Hello and welcome.
My name is Kareena Khalila and I am here to support you in forming a deeper connection to your body,
Your mind and your soul through your breath.
So today we're going to start this meditation standing.
In your standing position stand with your feet hip distance apart,
No wider than your hips.
Once you have that I invite you to close your eyes.
We'll start as we always start taking a long deep breath in through your nose and open mouth breathe it out.
Again deep breath in and let it go.
Breathe it out and again deep breath let it go.
Feel the soles of your feet ground down and into the earth.
You may like to rock forward and backward side to side just to gain a perspective on where your body weight lands as you rock forward and backward.
Bringing sideways motions as well starting to rock from side to side.
Feeling the weight shift between right foot to left foot.
You might notice that your feet are not wide enough or perhaps they're too wide.
If you need to adjust you can.
You might like to exaggerate the size of the movement so that you're rocking a really long way forward and a really long way back just to see how far forward you can lean before you start to tip and how far back you feel you can go before you start to tip backward.
And again doing this with caution and safety little movements.
Start to make the start to make the rocking smaller and smaller until you find a point of gravity point of stillness where you feel really balanced between forward and backward and left and right.
From here I invite you to lift your toes and spread your toes really really wide and then replant them back down and into the ground.
And then seal the outer edges of your feet down lifting your arch just slightly and then your heel.
Soften your knees.
By engaging your thighs I invite you to push down and into your feet as though you're sending two lines of energy from your pelvis all the way down all the way down and into every single bone that connects to the earth.
You might even like to imagine two pillars of light that beam down from the bowl of your pelvis all the way down the columns of your legs and into the soles of your feet.
And once you have that I invite you to drink in a long deep breath and let it go sigh it out.
And then from here bring your chin more towards your back and stack your shoulders without rolling them back and down or anything like that.
I just invite you to stack your shoulders so that they feel like they're over your pelvis.
Now this isn't a practice of posture but rather a practice of your own sense of body.
See if you can align your spine so that it feels fully balanced including your neck and the crown of your head in that because that too is a part of the length of your body.
Your head is not discounted from this experience in fact it's a really important part of this experience.
And so from here I invite you to tuck your chin just slightly just slightly so that you're pulling your head backward and actually that that alignment does something to the brain it actually stops or slows the mind from thinking so much.
When the head is protruding forward often we're busy thinking about our future.
So from here I invite you to bring your head back and you should begin to feel this sort of steadiness a sense of groundedness within your body.
Let your arms just dangle and then drink in again another deep breath breathe it all the way out.
With your next breath imagine that you are a cup being filled with water and your breath is the water that is filling up the cup.
So let's try that together as though you are filling a cup of water as though you are breathing from the bottom of your feet all the way up to the crown of your head.
Take a deep breath in and breathe it out again drinking in a deep breath as though you are filling the body from the feet up and let the breath go sigh it out again drinking in a breath feet up let it go.
We'll add to that practice breathing in drinking in from the feet up and breathing out from the crown down except this time we'll breathe in and out through the nose breathing in from the feet up all the way to the crown of the head breathing out from the crown down again breathing in feet up and breathing out crown down breathing in feet up breathing out crown down breathing in feet up breathing out crown down breathing in feet up breathing out crown down breathing in feet up breathing out crown down breathing in feet up breathing out crown down taking a few more breaths in your own time and from here I invite you to pause at the bottom of your next breath pause and feel notice all of the different sensations that are being illuminated in your body notice that your heart might be beating a little faster in your chest that your skin may be tingly notice if you feel the pulse to move or wiggle or shake if you need to do that you may or even if you feel the call to sit down or lie down you are so welcome to notice the quality of your thoughts notice if your mind is more still than active once again I invite you to rock forward and backward rocking forward and backward and side to side if you're still on your feet if not you can ignore this cue and then wherever you are I invite you to breathe in and reach up and bring your hands to prayer at your heart as you breathe down we'll do two more like that breathe in reach up hands to prayer as you breathe on one more time breathe in reach up hands to prayer breathe on thank you for practicing with me today namaste
