This is a practice in resilience and rebalancing.
And I'm going to start by just sharing a thought that really struck me this week,
Which was resilience doesn't mean never feeling wobbly.
Just like courage doesn't mean the absence of fear.
For me,
Resilience and what I'm seeing in others is the skills to rebalance as quickly as possible.
I think it would be inhuman and frankly uncaring to not be affected by what's going on at the moment.
But our communities,
Our schools,
Our families need us to be balanced and responsive rather than frozen in panic.
So this practice is to help us rebalance,
To find calm in the eye of the storm.
So I'm going to invite you just to find a place where you feel comfortable,
Where your posture is alert but relaxed.
Away you can start to take a few deeper longer breaths all the way in and all the way out.
And all the way in and all the way out.
And if you continue with that longer,
Deeper breathing,
Just gently start to scan your body on the in-breath for any areas of tension and on the out-breath,
Relaxing and releasing as best you can.
Again,
Scanning on the in-breath,
Relaxing and releasing on the out-breath.
And to help you relax a little bit more,
Bring your attention now to the muscles in your face,
Particularly the muscles around your eyes and your forehead.
And relaxing and releasing any tension you find.
Relaxing your jaw,
Even letting your tongue fall slack in your mouth.
And scanning down your head now,
Down your neck,
Across the top of your shoulders,
Just relaxing and releasing any tension you find.
And scanning down your upper arms,
Lower arms,
Scanning down your torso.
Noticing all the points where your body makes contact with the chair.
And relaxing any unnecessary effort in the way you might be holding yourself.
Really letting that tension go on the out-breath.
Knowing that our parasympathetic nervous system,
The arrest and digestive nervous system,
Is really activated on the out-breath.
And in these times,
We spend so much time breathing in,
Holding our breath,
That we can end up with a whole lot of sort of fight or flight left in our body.
That a longer,
Deeper out-breath can let go of.
So as you continue with that longer,
Deeper breathing,
Scanning down your legs,
Down your thighs,
All the way down to your shins and your calves.
All the way down to the experience of your feet flat on the floor.
And when he's relaxed as he can be in this moment,
Bring your attention to the breath and the experience of the breath in the belly.
Allowing your breath to be both an anchor for your attention.
And also noticing this sense of calm refuge and the simple act of just breathing.
The rest of the world can be swarming around you and you've got this place of calm,
Of self-nurturing by just sitting with your breath.
So allowing your attention just to rest there.
And if it helps to stay focused on the breath,
You can count your breaths at the end of each out-breath from one to ten and ten back to one.
And continuing to count in cycles.
Allow yourself to fully experience each part of the breath.
The experience of breathing all the way in.
Following the breath all the way to the point where it turns and actually becomes an out-breath.
And following that movement all the way out too.
You might even notice there's even the slightest pause between the in and the out-breath.
And if it is any point your mind wanders away from the breath as it surely will.
In that moment there's an opportunity to rebalance.
To notice that your mind's wandered to unhook from whatever it is that might have captured your attention.
And rebalance yourself kindly and gently by bringing your attention back to the breath.
Noticing that you can always rebalance.
You can always come back to the breath.
Again noticing where your mind is.
And if it's wandered away from the breath it's not a problem.
Just relax,
Release and return.
And in the final moments of the practice just noticing any greater sense of calm or ease.
And noticing any sense of calm refuge.
And as we finish up the practice knowing that this calm,
This calm at the eye of the storm is always available to you.
The ability to rebalance.
The power of taking a breath.
These are extraordinary times that we're in.
This ability to keep coming back and rebalancing is important now more than ever.
So take this sense of inner calm,
And sense of resilience.
Wishing you all the best for your day.
