Welcome everyone to our sit together.
Today we will be doing a concentration practice.
So go ahead and find yourself a comfortable seat.
If you're sitting on a chair,
Be sure to sit away from the back of the chair and plant your feet so you have a good solid pace.
If you're sitting on a cushion,
Arrange the legs so they'll be comfortable for the period of sitting.
And as a way of settling into the practice,
I would like to start off by taking three really deep breaths in and out with you together.
And on the exhale you can really just sigh really hard and make some noise,
Just releasing all the attention.
Maybe these are your first conscious breaths of the day so be sure to make them count.
Are you ready?
Here we go.
In.
And out.
Ah.
In.
And out.
Ah.
In.
And out.
Ah.
Feel your energy moving downwards.
And as it moves downwards,
Bring your attention to your feet or sit bones.
Feeling the contact between your body and the surface beneath you.
Feeling the weight of your body.
Really sink into it and allow it to support you.
From that solid base,
Lift all the way up through your spine.
Stacking one vertebrae on top of the other and bringing in a sense of upliftedness.
Balance the head.
Relax the shoulders.
Letting your arms hang loose.
You can rest your hands in your lap or if you'd like a bit more support for your back,
You can place your hands palms down on your thighs,
Just a few inches away from your kneecaps.
And if you at this point still feel some tension in your lower back,
You could tilt your pelvis slightly forward,
Allowing for that natural curvature of your spine.
Then gently tuck in your chin,
Setting the intention to turn our gaze inward from now on.
You can either choose to close your eyes for the period of sitting or if you choose to keep them open,
You can lower your gaze now and soften your focus,
Allowing for that panoramical side.
Relax your face.
You could even give yourself a smile.
Relaxing all the facial muscles at a time and giving yourself,
You know,
A little nod for showing up here today.
Relax the tiny muscles around your eyes.
Relax your eyelids.
You might still have some tension in that area between your eyebrows.
You can release that now.
Let the jaw hang slack and rest your tongue against the roof of the mouth.
Gently shift your attention from your body to your breath.
And really,
We're not doing anything here.
We're just relaxing with the breath as it is.
So just let it go in and out as it will,
No effort to control it.
Just like we were putting our attention on our body parts just now,
We're now redirecting it to our breath,
Observing our breathing,
Being with the body,
Breathing.
Feel your chest or belly expand as you inhale.
And feel it relax as you exhale.
Take a moment to feel where your breath is most prominent for you today.
To increase concentration even more and give your mind less space to wander,
We'll be using a breath counting strategy,
Counting from one to ten and then back down from ten to one on the out breath only.
So breathing in,
Follow the sensations of the inhale.
Breathing out,
Count one.
Breathing in,
Follow the sensations of the inhale.
Breathing out,
Count two.
All the way up to ten and then back down to one.
When you catch yourself wandered off in thoughts or feelings,
Gently bring back your attention to the breath and start to count again back at one.
Even if you have to do it over and over again,
Just no big deal,
Just start back at one.
I will give you a minute or so now to practice this technique.
Just give it a try.
See how it goes.
When you find your mind has wandered into thoughts or whatever stories or fantasies,
In that moment when you notice,
Just gently bring yourself back to the breath.
And we're not trying to turn off our minds in any way here.
We're just trying to be aware of what the mind is doing and bringing it back to our object of attention,
Which is the breath.
So really be grateful and happy when you've noticed that your mind has drifted off.
You could even imagine a crowd applauding you for noticing.
That helps.
For our last moments of practice together,
You can let go of the counting and just rest with your mind.
Just let it do what it wants to do.
I'd like to invite you now to come back to your body.
Come back to feeling the contact with the surface beneath you.
Noticing any sounds or noise.
And taking a deep breath in and out.
And when you're ready in your own time.
Open your eyes again or raise your gaze and slowly arrive back into the room.
Welcome back.
Take the time to gently move out of your meditation posture.
Stretch if you want to and as you go about your day,
Know that you can always come back to the breath.
It is there.
It is always available to you.
You just need to shift your attention to it.
Even if it's just for a brief moment.
A single breath cycle.
See how it makes you feel.
See if it changes your day in any way.
Thank you for being here with me.
But mostly,
Thank yourself for showing up for yourself today.
Have a good one.
