Welcome,
And thank you for joining me for this short meditation practice.
Today's practice is going to be a simple breathing exercise that you can use whenever you need to slow down,
Be a little bit more intentional,
And find peace within.
So I'll invite you to get into a comfortable position,
Blinking your eyes closed whenever you get there,
And beginning to check in with your body.
Are you in a position that's comfortable for you?
And if not,
I'll invite you to move into one that is.
Sitting or laying down,
It's up to you.
Keeping yourself as comfortable as you can in this space so that you can fully focus on this practice.
Relaxing your facial muscles,
All the muscles around your eyes,
In your cheeks,
And in your jaw.
Allowing your shoulders to drop down away from your ears.
Softening through your arms and relaxing your palms.
Checking in with your hips,
Your legs,
All the way down to the soles of your feet.
And as you check in here,
Just giving yourself the opportunity to move or shift if it would feel better,
If you could relax more or release more.
And when you're in a position that's comfortable,
Let's allow our awareness to expand to our breath.
Maybe allowing your focus to land on your belly and just noticing how you're currently breathing.
Often times we breathe really shallow breaths.
The breath doesn't get all the way into our belly.
So right now,
Let's start to bring that sense of intentionality that we spoke about.
As we begin to lengthen our inhale,
Breathing in a little bit deeper,
Drawing that breath all the way to our belly.
And then allowing the breath to leave through our nose or our mouth with a big sigh out,
Extending the length of our exhale as well.
And just seeing if each breath you take,
Seeing if you can get it to be a moment longer than the last.
Slowing down,
Allowing our breath to be our focus,
Letting all other thoughts pass.
Returning our awareness each time our mind wanders to our breath.
Intentionally breathing in,
Intentionally breathing out.
And by breathing in this way,
We are allowing our body to calm.
We're allowing our mind to calm.
Letting your body soften with each breath out.
Bringing a sense of intentionality and calm with each breath in.
And now that we've allowed our breath to deepen,
Let's move into our breathing exercise for today.
And so as you breathe in,
I want you to really envision that breath moving all the way down into our belly as we have.
And then I want you to envision it taking up space there,
Filling your belly,
All four corners and holding for just a moment once you've filled up your belly,
Pausing for just a moment or two at the top of your breath.
And then breathing that breath out with your mouth closed,
Just breathing out through your nose,
But doing so in a way that you are fully breathing out.
You are expanding that breath out.
You are letting everything go and finding comfort in that sense of releasing.
And just continuing this for a couple more rounds,
Breathing in all the way into your belly,
Filling up all four corners,
Pausing for a moment,
Softening your body and then pausing,
Staying with it,
Redirecting your attention and your awareness to your breath each time that you notice your mind wandering.
Breathing the body,
Breathing in calm,
Breathing out anything that you don't need.
And then I'll invite you to let go of that breath,
Returning to a more natural rhythm,
Wiggling your fingers and toes,
Waking your body back up and simply noticing how you feel.
Thank you for practicing with me today.
