Welcome.
My name is Zan Roberti.
I'm glad you made it here.
Chances are you joined me today because you feel a bit off-kilter.
Something's out of balance.
Congratulations.
Welcome to the human race.
Well,
You made it to the right place.
Today's meditation will cultivate a sense of balance and harmony within.
So before we begin,
Find that position that means balance for you right now.
I'd recommend sitting upright in a chair or on the floor,
But let your body arrive in this moment.
You may want to softly gaze around your space.
Become aware of your relationship to it,
And then let your eyes gently fall closed.
Take your focus from the external world to the realms within.
Let your shoulders relax.
Slack in your jaw.
Feel the muscles in your face and neck release.
Just be.
It's easy to see how things get out of balance in life.
We do our best to manage how we approach our relationships,
How we spend our time,
Our money,
What we focus on or don't.
And sometimes it's too much to manage,
To decide,
To hold.
Like a juggler gone awry,
All the balls that floated and swirled before you fall through your hands about this way and that.
When balance and harmony evade us,
That's when it's time to go within.
So let's do that now.
Settle into a gentle stillness.
Let your body become heavy.
Feel yourself rooting into the ground.
As you relax,
Become aware of the ease in just sitting upright.
Notice how this stillness is not static,
But a series of microshifts that happen less and less as your body finds calm.
There are near 600 muscles in the human body and just to sit upright to push against gravity,
A symphony of muscular contractions have to fire within.
Think of a baby just learning how to sit up.
See the excitement in their face in that moment of arriving in that sit and then that curious acceptance that happens as they begin to topple back to the ground.
Your body knows things that your conscious mind doesn't.
Breathe into that.
And how is your mind?
Notice that when asked for stillness,
The mind tends to empty all the untended thoughts to the foreground,
Dumping before you all the memories,
Plans,
Questions that loop in the background.
It might have just showed up now.
If you spend so much of your day feeling and distracting your mind,
When you actually ask it to slow down,
There's a very natural adjustment.
Allow these fluctuations,
Let them pass like beads of rain running down a window.
This is natural.
There's nothing to fix or change.
There is an internal knowing you have access to.
You have your own unique equilibrium,
Your own serene origin point.
Let's access that now.
Bring your attention to your breath.
Become aware of your natural tidal rhythm.
Notice your in-breath.
Notice your exhale.
Just watch your breathing with the same focus you might bring to a good book or film.
You don't have to control or manage it.
Like the muscles of sitting upright,
Your body breathes whether you pay attention or not.
Before meditating,
There was an automatic balancing act between oxygen and carbon dioxide.
That ability to balance is so deeply a part of you.
It cannot be removed.
Balance is nothing more than a freeze frame,
A photograph of a rhythm that's ongoing.
To feel your balance,
Slow down,
Focus,
Enjoy the rhythm.
Breath is a rhythm that you can reset anytime.
And that reset can be a great way to find balance.
So we'll do that now.
We'll be practicing Samavriti Pranayama,
Also known as box breath.
Samavriti Pranayama from Sanskrit translates to equal fluctuations in breath.
The practice involves a steady in and out breath of equal duration with retentions both at the top and bottom.
So I'll guide you for a few rounds and then allow you to continue on your own.
First,
Let's exhale out all of our breath.
Inhale,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Exhale,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold,
Two,
Three,
Four.
In,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Out,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Hold,
Two,
Three,
Four.
In,
Hold,
Out,
Out,
Out.
Hold.
Continue on your own.
I'll be right here.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
You may notice that the length of your count shifts.
And your inhales,
Exhales and holds begin to last longer.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
As the muscles of respiration find rhythm,
The rest of the body relaxes,
Eases into balance.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
To your next inhale,
Let your exhale become an open-mouthed sigh.
Return to your natural breath.
Whenever you feel off-kilter,
Remember you can find that center again.
Balance must be challenged.
If we never fell as babies,
We'd never develop the muscles to sit upright.
The length of any acrobatic routine is falling down gracefully.
To pull into balance is to lessen the extremes and invite the various parts of your life to work together as one.
When something feels far away,
You lean forward.
When something is too close,
You lean back.
That's the dance.
And it's one you already know.
On your next inhale,
Feel the air all the way to the bottom of your diaphragm.
Take another audible sigh through the mouth.
Bring your awareness to the symphony of your body.
Slowly transition that awareness to the air around you,
The space that you're sitting in.
Invite any movement that feels right at this time.
And slowly blink your eyes open to this brand new,
Eternal now.
