Good morning,
And welcome to a brief 10-minute breath awareness meditation.
Whether you're a teacher about to begin class or an instructional leader about to begin their day,
The next 10 minutes are designed to balance the mind and body,
Connect with the breath,
And find clarity.
Before we begin,
We want to become acclimated to our space.
So I'm going to invite you to close your eyes and awaken the other senses.
What do you hear?
What are the sounds of your space?
Whether that's a classroom or an office or your house or even a car,
What are you hearing?
As we hear things,
We want to just accept them as part of our space.
Drop any expectation of what our space for meditation needs to be.
Just accept it as it is.
Note the temperature on your skin.
What sensations are you feeling in the room?
What do you smell?
Again,
Whatever arises,
We want to accept as part of our space,
Arriving right on time.
And with that,
Let's go ahead and officially take our seat,
Whether that's a pillow or a chair.
At this point,
You can open your eyes if you choose to or leave them closed.
I'm going to invite you to take your hands,
Palms down,
And gently place them just above your knee resting on your leg.
That way your elbows are right next to your body.
I'm going to invite you to check in with your breath.
We're not trying to do anything special with our breath.
Just see how our breath is showing up this morning.
Is it deep?
Is it shallow?
I'm going to invite you to bring your awareness to your connection to the earth.
If you're in a chair that's your feet firmly planted on the ground,
If you're on a pillow on the ground that's your sitz bones,
Bring your awareness to that connection to earth.
Feel it anchoring you down,
Securing you,
Nurturing you,
Holding you in place like a root system.
If our seat is our root,
Then our back is the trunk of our tree,
Straight and strong.
I'm going to invite you to unzip your belly to give your lungs all the space that they need.
I'm going to invite you to take your shoulders and roll them up to your ears,
Nice and high,
And then we're going to roll them back,
Letting them rest just above our normal resting spot so that our posture is elevated,
Alert,
And dignified.
We want to be upright,
Not uptight.
Our body's strong,
Our mind open.
If our seat is our root and our back is our trunk,
Then the branches are reaching outward and upward through the crown of our head.
I'm going to invite you to tuck your chin about an inch so that if your eyes are open your gaze would be cast down about three to six feet in front of you.
I'm going to invite you to bring your awareness to your jaw,
Maybe shake it out a little bit.
Make sure that your jaw is relaxed and just hanging.
Maybe a slight gap between your teeth,
Lips are open slightly,
There's no suction in the mouth.
I'm going to invite you to bring your awareness to the skin on your cheek as it rests on your cheekbones,
Relaxed.
Now bring your awareness to the skin on your forehead,
Particularly that spot just between your eyebrows that we tend to clench when we think.
It's open and relaxed and just hanging.
Now we're going to check in with our breathing.
We're going to do that by placing our awareness on the tip of our nose and take note of the sensation of the air as it enters and leaves our nose.
We're going to expand that awareness to the back of our throat,
Maybe down to the belly.
Just sit with the breath,
Not doing anything special with the breath,
Just with whatever breath arises this morning.
Take note of the cool,
Crisp air as it enters or the warm,
Soothing air as it leaves.
I'm going to invite you with true curiosity to see which one of these breaths are resonating more with you this morning.
Do you feel more connected to that cool,
Crisp inhale that's awakening the body?
Are you feeling like you need that deep,
Warm,
Soothing exhale helping you sink and relax?
Sometimes as we start our day and we feel a little bit groggy in the morning,
This inhale can help wake us up.
Or if we're feeling particularly agitated or anxious,
We connect more with the exhale as it helps us sink and relax and let go.
Just take a few moments and see which one of those two are connecting with you more this morning.
Now at this time,
You might have some thoughts or emotions that show up for you this morning.
I invite you to accept them,
Explore them with true curiosity.
What's showing up this morning?
We do that by giving it a name.
That's worry.
That's planning.
That's thinking.
And I invite you with true curiosity to sit with that thought or that emotion for just a little bit longer than you normally would.
Where is it showing up in the body?
How strong is it?
And without aggression,
Without judgment,
We accept it and we let it go with the next exhale and return our awareness to our breath,
To the sensations of the inhale or the exhale.
I'm going to give you some time on your own to sit with the process of recognizing,
Acknowledging our thoughts and our emotions,
Giving them a name and letting them go and returning your awareness to the breath.
Okay.
All right.
.
And before we end this morning,
I'm going to invite you to take your right hand and place it on your heart.
Just on your heart space right in the middle of your chest.
Take note of the sensations that arise.
The temperature of your skin.
The temperature of your hand.
Or maybe there's some internal sensations that arise,
Some feelings.
Just take a moment to connect with that sensation.
And with true gratitude for showing up this morning,
For taking the time to give your mind some space,
We're going to say to ourselves,
May I be well,
May I be happy,
And thank you.
And with that,
We're going to gently open our eyes and return to our day.
