Hello and welcome to a 20 minute guided mindfulness meditation.
I invite you to come into a comfortable seat or if sitting is not available to you I encourage you to lay down or stand up whatever makes your body feel at ease.
As you get yourself settled and comfortable start to settle into your space.
Maybe you look around and see where you are.
Maybe you spend some time rocking back and forth finding equilibrium finding your center.
When you feel that you can settle into stillness I invite you there.
And as you soften I encourage you to start to notice your breath.
Mindfulness is where we can recognize what is happening without judgment in the moment to moment flow of our experience as humans.
Allow for your breathing to perhaps deepen as you allow for yourself to get a little longer on the inhales and perhaps a little bit softer on the exhales.
Realizing how your breath moves in and out expanding and contracting where we are focusing on feeling the breath move through our body.
That's all we're doing.
Thoughts might arise and we can welcome them saying hello to those thoughts.
It's that moment where we know I'm thinking where we can simply label it as thinking and then redirect our attention to our breath to our belly to our lungs.
Allowing your breath to simply be the anchor that we choose to return to.
The anchor is how we root back into the present moment.
Breath is one anchor.
What we hear around us the sounds in the vicinity of where we are can also be an anchor bringing us right here.
Another anchor can be your literal sit bones anchoring you to the ground or your chair or your body being held up by whatever surface you're laying on or your feet rooting firmly into the earth.
Noticing where your mind is if thoughts have found their way in or maybe not but simply noticing what's happening for me right now what's going on in my experience and greeting the moment with compassion and softness,
Kindness.
While we're concentrating on letting the mind have some stillness having a place to there's nothing to do except to breathe here and notice that thoughts might come and instead of judging or making the thoughts wrong it's that moment of awareness wow there I am thinking that is the moment of mindfulness.
We can take that moment and bring it right into the present by following our breath by listening to the sounds by feeling the sensations that arise in our bodies as we sit still.
So Breathing in fully and breathing out fully with anything that comes up.
Breathing in fully and breathing out fully with anything that comes up.
I encourage you to stay,
Stay still,
Breathe through what you're experiencing and allow for it to flow through you.
There's nothing to grip or hold on to.
And allowing for those exhales to be a place where you can release or maybe even tense up more.
Noticing what that offers.
Keeping your attention on your body,
On your emotions,
On your sensations.
And seeing if you can simply be with whatever comes up.
Maybe there's a story connected to the emotion and maybe you see that.
Can you just notice thinking,
Thinking.
And then with compassion and tenderness and warmth.
You redirect yourself to the slow inhales and the slow exhales.
Of this moment alone.
Noticing what you're experiencing.
Breathing in fully and breathing out fully with anything that comes up.
This is an awareness exercise.
Existing all that arises with a place of curiosity,
Childlike curiosity.
And where we allow for ourselves to go off,
Float downstream.
And then come right on back.
Back to yourself laying down or sitting or standing.
Feeling any tingling in your body.
Feeling how the breath swirls in through the nostrils and down into the throat.
Understanding where the breath feels the most accessible.
Maybe it's in your head or your nose or your throat or your belly or your toes.
Just how much there is to feel by following the breath alone.
Go ahead.
And keeping your breaths nice and long,
Sending a message to your nervous system that you are okay right now.
It's okay.
Breathing in for the count of five and breathing out for the count of five.
Bringing that pace up for the next few breaths.
Slowly encouraging your body to make a few movements as we start to wind down.
Winding down the meditation.
Again noticing where there's tingling and letting your body intuitively move.
Keeping your eyes soft if that feels good for you.
Bringing yourself to slowly start to come back to the physical sensations.
Feel free to stay in this meditation longer if this is serving you.
And if you feel complete,
I encourage you to bring your hands to your heart and give yourself a bow of gratitude for sitting with yourself for 20 minutes just now.
Good job self.
I will ring a bell three times to close.
I will sing 10 times.
