So start by finding a comfortable position in the chair or on the cushion or on the edge of your bed.
And you want to be right in the middle.
On the one hand,
A little bit relaxed,
Bringing a sense of letting go,
Softening the body.
And on the other hand,
Some curiosity in the mind,
Some precision,
Some interest.
And once you've settled in,
Try to notice a few places in the body where you're holding some tension and relax those areas.
So it could be the shoulders.
It's helpful to have the shoulders back and down if that's comfortable.
It might be the stomach.
We tend to hold a lot of tension in the stomach throughout the day.
Society puts a lot of expectations on how we should look.
So here's an opportunity to finally let go in the stomach.
Really allow yourself to be open,
A little bit vulnerable as long as you're in a safe place.
Now I invite you to find your breath.
Just turn your mind's attention to the breath,
Maybe finding a place in the body where you most feel yourself breathing.
This could be the lungs expanding and contracting.
Maybe it's the cool air as you breathe in through your nose and the warm air when you breathe out.
Find a place where it really feels alive to breathe.
And now I invite you to get a little bit sharper with the attention and bring it to the upper half of the face.
And as we move through this body scan,
There's only two things you need to do.
One is relax,
Soften,
Loosen up,
Release the muscles as we make our way through.
And number two,
Notice what sensations appear as you let go.
Whether it's tingling,
If it's warmth,
Coolness,
A flow of energy,
Maybe even numb.
So start with the upper half of the face,
The forehead,
Letting the skin relax.
And then the areas around the eyes,
All the muscles that control the eyes.
Just loosen up,
Release those muscles.
You might even relax the muscles behind the eyes.
There's no need to use the eyes right now.
What sensations do you notice when you begin to let go?
Now move the attention to the bottom half of the face,
The jaw,
The lips,
The tongue,
The cheeks.
Sometimes it's helpful to imagine a slight smile on the face,
This helps loosen the muscles.
Now move the attention to the throat and the neck.
So relaxing the muscles,
Noticing what you feel.
And then down into the shoulders.
So feeling the shoulders from the inside out.
Feeling the bones,
The cartilage,
The muscles.
What do your shoulders feel like when you let go?
Now bring the attention through the arms.
So the elbows,
The forearms,
The wrists.
And then down into the hands.
This is an opportunity to loosen the grip that you've been carrying this morning or throughout the day into the night.
There's nothing to hold onto right now.
What do you notice when you release the muscles in the hands?
Is there tingling?
Is there a flow of energy?
You might notice that the more you let go,
The more you can feel.
Now bring your attention up into the chest.
So right in the center,
Side to side,
Front to back.
What sensations do you notice inside the chest?
We tend to carry a lot of emotional resonance in the chest.
So the energy could be swirling around,
It could be flowing nicely like a calm river.
It could be a bunch of waves like an ocean.
Maybe it's numb.
Maybe you don't feel anything at all.
Just be curious.
And as you begin to explore the chest area,
Try to notice when your mind begins to wander.
So if the mind moves into the past,
Maybe reminiscing about something that happened earlier today,
Or if it moves into the future,
Planning the rest of the day or tomorrow or writing an email in your head that you need to write today.
Really note that.
Say,
Oh,
I'm thinking,
And then bring the attention back to the sensation in the chest.
And if whatever you're feeling in the chest is too intense right now,
You don't feel like you have the resources to sit with it,
It's okay to move on to the stomach area.
Start to relax down there.
And now I invite you to move to the stomach area,
Relaxing the muscles,
Maybe even feeling the diaphragm moving down as you breathe in and then up as you breathe out.
Just really allowing a soft stomach,
A soft belly.
Now bring your mind's attention through the legs,
So the quads,
The hamstrings,
Through the knees,
Relaxing,
Noticing the calves,
The ankles,
And then down into the feet,
Feeling the feet from the inside out.
Even if your feet are on the ground,
Try to imagine the floor,
Maybe the foundation of the building you're in,
And even the earth underneath you,
Holding you up.
You can imagine a sense of leaning back a little bit and just being supported.
There's no need to lean into the future and try to be somewhere else.
You've got all the support you need right here,
Right now.
And with this leaning back,
Try to take a step back,
If you will,
With your mind.
So it's almost as if you're sitting in a theater watching a movie and then you get up and walk to the back of the theater.
You can see the audience as well as the screen.
So we're taking a step back with our mind to find a broader awareness,
A wider presence.
You can start to feel the body all at once,
Sitting in the chair,
Sitting in the cushion.
You can even notice the breath sort of moving through this field of presence.
When you notice that the mind has wandered,
When you notice that you're thinking,
Just open back up into this presence.
So bring your focus a little bit more broad.
Notice the body and the breath because thinking is a narrowing of our attention.
So once we notice that we're thinking,
We just let go of the thought and open back up into this awareness.
All right?
Now I invite you to open even a little bit more.
Start to allow sound to enter into the picture.
There's no activity to listen to sound.
There's no doing.
It's more of a receiving of noise.
So start by noticing the noise in the room,
So the raw noise in the room.
Then you can move outside of the room if you hear anything outside.
There's no need to try to figure out what the sound is or means.
Just receive the noise as if it were an unbroken chain of sound.
Keep coming back.
Keep opening back into this open awareness whenever you notice that you're thinking.
In these last few minutes,
Try to find a place in your body that you've tensed back up.
So it could be the shoulders.
It could be the stomach.
It could be the hands.
And relax a little bit more.
Soften back up.
Maybe just.
.
Open the eyes when you're ready.
Open the eyes when you're ready.
