Welcome to this grounding meditation.
My name is Susan and I'll be guiding you through.
So we'll start by finding a position that's comfortable for us.
So one in which you can feel supported and alert.
So that could be sitting in a chair,
Sitting on the floor,
Standing,
Lying down,
Whatever makes most sense for you in this moment.
So getting settled in whatever position we've chosen,
Placing our hands on our lap or at our sides,
Choosing whether to close down your eyes or to keep a soft downward gaze.
And we'll start by bringing our attention to the flow of our breath.
So observing how your body is breathing in this moment.
There's no need to change how you're breathing.
We're watching the air as it flows in through our nose or mouth,
The movement that that causes in our body,
The expansion of our rib cage,
Our belly.
And then we're watching the air flow back out and the release or relaxation that accompanies that.
You may want to focus your attention on the part of your body where you notice the breath the most.
When you get distracted,
Just taking a moment to notice where your mind wandered off to.
And then with kindness and gentleness towards yourself,
Bringing your attention back to the flow of your breath.
We'll bring our attention now to our feet.
And with your next inhale,
Imagine the air coming into your body through all 10 toes and then traveling up your feet,
Your feet,
Up the tops of your feet,
Up your arches,
Your heels to your ankles.
And with each exhale,
Allowing our feet to relax into the floor,
Feeling the heaviness of your feet into the floor with each exhale.
With the next inhale,
We'll observe the breath travel up from our ankles,
Upper shins and calves to our knees.
And with each exhale,
Allowing our legs to be heavy into the floor.
With the next inhale,
We'll observe the breath travel up our legs,
Our thighs to our hips.
And with each exhale,
Feeling the weight of our hips on the chair we're sitting on or on the floor,
Imagining gravity acting on our body and grounding us in this moment.
With our next inhale,
The air is going to flow up our trunk to our chest.
And with each inhale,
Noticing the expansion of our ribcage and then the recoil,
The relaxation that happens with each exhale.
With the next inhale,
The air is going to flow in through our fingertips,
Travel up to our wrists.
And with each exhale,
We're going to feel the weight of our hands on the floor or on our lap or at our sides.
With the next inhale,
The breath is going to flow up our arms to our elbows and to our shoulders.
And with each exhale,
Maybe our shoulders will drop a little bit a little bit as we feel the weight of our arms at our sides or onto the floor.
With our next inhale,
The breath is going to flow up our neck to our head.
And with each exhale,
We're going to feel the weight of gravity acting on our whole body.
We're going to feel the weight of our body on the chair we're sitting on or the floor we're lying on,
Allowing that heaviness to ground us in this moment.
Bringing our attention back to the flow of our breath,
Allowing each inhale to be an expansion and opening up.
And each exhale,
Grounding us further into the present moment.
And as we come to the end of this meditation,
We'll release the focus on the breath.
Before we lift our gaze or open our eyes,
Just taking a moment to notice how we're feeling,
Letting go of any judgment,
Just noticing.
And then when we're ready,
Slowly opening up the eyes or lifting our gaze and then moving mindfully into the next part of our day.
