Welcome to your iris practice.
I invite you to get started in a comfortable position.
You can be sitting or lying down.
Just getting yourself settled.
And remember you're welcome to practice with your eyes closed or if it's more comfortable you can keep them open.
Just let them be relaxed.
So as you allow the body to settle here,
I invite you to welcome the sounds around you.
Just notice the sounds that enter your ears.
Maybe they're outside.
Maybe they're inside the room.
Just welcome the sounds as they arise.
And now turning your attention.
Any smells that enter your awareness as you inhale.
Any residual tastes in the mouth.
And sensing now the feeling of the space around you.
Maybe the touch of air on your skin.
Temperature of the room.
The feeling of the clothes on your body.
Seeing your body connected and supported by the surface underneath it.
Notice that as you let go of tension in the body,
The surface comes up to meet it.
To hold it.
And as you rest here,
I invite you to perhaps welcome an intention for your practice.
Whatever that is,
Don't think about it too much.
Maybe it's an intention to give yourself time to relax.
Just a time to rest.
I invite you throughout the practice to simply welcome whatever arises.
Everything you experience is just as it should be.
And as you rest here,
I invite you to welcome in a sense of wellbeing into the body.
Feeling of being at peace,
Ease.
And if it's useful,
Maybe bring to mind the memory of when you experience that.
Memory of a time when you felt completely at ease.
Free to be yourself.
Nothing to worry about.
Allow yourself to become absorbed in that memory.
The sights,
The sounds.
Welcoming the felt sense of being at ease.
Notice how it feels in your body.
Where do you experience that feeling of ease and peace?
You're just resting here in that feeling of ease.
Remembering that throughout the practice,
You need to come back to this feeling.
You're welcome to use it as a safe haven.
Just resting here in that feeling of ease.
And now,
As I begin to name parts of the body,
I invite you to simply,
Simply,
Simply,
Simply allow your attention to rest on those parts.
Just notice how it feels in that part of the body.
There's no need to move.
There's no effort involved.
Simply notice the feeling that arises in that part.
We'll begin by welcoming in the sensations inside the mouth,
The roof of the mouth,
The insides of the cheeks,
The gums,
And the teeth.
And sensing the tongue resting inside the mouth.
Welcoming the sensations in the back of the throat.
Perhaps you can notice the feeling of your breath in the back of the throat.
And from the sensation in the back of the throat,
Moving out to the ears,
Inside the ears,
The outer architecture of the ears.
And sensing the temples,
The scalp,
The forehead,
The eyes.
Sensing the eyeballs resting in the sockets,
The cheeks,
The jaw,
The nose,
The eyes.
The lips.
The chin.
The neck.
The inside of the throat.
The shoulders,
The upper arms,
The elbows,
The forearms,
The wrists,
The shoulders,
The hands,
And the hands.
And welcoming sensations in the torso,
Letting go of thinking,
Just allowing yourself to feel the energy in the hands,
In the chest,
In the upper back,
Sensing the belly,
Lower back,
The hips,
The glutes,
Welcoming the sensations in the thighs,
The knees,
The hips,
The lower legs,
The ankles,
The feet,
Giving up thinking,
And simply feeling the whole body alive,
Vibrating with sensation.
And resting here,
I'd like you to welcome the feeling of simply being,
Taking a moment to affirm that you have nothing to do,
Nothing you can get right or wrong,
There's no one to please.
Everything you experience is just as it should be.
And as you rest here,
Just being,
I'll ask you some questions and I invite you just to welcome what arises in your experience.
So first,
As you are simply being,
Notice where your body is located in space.
When you're just being,
Do you have a center and an outer boundary?
And when you're just being,
Without going into thinking or memory,
What is your experience of time?
When you're simply being,
Is there anything that you need to acquire to make you more perfect than you already are in this moment?
When you are simply being,
Is there anything that you need to know that will make you more connected than you already are in this moment?
And when you are being,
Is there anything that you need to do that by accomplishing it will make you more complete than you already are in this moment?
I invite you just to rest here,
Simply being.
You are spacious,
Timeless,
Perfect,
Connected,
Complete,
Just as you are.
And as you rest here in being,
I invite you now to imagine that you unexpectedly experience a difficult event in your life.
Maybe you have an argument with a loved one,
Injure yourself or become ill.
Maybe something goes wrong at home,
Work or when you're out.
In this moment,
You are absorbed in the details of the event.
You feel upset.
You begin to feel that something is wrong.
You begin to lose touch with that felt sense of being.
Wholeness.
Then imagine,
While you're still upset about this event,
You haven't recovered from it yet.
Life knocks you down again.
As you're getting up,
It knocks you down again.
Nothing seems to be going right.
Overwhelmed by the intensity of your experience,
Completely lose touch with your feeling of being and wholeness.
You start believing that something must be wrong with you.
There's something you need to change to feel whole again.
Now imagine you try lots of different things to feel better.
They don't seem to work.
And you say to yourself,
Maybe there's something I need to know to feel better.
So you start looking online,
Seeking advice,
Reading books.
But it doesn't work.
You still feel confused and disconnected.
Then you say,
Maybe there's something I can get that will help me feel better.
But nothing works.
And you are drawn further away from your feeling of wholeness.
Then you say,
If only I had more time and space to focus on this,
I could make everything better.
But when that fails,
You feel helpless,
Lacking,
Confused,
And disconnected.
You feel that you've run out of time to heal yourself,
That you're broken.
And as you identify with these feelings,
Experiencing yourself as broken,
Separate,
Isolated,
Confused,
And powerless,
As you fail to experience the well-being you once knew,
You're exhausted from looking everywhere and not finding it anywhere.
Then one day,
Feeling shattered and hopeless,
You collapse into a chair,
Having tried everything you say to yourself,
I give up.
And that's when you momentarily fall into the experience of simply being.
In this moment of being,
Your judging mind slows down.
Your felt sense of wholeness breaks through.
You feel in yourself a sense of being that is spacious,
Timeless,
Perfect,
Connected,
And complete,
Just as you are.
You are home again.
Now you remember,
Resting here.
You feel powerful again as your ego lets go of identifying with the thought,
Something's wrong with me.
Take time to experience this wholeness of being,
Affirming that just simply being,
You are okay in this moment.
You know that now you can turn your attention to healing what is wrong and the place within you that is perfectly right.
But before you take care of business,
You take time to relax into being so your body and mind can rest and rejuvenate in your felt sense of wholeness,
Simply being.
Simply taking a moment to return to your intention that you set at the beginning of the practice.
Notice what arises now.
Think of thinking and analyzing,
Just welcoming whatever comes up for you in this moment.
As you rest here,
Beginning to once again open the senses,
The sounds around you,
The smells and tastes in the mouth,
The feeling of the air on your skin,
The clothes on your body,
Sensing the weight of the body supported by the surface underneath it.
When you feel ready,
Beginning to bring some movement back into the body.
Opening the eyes if they were closed,
Taking in sights of the room.
I invite you as you continue with your day to carry that felt sense of being with you.
Perhaps you can come back to it when you find yourself in a stressful situation and remind yourself that you are whole,
Just as you are.
The practice of iris is now complete.
