birds are too loud,
Whatever.
Bring everything to this moment.
Allow it to be here.
And allow yourself to be here.
And let's take another deep breath in and out.
And check in with yourself.
Where are you right now?
Fairly present,
Distracted,
Ruminating.
Again,
No right or wrong.
Just with kindness and compassion,
Check in with yourself.
Non-judgment,
One of the key attitudes of mindfulness meditation.
Non-judgment and non-striving.
We're not striving to become enlightened or super calm or anything specific really.
The essence of mindfulness meditation is to be.
And that's it.
To shift from that doing mode to the being mode.
From that needing to fix things,
Needing things to be different.
Not fully trusting yourself.
To being okay with what is.
To being fully present.
And to be okay with who you are.
I'm going to give you a few moments to see just how much you can allow yourself to be without the striving and without the judgment.
And this may be the first time today or even this week where you get to sit down,
Lie down and be with yourself and be with this moment.
Which flows into the next moment and then the one after that.
That can be tricky for our minds.
Who do you think you are slowing down like that?
The mind wants to be heard.
The mind wants to be recognized.
So in your own words,
Have a quick chat with your mind.
I've got this.
I know you're scanning for dangers.
But I'm okay right now.
We are okay.
And we're going to take another deep breath in and out.
As you may know,
Coming back to the breath is so valuable,
So helpful.
The breath is one of the main and most important anchors during mindfulness meditation.
An anchor in the now moment.
Because it's always there.
Breathing your whole body,
Your whole system.
And so you can always come back to it.
And especially if you have a tendency to fall asleep during meditation.
So build in deep breaths in and out regularly so that you can stay awake.
And I would love you to bring your attention to your face.
And just do a gentle scan of the face.
Are there any particular facial muscles that you can relax just a little bit more?
Such as the forehead,
Your ears.
How about your tongue?
The jaw.
And line up with a gentle smile on your face.
That beautiful half smile,
The Buddha smile.
Which,
Along with the breath,
Has a really positive impact on your nervous system.
So trust that.
And speaking of the breath,
Let's take another deep breath in and out together.
And I'm going to give you a few moments to simply be here.
And when the mind wanders,
Gently guide it back to the now.
And see if you can catch the very moment your mind wanders.
What the triggers are.
The more you can spot those,
The more you can cultivate bringing the mind back.
And we're going to take the next deep breath in and out together.
And one more time,
And this time try to breathe out deep into your belly.
In through the nose,
If possible.
And out through the mouth,
If possible.
And of course,
The other great anchor during mindfulness meditation is the body.
It doesn't go anywhere.
It is always here for us.
We are always with it.
So just like the breath,
It can help us to stay focused on the now.
So I would love you to bring your attention to the whole of your left leg,
From your toes to your left hip.
Let your awareness rest in your left leg.
There's nothing you have to do.
The invitation is to simply be with the left leg.
Any sensations,
Allow them to be there.
What does it feel like to be with your left leg in this way?
And when your mind wanders,
Bring it back to your left leg.
And if your mind did wander,
Why did it wander?
What was the trigger?
What was the reason?
Now we're going to bring our attention to the whole of the right leg.
And let's be with the right leg,
The toes all the way up to the hip.
Resting your awareness in the right leg.
And see if you can sustain this attention.
Can you stay with your right leg?
When the mind wanders,
Bring it back.
And now I'm going to give you some time to be with both legs.
And let's take a deep breath in and out together.
Still being fully present here and now in this moment.
And now I'm going to invite you to bring your attention to the whole of your upper body.
Abdomen,
Your chest,
Left arm,
Right arm,
Your neck,
Shoulders and your head.
And simply be with this region of your body.
And what do you notice?
The rising and falling of your chest,
Any stiffness in the neck,
Or nothing at all,
No right or wrong.
Tummy rumbling.
And now we're going to expand our awareness to the whole body,
From our toes to the top of our head.
And you may want to take a few whole body breaths,
Inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.
And it can be helpful and enjoyable to imagine your whole body filling with beautiful,
Clean air every time you inhale,
Filling every cell of your body.
And this is not so much about visualization,
My friends,
This is about becoming aware of your whole system with a little help from this visualization technique.
So let's take a few more deep breaths in,
Filling your whole body and out.
Again,
With a little help from this visualization technique,
Inhaling beautiful,
Clean air,
Allowing it to fill your whole system.
And out.
And for the next minute,
I'm going to give you time to be with yourself,
Arguably the most precious person in your world.
Thank you.
And in a few moments,
I will ring the bells.
And I invite you to gently open your eyes and bring yourself back to the room in your own time.
Thank you very much for joining me in this practice today.
Namaste.
I look forward to connecting with you on a future meditation.
Bye for now.
