Hello and welcome again.
Welcome back to Nalu Mind the Flow.
Today is the 13th day of our journey together.
If you're joining for the first time,
I welcome you.
Thank you for coming.
If you're returning from one or more days,
Then welcome back.
Each day is designed to follow Nalu in their story of discovery during some mindfulness and meditation practices.
So even if you're joining only for one of the days,
Hopefully you will be able to experience some benefit.
And if you're exploring more than one of the days,
We are following a bit of a progression.
So Nalu lives on an island near the shore and has discovered some teachings from their friend on a neighbor island.
And some of those teachings are about how they observe the breath.
Some of those have been about how they take control and take deep breaths.
And now that we're in deep into the second week,
We're also exploring the sensations not only of the breath,
But also the sensations on the body.
So I invite you to have your eyes opened or have your eyes closed at your preference and to get into a comfy spot where you can be relaxed and be yourself and just settle in for a moment.
So if you want to return to the observation of the breath,
Just watching the breath happen,
Watching the breath go in and out,
Sensing how it touches the body or maybe how it changes the shape of the body.
That's a great way to settle into the current moment.
Or if you need to take a few deep breaths on your own,
You're welcome to have a nice deep inhale and a nice deep exhale,
Maybe letting out a bit of a sigh just to bring yourself into the current moment and bring your attention into focus around the breathing.
As we do so,
We may start to notice a little difference in our posture.
We may notice that the muscles in our face might relax.
This should be a natural occurrence that might occur if you are focusing in on the breath.
And as you notice the breath moving into the body and as you notice the breath flowing out from the body,
You might start to see that there are some sensations that happen along with that.
So that might be the breath touching you somewhere along the nose or the mouth as it moves in.
Might be a sensation of movement or moisture as the air moves out of the body.
Could be any sensation,
Whatever sensation it is.
It's perfectly natural and great to just experience that for whatever it is.
And then as we bring our focus into the breath,
We start to notice that point just above the upper lip where the breath is moving into and out from the body.
We start to notice sensations in that area.
And yesterday,
Nalu was exploring the head area.
They were noticing sensations throughout the face and the head and the neck.
So now's a good time to start exploring again.
Maybe moving around the mouth and nose area to start and just noticing if there happens to be any kind of sensation or feeling that you are sensing in that area.
And if there's no sensation,
That's totally fine too.
Just then continue to observe the breath.
Continue to observe the breath.
And as you move around the head,
Scanning around and noticing if there are any sensations in and around the neck and the head area,
You're welcome to randomly approach how you sense or you're welcome also to sort of follow a flow or a wave as it moves around through the head and then maybe now descending down to the neck.
And what's happening to Nalu is as they experience more and more sensations and a greater variety of sensations and sensations that last for different periods of time,
Then it's kind of piqued their curiosity to continue to explore on the body.
And so they begin to notice sensations that are happening in the upper chest area or maybe they begin to notice sensations that are happening in the shoulders or the back of the neck.
And just observing as those sensations happen and scanning slowly from place to place and watching and noticing.
And again,
If you don't happen to be noticing sensations and maybe you're wondering what Nalu is experiencing,
That's okay too.
If the mind is wandering or worried about something,
It's no problem to just return to that breathing because that breathing is always there.
It's always going to be there and it's always going to be naturally moving into and flowing out from the body.
So if there is an absence of sensation,
One opportunity is to just keep moving until you might find something or another opportunity is to just observe the breath as it happens.
So for today,
If you continue scanning and you happen to be moving into the chest area,
The upper torso,
The upper arms and the upper back,
This is great too.
You're welcome to continue to scan around the body.
The idea here is to move slowly,
Give proper attention to each location and just observe if there happens to be anything going on there and then gently move on to the next location.
Just continue to observe any sensation,
Any feeling that are just naturally happening on the body.
And as you move slowly around the body,
You may notice that there are sensations cropping up in other places.
Acknowledge those and then just move back to your gentle scanning.
You may notice the mind is having thoughts.
Acknowledge those,
Observe those,
And then just move back to your gentle scanning.
And then as we sort of reach the end now of this day of Nalu Mind the Flow,
You begin to return to the sounds of the room,
The feelings of maybe your seat in a chair,
The clothing on your skin,
Or any of those more obvious sensations that are happening around.
And you come back to sort of full awareness and full consciousness.
You might take a deep breath or let out a sigh.
You might even want to stretch a little bit or have a neck roll or something like that.
So as you're experiencing sensations,
It can be a kind of interesting time to explore how it feels to be you.
And thank you so much for joining again today on Nalu Mind the Flow.
I super appreciate you being here.
And if you can make it back to another day,
I welcome you and look forward to it.
So thank you and please enjoy.
