So find yourself in a comfortable seated position and allow yourself time to just adjust so you feel completely comfortable.
And take a nice deep breath in through the nose and sigh the breath out of the mouth.
And do that again.
Only this time as you breathe out mentally count down from five to one,
Drawing your awareness out of your head into your physical body as you do so.
We use this practice called centering to help pull us out of our overly busy head so we can access the broader wisdom and the broader resources we have in the entirety of our being.
So just repeat that a few times if you need to.
Nice deep breath in and as you breathe out counting down as you allow your awareness to drop deep,
Deep into your core.
And just take a moment to really feel the places where gravity is pulling you down.
And feel these places widen and soften as you allow your body to relax.
Can you feel a wave of relaxation starting to flow over your body,
Perhaps as a tingling,
Warm or cool sensation flowing over your scalp,
Relaxing the skin on your face as you try to resist your eyelids feeling heavy as your cheeks and jaw relax.
Feeling your throat and shoulders relax as you feel that wave of relaxation flowing down your arms into your hands and your fingers.
And then simultaneously flowing down the front and the back of your body so you feel your chest relax,
Your heart soften,
Relaxing all of the organs,
Relaxing the hips and allowing that wave of relaxation to flow down the legs into the feet and the toes.
Letting your whole body completely relaxed.
And each time you do this practice you find it easier and easier to relax.
Realizing this deeply relaxed state that you now find yourself in easier and easier each time.
And then just bring all of your awareness to your ears.
Hearing every sound there is around you.
Hear every sound.
Notice their location,
The volume,
The tone,
The texture of the sound.
And use the sound to just help focus your attention on just this moment now.
Not allowing your mind to be pulled forward in anticipation or be drawn back into the past.
Just allow yourself to be in this moment.
Just this moment now.
And then let all of those sounds go and let your awareness drop deeper,
Deeper still.
And know that any sound that you hear from now is just going to help you drop even deeper.
And just allow your attention to rest on your breath.
The sensation of the breath in the body.
Or the sensation of the breath on the very edge of your nostrils as you feel the breath flowing in and out of your body.
And any time you find yourself distracted by thought,
In a smile,
Let that thought go and just return your awareness to the breath.
In and out.
And as you feel yourself relax,
As your mind starts to slow down,
You already begin to notice a little space opening up in your mind.
This space between you and your thoughts.
And perhaps you imagine yourself dropping deeper,
Lying on your back in a meadow.
The grass soft against your skin,
The sun feeling warm on your body,
Lying on your back just gazing up at the sky.
Your mind is the sky.
Infinite,
Clear,
Pure consciousness.
Everything else is just weather.
So as you breathe,
You notice the thoughts drifting above you like clouds in the sky.
And you don't try to stop them.
You just let them flow through your mind without giving them any attention.
And you just begin to allow them to drift higher and higher above you,
Becoming smaller and further away.
And any time you find you're distracted,
You've been pulled along on a cloud,
Taken by the story.
Just give yourself an inner smile.
Let it go and return your awareness to the breath.
You start to notice that you are not your thoughts.
You become aware of the observer and the thoughts themselves.
You begin to feel the difference between this chattering,
Churning,
Monkey mind forever churning out endless thoughts and this deeper,
Grounded wisdom.
You can already begin to feel.
And just notice that different sensation between the observer and the thought.
Letting the thoughts to drift higher and higher as you return your awareness to the breath.
And we just notice the quality of our weather.
Are the clouds moving fast or slow?
Are there many or are there few?
Every day,
Every moment,
The weather can be different.
And if we notice there is a pattern to our thought,
A voice in our thought,
A tone in our thought,
We just notice this,
Acknowledge it in a smile and then return the awareness to the breath.
And often we can find ourself very distracted or plagued with a thought that is really vying for our attention.
So if this is happening,
Just allow that thought to be right in front of you.
Take a breath,
Draw your awareness deep into your body and say I see you,
I welcome you,
I feel freedom.
And then just let that thought go.
Feel the release in your body and just return your awareness to your breath.
Perhaps we notice we have the voice of a strong inner critic,
A sergeant major or a mean girl or guy.
Same process.
We allow ourself to fully see this inner smile to feel everything soften.
And then I see you,
I welcome you,
I feel freedom.
Breathing the release from the body and just returning the attention to the breath.
And then as we begin to draw this meditation to a close,
We just allow our attention to rest on our heart space.
We begin to take conscious control of the breathing,
To breathe deliberately in and out slowly and a bit more deeply.
So we begin to energize the body.
And as we breathe,
We begin to feel this golden light start to grow and shine in the center of our heart space.
This is the energy of compassion,
Of active empathy,
Of acceptance.
Acceptance of ourself and acceptance of others just as we all are.
We notice with each breath this golden glow becomes brighter and stronger and begins to feel your whole body.
And just feel your whole body filled with this golden light of acceptance.
And feel this golden light of compassion radiating out from your whole body.
And really feel this permeating through every cell of your body.
Notice how it feels.
And allow with each breath this golden glow to spread brighter and brighter so it expands to encompass everyone and everything you care about.
And just feel all of them bathed in the golden glow of your compassion.
See it really saturating through every part of them.
And then to come out of meditation,
I'm going to be counting you up from five to one.
And when we reach one,
Your eyes will open,
You'll feel energized,
Wide awake and even better than before.
So allowing the breath to deepen,
We start to rise five,
Four,
Three,
Feeling energized,
Two,
One,
Eyes open,
Feeling refreshed,
Energized,
Even better than before.
