Air & Earth Elements - Grounding & Resourcing

A guided meditation to promote grounding & resourcing in the body & nervous system. You will be offered guidance to connect with air & earth elements through felt-sensation, sound, and breath. This meditation guides you through inviting ease of tension throughout your body and opening of pathways to receive deeper, more relaxing breath.

This meditation is neurocognitive & trauma-informed, invitational.

Transcript

I will invite you to shake out your bodies and prepare yourself for a guided meditation.

Kind of let your body find the position that is supportive and alert and soft for you.

You can start by looking around the space that you're in,

Taking a moment to notice the colors,

The textures,

Taking a moment to notice the sounds and the smells,

And taking a moment to notice the physical sensation of air.

Perhaps you can feel it on your skin.

You might notice if it has like a temperature or what moistness it might have.

Is it damp?

Is it dry?

Is it warm?

Is it cool?

You might find your body naturally wanting to take a deeper breath and connect with that sensation of air.

So I invite you to find the air where it's comfortable and easeful for you.

That might be the tips of your nose.

You might try to breathe in deep through the mouth.

And I'll invite you to draw your awareness to the breath.

And as you do so,

You can invite your eyes to close or even leave them downcast and just fuzzed as a way of also allowing your awareness to not focus on anything in particular.

Just inviting your awareness to be with the breath.

You might take a practice of noticing the path of the breath.

You can notice it in your nose,

See if you can travel it down through your nasal passage,

Down through your throat,

Not needing to have any pace or speed.

I invite you to find the flow of your breath with the pace that is natural for you.

So the breath doesn't need to be any one way or another.

You can bring your non-judgmental mind to it.

The quality of your breath is neither good nor bad.

It's just here and now.

You can connect with the breath as a place of awareness,

Place of awareness with the living nature of your body.

You might invite your awareness to notice the breath deeper into your lungs and into your chest.

You may even invite yourself to take a deeper breath or place your hand upon your lungs so you can really feel the breath.

You may invite yourself to take a deeper breath in through the nose and allow yourself a slower,

Audible exhale through the mouth.

Give yourself a few cycles of that in through the nose and slower and deeper out through the mouth.

As you do so,

I invite you to find the breath in your body in a way of finding the softness that might be available now with the breath.

Whether this is in the lungs or with diaphragmic breathing.

As you connect with the breath in this way,

Allow yourself and your awareness to kind of travel through your body and invite this sense of ease and softness of the breath in other areas of your body.

You can kind of use the breath as a place of travel and allow your attention to wander.

Notice if you sense any tightness or tension or constriction and invite the breath into this space.

Utilizing the flow of your breath as a way of inviting space and ease throughout your body.

You know that breath brings oxygen and cleansing.

It literally cleanses our blood.

Invite the breath to do its thing and travel through you knowing that with each exhale,

This is an opportunity for you to release any tension or clinging that you might sense in your body.

You might even start this practice of inviting the breath into the body by starting with the top of your head,

The top of your forehead.

Noticing if your forehead has any tension with it.

Invite relaxation and ease there.

Notice the space around your eyes.

Invite relaxation and ease around the corners of your eyes.

Notice if that invites softness into your cheeks.

Traveling down and notice if you can invite softness into your jaw and softness into your mouth.

Allowing your tongue to be soft.

Even noticing the way that this might open up your airways for more ease of breath.

You might even give your head and your neck a little bit of a swivel.

Notice if you can release any tension that you might have started with but now is actually fading.

It's a way of inviting the breath into each vertebrae between your spine.

Actually inviting space and ease with the flow of the breath.

This practice of inviting space and ease with the breath is a way of resourcing yourself and replenishing yourself.

It's actually kind of washing away with the breath any tension of toxins that you might be carrying.

I invite you to bring your focus down now to your shoulders and shoulder blades.

Notice if you can roll your shoulder blades back and down.

Opening up the airways in your chest even further.

You may even offer your heart space a little tilt to the sky as a nod to the sunshine.

Whether you can see the sun or not.

This is an offering of connecting with the warmth that is available for the sun.

It's an offering of inviting the warmth into your breath in this moment.

Nourishing yourself in a way with the breath.

A practice of finding flow with the sense of air.

Building this heat and warmth in through your body so it helps ease your muscles,

Ease your bones.

I'll actually invite you to take a deeper breath now again and really connect with the air in your lungs.

Really connect with the air in your lungs.

Slow in through the nose.

See if you can even notice that little pause at the bottom of the breath and give yourself a long audible exhale.

Really notice the sensations that are available now.

Give yourself a moment to notice this practice that you've been doing of resourcing yourself through the breath.

And I'll invite you to keep your practice of lengthening and adding space in between your spine going.

So allow that breath to travel deeper through your spine.

So allow that breath to travel deeper through your spine.

Kind of noticing your spine as if you're an invisible string that is running through your spinal column and out the top of your head and just see if you can sense any lengthening through that.

And as you do so,

I'll also invite you to connect with a sense of grounding that you feel underneath your body.

Noticing the sense of support as available under your sit bones.

Perhaps noticing the physical sensation itself of the chair or cushion or floor that you're upon.

Noticing how that feels on your skin.

Noticing the sense of grounding support all together that is available underneath you.

Really feeling into this sense of stability.

Noticing the sense of connectedness that you can reach with your breath and your body and the ground all at the same time.

You may even let your awareness wander to your feet.

You may even give your toes a little bit of a wiggle to connect with them in this moment.

And whether your feet are on the ground,

The earth,

Whether your legs are crossed.

Notice the sense of your feet in this moment.

You can even think about your feet as a way of being your grounding support in the world.

Can you notice the way that your feet are there?

Can you notice the way that your toes are there?

Can you notice the way that your feet are connected to the ground?

Noticing your grounding support in the world.

Can you notice the way that your feet are there for you?

Notice the way that your feet support you.

Notice the way that your feet connect with the earth.

And actually invite in that feeling of connectedness and groundedness right now with the earth beneath you.

And I'll invite you to also shift your awareness around your feet and outward of your body and into the physical space that you're up in.

A way of kind of connecting your groundedness and your ease of the breath with your physical environment.

Allowing your awareness to expand in a spacious sense.

Noticing the ways that you can connect with the earth element.

Notice the ways that you can connect with the earth.

Notice the ways that you can connect with the air element.

So perhaps noticing the air on your skin and also your breathing all at the same time.

So in a way of kind of sensing into the experience of the air breathing you and the connection that is available right here.

Right through your breath right now.

And I'll invite you to also notice your senses.

So hearing,

Taste.

Any of the five senses that are available to you today.

Notice if you can sense them in a softer way.

Notice how everything has more ease and stillness about it.

And take a moment to also notice the physical sensations of this resourcing practice.

So notice how your body and your senses are different now than they were when you first started.

So allow yourself to notice this practice in a way of resourcing.

You're here practicing the pathways of breath and resourcing and replenishing your body.

You may choose to place a hand over your heart in this moment.

You may choose to place a hand over your heart in this moment and offer yourself thanks and gratitude for this practice today.

You may even offer yourself a little mantra in your head such as I got you or I'm here or I'm not going anywhere.

I can just be.

And take a moment to breathe deep into your chest and your belly.

Feeling that sense of your heart space softened with this practice.

You may choose to notice if there was anything in particular that was very memorable about your practice today.

Kind of a little breadcrumb of knowing that you want to bring forth into your day and into your week.

Notice any anything that was impactful for your day and into your week.

Resourcing and also offering yourself any forgiveness for challenges that you might have faced.

Knowing that this is not a practice about being perfect or fixed or well.

This is a practice of just being and who you are and how you are is always welcome in any given moment.

This is the practice of showing up exactly how you are in your divine nature and the benefit of just practicing breathing and being in a world that doesn't often offer us this opportunity.

And I will invite your awareness to drop away and reconnect with the sounds around you.

Reconnect with the physical space that you're in as a way of reorienting yourself in a gentle way out of this guided meditation.

You may start to offer gentle movement back into your body.

Reopening your eyes if you're ready.

Allowing yourself to move out of this meditation at your own pace.

As you ease out of the meditation and give yourself the moment to just be and exist and just to notice your body in the space.

Not immediately needing to go to the next thing.

Allowing yourself to just gently re-acclimate.

If you do any journaling in your life,

This can be a moment to jot down anything that was important or memorable.

Anything that you want to remember.

And again as we end this meditation,

Give yourself gratitude for this practice today.