Gentle Awakening

So finding yourself a comfortable position,

Perhaps seated on a dining room chair with the pelvis slightly higher than the knees and the feet flat on the floor and the back reasonably upright but not rigid.

Just noticing how you are right now and allowing the attention to a light on the breath,

The way a butterfly might land on a leaf.

Letting go of all striving,

Allowing whatever your mind decides to do with this beautiful kindness and just knowing that whenever you notice you've been distracted by sound or by a train of thought that you've been lost in the room,

Just that little internal smile bringing yourself back to that beautiful breath that's always there for you.

No need to analyse,

Think about,

Visualise,

Imagine the breath,

Simply noticing the felt sense of the breath in the body,

Perhaps the nostrils,

Perhaps it's more vivid for you in your chest or your abdomen rising and falling.

No need to analyse,

Think about,

Visualise,

Imagine the breath in the body,

Perhaps the breath constantly ebbing and flowing.

Perhaps you might even have a closer,

Gentle explore of the breath,

Just noticing without judgement as best you can,

Is it fast or slow,

Regular or irregular,

Is there any resistance to the breath,

Is it deep or shallow,

You don't even need to come up with mental answers,

Just allow those questions to drop into the breath.

You might notice,

Is there a tone to the breath,

Is it feel alive and springy today or perhaps more on the spectrum of flat and lifeless,

Does it have a texture,

Maybe it's delightful and smooth,

Maybe it's a bit rough and ragged.

Moving your attention now to the sense of hearing,

No need to go out searching for sounds,

Just being aware of the soundscape,

Constant change in textures and pictures and volumes,

Allowing you awareness to feel with sounds.

Moving your awareness to the sense of sight,

So if you've got your eyes closed,

Just noticing the play of light and shadow.

Moving your awareness to the sense of quietness,

Quietness,

Quietness,

Quietness,

Quietness,

Quietness,

Quietness.

Moving now to the sense of smell and taste,

What can you notice?

Now the sense of touch,

Perhaps as though a pot of honey has been poured on your head and you follow the feeling of the honey as it slowly spreads down over your body.

If this doesn't really work for you then it's fine just to notice all the things like clothing and the air and the furniture and body parts touching other body parts.

Remember to drop any striving,

Just have the most gentle attitude towards this.

You can't really get it wrong.

Moving the attention now to the sense of interoception,

What we feel within our body.

You might like to play with this metaphor of imagining your body as like a vessel of water and you're dropping a drop of dye in the top of your head,

Noticing sensations as the dye slowly fills up the vessel.

Just noticing if that works for you or if you prefer the more systematic process of going through the bones and the muscles.

In which case just noticing all the bones and muscles in the skull,

The shoulders,

The neck,

The arms,

The hands,

The fingers.

Noticing muscles in the rib cage and shoulder blades in the upper chest and back.

The belly and lower back.

Pelvic bones,

Pelvic floor muscles,

Buttocks.

The bones and muscles of the legs,

The knees,

Ankles,

Feet,

Right into the toes.

Then if you're enjoying the drop of dye going down the body and perhaps back up again,

By all means continue that or otherwise now just placing the tension in the belly,

Noticing the digestive system.

Seeing sensations in the belly,

Perhaps a fullness,

An emptiness,

A heaviness,

A lightness,

A tightness,

A looseness,

Maybe a sense of warmth or cool.

Right up through the tummy,

The esophagus,

Into the mouth.

Spending a little bit of time with the breath.

Really notice the breath coming in and out of the nostrils.

Can you actually feel it on the walls of the nostrils?

Perhaps in the little area under the nose,

Between the mouth and the nose.

Perhaps cool air coming in and warmer air coming out.

Do you have a sense of being able to feel the air in the sinuses in the cheeks?

In the throat,

Down the breathing tube.

Sensing the lungs expanding and contracting.

Perhaps having a bit of a sense of even appreciation for our amazing digestive systems,

Amazing breathing systems and then moving to the heart.

Noticing how you feel in your heart area.

Can you be accepting of whatever's there right now?

Perhaps there's a tightness,

A clenching.

Perhaps a hardness,

Perhaps an ache,

A heaviness.

Perhaps a warmth,

A softness,

An openness,

Closedness.

This beautiful acceptance of what is right now in the heart.

Moving again to the sense of hearing just for a short time.

Notice how you can shift your attention.

Notice how you have little or no control over the sounds that you hear.

And knowing that our thoughts are a little bit like that.

There's only so much control you have over the thoughts that come and go,

The mental activities,

The bits of energy that come and go.

Spending some time now really opening that awareness to allow the thoughts just to arise and fall,

Ebb and flow.

One thought after another,

Perhaps with a little gap between,

Perhaps not.

Noticing if the thoughts are coming thick and fast or if they're quite slow or dreamy or perhaps little fragments.

Perhaps there's something in your life that your thoughts are just gonna keep thinking about.

No need to struggle with this,

Just this beautiful kind noticing.

Your brain does its thing.

Laugh.

Notice if you get lost on a train of thought or lost in the rim of thoughts.

Again with that little inner smile,

Ah,

Thinking.

Come back to noticing thoughts.

Not necessarily the content but more the way they come and go,

How they stay.

Maybe even there might be thoughts that you notice have an emotional component to them,

A body reaction.

Some thoughts that are just so gripping that they really want to persuade you to stay with them.

And others that it's really easy to see as just little bits of energy,

Not me,

Just the brain activity,

The energy.

And moving now to the sense of interconnectedness.

That sense of we cannot live in isolation even if we feel that that's how things are.

We are connected to others.

So perhaps today just gently allowing the breath to connect you to others.

Perhaps as you breathe in,

Taking the focus into your heart.

As you breathe out,

Taking that focus onto another.

You could start with me or with other people that are present at the moment,

Both virtually or in reality.

It's helpful,

You could have almost a giving and receiving sense to the breath,

Like a infamy out for you.

You have a sense of breathing in a tangible something,

A warmth,

The connection,

Kindness.

Giving that to yourself to the other.

Maybe you might need quite a few breaths in for yourself before you give to another or maybe it actually feels easier to give most to another and just take the odd one for yourself.

Just playing with what feels okay right now.

See if over the next minute or so with this if you want to stick with just a connection with one other person or perhaps a group of people or perhaps today you'd like to offer this to the whole planet with all life forms on it.

There's a sense of real difficulty in this today,

Can you breathe in for yourself some some compassion,

Some mental reassurance of you are doing as best as you can this moment in time.

Even if that's being sound asleep.

I'm letting that go now and just perhaps allowing this question to just drop into the body,

Heart and mind.

No need to think of an answer just noticing any subtle response to the question.

What is aware of all this?

What is aware of all this?

Aware of senses,

Internal of the body,

Mental activities and interconnection.

Having the sense of paying attention to awareness itself.

No need to strive or try hard.

Maybe there's absolutely nothing happens here.

Maybe there's a subtle shift in some sort of texture or a little glimpse of something or perhaps there's a profound sense of timeless bliss.

Doing your best to accept whatever experience it is that you're having right now.

Perhaps having a sense of the actual space around you space in front of you and behind you and above you and below you.

Perhaps noticing any sounds that you hear in one eardrum.

The same sounds that fill the space around you.

Perhaps having a sense of any body sensations that you feel that when you've got your eyes closed there.

Maybe don't even feel confined to your skin that they're also a part of this space.

Perhaps resurrecting the close organised essential space around you.

Knowing that we're coming to an end to the meditation.

And checking in to see how your body,

Heart and mind are going right now.

Sending yourself an extra dose of kindness if you need to.

A little hand on the heart.

Really taking your time to externalise the awareness.

Keeping a nice soft gaze as you open your eyes.

Moving fingers and toes,

Hands and feet.

Just gently looking around your environment.

Orienting yourself.

Noticing the textures and the three dimensionality of what's around you.

Maybe having a few deep breaths.

Maybe having a stretch.

And perhaps taking some of this mindfulness into your day.