Let Your Whole Body Breathe

Release some of the tension and anxieties in your mind by allowing your attention to soften. As you release, notice your softening breath. Allow your body to match the softness of your breath, and finally, let your whole body relax and breathe.

Transcript

Getting comfortable in your seat.

And we'll take a few moments just to check in on posture,

But this isn't to be prescriptive about it in any way.

This is really just to remind us that we're here and just to check in with how our body feels.

The most important thing is that you feel comfortable for the next 20 minutes or so.

So take a moment to just notice the parts of you that are in contact with the floor soles of the feet.

Maybe it's your shins and knees if you're on a cushion or sitting cross-legged somehow.

Letting your feet,

Your shins,

Your knees sink.

And as you let them sink you might also become a little more aware of your body over all of the sensations.

And as you have your eyes closed,

Perhaps it's easier for you to become aware of the sensations of the body,

Anything that feels relaxed or tense.

Feelings of sensations,

Tinglings,

Aliveness.

And can you perhaps allow yourself to be aware of the hips,

Maybe even if you're feeling relaxed enough,

Taking a little bit of a breath to open out the hips and sit bones to give yourself a solid base.

And sometimes if that helps you,

You might also notice that your lower back opens out and the spine extends.

And now take a moment to notice how the body feels.

Taking a moment to notice the sensations and feelings of the whole body.

Notice how you feel right now at the beginning of this meditation.

And being aware now of the body breathing.

First perhaps the expanding and contracting of the body and the ribs,

The belly.

Then aware of your breath as it comes in through the nose,

Throat,

Chest,

Wherever it comes into the body,

However far in it comes.

Just noticing that the breath is happening.

Letting go of any extra energy or focus,

Attention that you're using.

With this form of attention,

Awareness,

Concentration,

We're training ourselves to be aware of our more subtle experience beginning with the breath.

So take a few breaths now just to get to know how it feels from the very beginning,

All the way through the in-breath,

The slight pause,

And then all the way through the relaxation of the out-breath until the body needs to breathe again.

And notice if you're still feeling yourself paying more attention,

More focus than you need to.

So follow the breath and be aware of it.

That might mean that you're,

Without meaning to,

Shutting out some of the other sensations and experiences that are happening right now.

So continue following your breath for another few moments and see if you can soften your attention to open out a little bit so that you're aware in a general way of both breath and the sensations of your body.

And now can you gently be aware of the breath and the sensations in the soles of your feet.

And as you're being soft in your awareness of your breath,

Can you be soft in your awareness of your feet?

So that perhaps they also soften from the soles of the feet up through to the tops of the feet and into the ankle.

Take a little breath to allow the breath and this part of the body to be together.

And now can you allow your awareness to move from the soles of the feet up through the feet and into the ankle and the shin and calf.

Now there's no hurry here,

You can move gently at your own pace.

Still allowing the breath to move in and out at its own pace.

Allowing the experience of the sensations in the body to go from the base of the feet up gently through the lower leg.

And in your own time in the next few breaths coming up to the knee.

Gently breathing in and out and also being equally softly aware of the lower legs.

As you allow your in-breath perhaps you now allow the sensations to come up a little from the knees into the thighs.

Can you be as soft in noticing and being aware of the legs as you gently move up to the hips as you are allowing the breath to be cool and slow.

Softening into the breath,

Particularly the out-breath.

Softening into the legs from the soles of the feet.

The feet,

Lower legs,

The knees.

And gently the thighs coming to the hips.

So as we're working with these awarenesses the mind has very little to do and it tends to want something to do so it might jump in occasionally.

And that's okay,

That's what the mind does.

And when you're aware of that sensation,

That active sensation,

Maybe it feels like tension,

Maybe it feels like a spark in energy.

You can simply be aware of that as well and soften around that bringing the soft sensations of your breath and allowing that to calm the mind.

Then coming back to the breath and being gently aware of the hips.

The softness of the breath also now being the softness of the hips and lower back and pelvis.

And then gently softening up into the belly and up into the spine and either side of the spine and the lower back.

Take a couple of breaths to feel this softening up.

And you might find that the process of softening means that your body and muscles realign themselves a little bit and you need to or want to change in your seat,

That's fine.

As you move through the body,

Continue to come back to this soft breath,

Breathing and being aware of the belly now.

Maybe a little easier to bring the awareness of the breath and the awareness of the body together as we move in the belly,

The stomach and the ribs,

Front and back.

Also moving up,

Still if you can being aware of the soles of feet and legs and then moving up through the hips and belly into the ribs,

The lungs and the heart.

Up into the tops of ribs,

The back and shoulder blades.

Maybe take a few breaths here,

Bringing the softness of the breath into the shoulders and tension in the areas of the shoulder blades and back.

And seeing if you can soften any of those areas where we can eventually carry a lot of tension.

And breathing now and being aware of the hands,

Softness in the hands.

From the back of the hand to the palms and the fingers,

Can you bring the softness of the breath to the hands and fingers and the sensations,

The tingling that happen from the fingers to the palms to the wrists.

And can you allow that softness to expand up the forearms to the elbows and then up into the shoulders.

And again you might be feeling a lot of sensation now so remember you can always return to the softness of the breath.

Allowing all the other sensations to still be there.

And at the center of all of this experience is this gentle calm breath.

Softening up into the neck and throat now into the base of the spine and the back and also the jaw,

The hinge of the jaw.

Another place where many of us carry tension.

Take your time through any of these areas that need a little bit of extra care and awareness.

Allowing this softening to gently rise up through the face and the skull.

Maybe expanding a little further up into the mouth and cheeks and eyes on the in-breath and then really releasing and softening on the out-breath.

Up through the hinges of the jaw,

The sides of the head,

The ears.

The back of the head releasing the neck.

Gently up through the forehead,

The back of the skull.

Which may still mean your neck releases a little more and to the top of the head.

Now still being aware of the softness of breath and full sensations.

From the soles of the feet up through the legs of the body,

Your hands,

Arms and head.

Can you for these last couple of minutes allow the whole body to breathe?

Feeling the same softness all the way through the body on your in-breath.

And the same relaxing,

Calm,

Dispersing any tensions through your out-breath.

Realizing and becoming aware of the sensations with the expansion of the in-breath.

Softening,

Releasing,

Letting go on the out-breath.

And can you imagine that you,

Your awareness,

Breath and body are one.

And in a moment we'll hear three sounds of the bell.

And when you hear the bell can you continue feeling the sensations and the breath in your awareness.

As you very gently open your eyes and continue to bring this new sense of awareness as you make some notes in your meditation notebook.

The bell is invited.

Reviews

From the mantra of my breath ThankyouandBless 🧸🙂❤️

My go to every night! So relaxing I just drift off the sleep! Thank you!!!

Thank you, helped me focus and calm.

Lovely practice of breathing with awareness to invite ease to all parts of the body. Nicely paced and guided.
Thank you.