So find your seat and grow tall.
As you breathe in,
Lift your shoulders up towards your ears and wrap your shoulders down and back.
Bring your mind's eye to the crown of your head and an invitation to close your eyes and just from the crown of your head,
Draw your attention down the back of your head,
Your cervical spine,
Down your spine,
Just traveling down your spine very slowly like you're visiting each vertebra and inviting it to relax all the way down to the base of your spine.
Invite your breath to descend and to go deep and wide.
It can be really helpful for me to bring my attention to my ribcage and feel the opening up and the contracting in and the pulsation,
The oscillation of that.
And imagine your whole body being breathed as one unit,
Body,
Mind,
Heart,
Gut,
And appreciating that,
Like really appreciating it and the lightness that comes with appreciation and feeling that and then bringing to mind those five things,
Maybe more,
That you wrote down,
That you appreciate about yourself without some big conversation and just like we talked about a couple weeks ago,
Our benefactors,
Doesn't have to be perfect,
Just something you appreciate about yourself.
And with each of those points,
I want you to breathe them in,
Feel them,
And as if your breath is distributing that message through the body,
Pick one of those things that feels really aligned,
Doesn't have too much heaviness attached to it or chit-chat attached to it.
One of those things that is like the essence of who you are and steepen it for a moment.
Feel it,
Sense into it.
Bring to mind a time that you really knew that about yourself and feel it.
I want you to bring to mind the five things you appreciate in your life.
Maybe it's connected to those things that are the essence of you.
Maybe it's something totally different.
Don't chit-chat too much in your mind about it,
Just lightly take in what you wrote,
Appreciate gratitude for these things that you appreciate about your life.
Now remember the five things that you wrote down that you appreciate about things or people for whom you are grateful.
Whatever those things are,
Whomever those people are,
Go through them like a list.
Bring them up,
See them,
Feel them,
Be with them even.
Take in that good.
Perhaps even linger in a memory of an experience that you had and stay with it even longer.
Like Rick Hansen said,
Ah,
It's delicious.
Just stay with that delicious thought,
That experience,
That person,
That thing.
Just linger there another moment.
You can even enrich this more and bring up other experiences in your memory of these feelings that are arising.
Maybe you had an experience with somebody or something and just stay with it another moment or two.
And now imagine like you were diving into warm water or being coming out of the cold and feeling the sun on your face,
On your body,
Just immersed totally in these feelings of gratitude,
Of love,
Of appreciation,
Of kindness,
Of connection.
And then just lingering here,
You can settle the mind a little if that's helpful and just being held in this place,
Sensing into your whole body,
Basking in that.
Just gently opening your eyes,
Releasing out of this formal meditation and really,
Really bringing this into the very next moment,
Especially this.
