Welcome to this morning meditation to cultivate calmness of mind,
Body and heart.
Please find a comfortable seated or laying down position to begin this meditation.
Feel free to adjust your body until you find the most comfortable position for you at this moment.
Take a moment now to situate yourself in the space that you're in,
Maybe looking around and noticing where you are in the room or area you're sitting or laying down in.
Allow your nervous system to settle slightly,
Knowing that there is nothing for you to immediately take care of in the space around you.
You may also soften your gaze to one particular point and just allow the periphery of your vision in to your awareness so that you can feel where you are in this space.
And now gently closing your eyes or bringing this gaze softly in front of you,
Relaxing the eyes.
We're going to take three deeper breaths to relax the body.
Inhaling into the belly.
Topping up at the chest.
And long exhale.
And again expanding the lower torso.
Topping up at the chest.
And relaxing on the exhale.
Last time,
Deep breath in.
Topping it up.
And relaxing the whole body on the exhalation.
Begin to feel how your body is sitting or laying.
Notice the points of contact with the ground or the seat that supports you.
Perhaps you can feel the gentle pull of gravity on your body,
Allowing you to softly relax into whatever is supporting you underneath.
And don't worry if you can't relax everything right away.
Be gentle with yourself and all will come with practice.
Notice how your body feels in a general sense.
Are there any areas of particular tension that you can relax?
Or are there any places where you feel very comfortable and very at ease?
See if you can expand that sense of ease to other parts of your body.
And noticing now whether there are any emotions that are present.
Perhaps you can feel them physically in your body.
And the invitation is to allow them to be just as they are,
Taking up the space that they need without pushing them away or pulling them into focus.
Perhaps you can find a gentle,
Genuine smile of acceptance within your heart,
Or feel it on the inside of your mouth.
Not to cover over,
But to welcome and to make space for any emotions that might be present.
Bringing your attention now to your mind.
Allow any thoughts to just be here.
There's no need to follow the story of them or to force them out of your mind.
You may visualize or feel them as clouds floating into the great sky of your awareness and floating out again on their own without any effort on your part.
Your awareness is the space in which all of these experiences arise and fall away,
Whether physical,
Emotional or mental.
To cultivate calmness,
The invitation here is for you to spend some time widening your awareness and taking a step back to observe all that comes up within that space.
A useful metaphor is that of the sky,
Visualizing a wide open blue sky,
Bright and inviting,
Reminiscent of a warm summer day.
Within that sky may pass small or large clouds of physical sensations,
Emotions or thoughts.
As you sit or lay here,
You may feel that you become that sky.
And perhaps with time,
You merge completely with that wide open sense of open awareness.
Noticing all of these experiences passing through gently without the need for you to do anything about them.
So let's rest now for a couple of minutes,
Visualizing,
Imagining our awareness as a wide open space and allowing all of our experiences to float in and out.
And whenever you notice yourself following one cloud particularly closely,
To the point that you lose the wide open awareness,
See if you can open yourself back up again to the big blue sky,
In which this and other clouds may pass peacefully along,
Without chastising yourself or feeling bad for having done so,
Just naturally smile and come back to this wide open awareness.
And gently,
We're going to take three deeper breaths to close this meditation and integrate the sense of calm that we've cultivated.
Inhaling deep and letting go.
Inhaling sense of calm and exhaling everything else.
Deep breath in.
And exhaling,
Releasing.
As you return to this meditation,
You will begin to develop a deeper and deeper sense of calm and openness that you will be able to carry with you throughout your day.
Wishing you great peace and great calmness today,
My friend.
Much love.
