Begin by finding a comfortable position where you can rest your body.
If it's comfortable for you,
You may close your eyes or if you prefer keep them open or half open with a soft gaze.
If open,
Just find a fixed focal point in the room that you're in to gaze at.
As you relax into this position that you're in,
Can you ground your awareness into your body,
Maybe by feeling your feet firmly meeting the floor and your back supporting you in the chair or the support that you're against.
As you breathe,
Slowly bring your attention to your breath and just notice the patterns of your breathing.
Inhaling,
Pause and exhaling.
Just observing the rise and fall of your belly or chest as you're breathing.
You may like to place one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly and notice where your breath is moving the most.
If you notice that you're breathing from the chest,
Can you work slowly with each breath on slowly drawing the breath down with slower and deeper breaths down into the diaphragm.
Sometimes it can be helpful to bring the hands to either side of the ribs to give the mind somewhere to send the breath to.
Just allowing for a few more rotations of this breathing pattern,
Drawing the breath down into the bottom of the ribs and noticing that as you go deeper and deeper into your core,
You're just aiming to get a little bit slower and a little bit more soothing with your breath.
What we'll do to help with that slowing down and that soothing is to count.
So as you next inhale,
We're going to inhale for four,
Three,
Two,
One and pause,
Two,
Three,
Four and then breathing out,
Three,
Two,
One.
So breathing in,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Pause,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Exhaling,
Three,
Two,
One.
So just flowing with that breath,
Finding that rhythm of breathing in and breathing out.
If you notice distractions that pop up in your mind,
Identify them just as thoughts.
Redirect your attention back to your breathing,
Maybe noticing the temperature of your breath,
The smells,
The sounds of your breath or inviting the counting back in to help you keep rhythm.
Inhaling for two,
Three,
Four.
Pausing for two,
Three and four.
Exhaling for two,
Three and four.
Pausing for two,
Three and four.
Inhaling for two,
Three and four.
Pausing for two,
Three and four.
Exhaling tension for two,
Three and four.
Inhaling calmly,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Pausing,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Release the tension as you exhale,
Three,
Four.
Imagine your body slowly releasing as you build up the tension as you breathe in and exhaling and softening when you breathe out.
So you can move through your body,
Just noticing where the tension draws you.
And as you pause,
It might be where you hold and gather that tension,
Exhaling and releasing.
When you next inhale,
Noticing where you feel that tension or that observation of sensation in your body.
Pausing to hold it there and then exhaling as you release out.
You can continue this process for as long as you find it meaningful for you.
So if you'd like to keep going,
You can pause the recording here.
If you feel that you've done it enough,
You can start to come back into this space.
So can you feel your back against the chair?
Your legs against the supports?
Maybe your feet are resting on the ground.
Can you feel the clutch of your clothes against your skin?
Inviting the breath in and out,
Letting the mind latch on to that temperature,
The awareness of the breath.
When you're ready,
You can start to invite just some gentle movement back into the fingers and toes.
That's signaling to the body that we're getting prepared to move on to the next part of your day.
And just remembering that you can return to this place to ground yourself and release tension in your body at any time that you choose.
