Good morning and welcome to the artist morning.
My name is Darius and wherever you happen to be in this very moment as you hear these words,
I am so grateful for you and that we get this time together.
Today's meditation practice is going to be a little different.
Today's theme is an exploration of our voices.
For most of us,
We desire to share more of who we really are with the world and usually that requires at some point for you and your voice to take up more space.
Now for our purposes here today,
This is going to be really simple.
Throughout the meditation,
There will be opportunities for you if you are interested,
If you are willing,
To simply make some sound and allow your voice to be heard.
It's quite simple.
The sound I'd like to invite you to make for our meditation today is the sound OM.
OM is a sacred sound in many cultures and I'm not going to get into the details of that.
For now,
Let's take a deep breath together.
Just the beginnings of freeing our voice and exploring the natural edges of our voice this morning.
Noticing if your breath and your voice are shallow or quiet or maybe they are deeper and louder.
No judgment,
No comparison.
Just checking into where we are at.
Take another deep breath now.
Slowing everything down.
Allowing a gentle softness to your forehead,
To your eyes,
To your jaw,
Your nose.
Softening your jaw.
Feeling that soft warm energy to melt away any tension in your neck and shoulders.
Just stepping into a little bit more comfort and ease.
Let's take another deep breath here together.
Just see if you can connect with your voice.
Wherever it is.
Any element of your voice.
In your breath.
In your exhales,
In your inhales.
It's likely very subtle but it's there.
And I want to invite you to start taking deeper breaths and follow the breath from the tips of your lips,
Your nostrils,
Your tongue,
Your throat.
All the little vibrations all the way into your lungs,
Into your belly.
And if you were to take deeper and louder breaths,
Notice how that feels.
Maybe it feels nice and maybe there's an edge that you have reached.
Maybe your voice wants to be quiet in this place and that's okay.
You can stay perfectly quiet.
Or you can practice with me.
Practice allowing your voice to take up more space.
Space in your room space.
In your home space.
In the world.
If you are willing and interested we're going to begin making some Aum noises together.
Take a nice deep breath here.
We're going to start with a quiet Aum.
Breathing in.
Aum.
Aum.
Aum.
Take a nice deep breath here.
Just noticing what that's like.
Maybe you feel shy about letting your voice out this morning and that's okay.
Maybe there's a pleasure available to you here.
We're going to do three more Aums here together and we're going to start real quiet with the first one and get louder and louder.
With each instant I want you to imagine energy is growing inside you.
Confidence is growing inside you.
Your frequency,
Your vibration is growing.
Taking a deep breath here.
Breathing in.
Aum.
Aum.
Just taking a moment to feel the experience of those three Aums.
And notice what's real and alive inside you.
What would it be like for you and your voice to take up more space in this world?
Is there something your voice is longing to say?
We're going to do one more series of three Aums here together.
We're going to add one element here if you're interested.
You don't need to do it.
We're going to get progressively louder and I want you to practice with your hands and arms taking up more and more space with each instance.
So by the last Aum your hands should be extended as far out to your side as possible.
And it's okay to kind of dance and swim with your hands if that feels better too.
But each instance you literally get bigger and take up more space.
And a deep breath here.
Breathing in.
Aum.
Aum.
Aum.
Aum.
For a moment stay here with your hands fully extended.
Just notice what that feels like in your body.
Slowly bringing your hands back down to your lap.
Before our meditation comes to an end here I want you just to be here with your own voice.
And if you're open to it placing one hand gently on your throat,
One hand on your heart,
And just sharing a little bit of gratitude for your beautiful voice.
Thank you voice.
Thank you for all that you do.
Thank you for speaking up.
Thank you for allowing me to express my truth through you.
Thank you even when you are quiet and shy.
Thank you.
Allowing your hands to drop wherever they'd like to drop.
Bravo to your artist.
Bravo to your creator.
That was a bit of a different meditation.
And maybe you fully leaned in and maybe you decided to sit in quiet and stillness and that's okay too.
For those of you joining us live at the artist morning I'm going to put 20 minutes on the clock and allow all of us to do some private personal journaling.
If you're joining us on a replay perhaps on insight timer of course you could do the same.
Put some time on your clock and just see what's here and ready to express through you.
My name is Darius.
It's been such an honor and privilege to be here with you this morning and I can't wait to see you next time.
