Welcome to this guided meditation on gaining perspective.
To begin,
Place one hand on your heart and the other hand on top.
Take a nice deep inhale and slowly exhale.
Now bring your awareness to the sensations of your breath.
Nothing to change,
No proper way to breathe,
But rather just noticing what the inhale and the exhale feel like.
You might notice some cool air as the air comes in through the nostrils,
Maybe it's the rise and fall of your chest or noticing how the abdomen fills with breath and then empties out.
And now sit in a way that feels relaxed yet alert.
You might lengthen your spine a bit by sitting a little taller,
Your feet touching the ground,
Gently pushing in to really feel the earth beneath you.
And then roll your shoulders up,
Back and down.
You might do that a few times to really presence yourself here in this moment.
I'm going to bring in a bit of nature imagery.
So thinking of yourself sitting tall like a tree,
Upright and also flexible to the changing landscape that you'll begin to notice of the mind,
The different thoughts coming and going and different emotions perhaps coming and going.
You can become aware of the landscape of sounds changing around us.
So coming back to that image of a tree,
No matter where you are,
You might be on a ground floor,
Somewhere really high up in a building,
But see if you can imagine a root system growing right up from underneath you,
Making its way all the way out and down,
Eventually into the actual dirt and to the earth below.
It's a way to imagine really grounding yourself,
Placing yourself here in this moment and doing your best to follow along with my instructions,
Knowing that the mind will probably get lost in the past or maybe start to daydream into the future.
And that's totally normal and okay.
If and when you notice that,
Great.
Simply come back.
You might come back to that sensation of rooting down.
You could also come back to the breath,
Take a nice deep inhale and an exhale and eventually just sinking right back to my instructions,
Doing your best to pay attention on purpose.
And if you do that over and over again,
That's okay.
You know that actually you're building your ability to focus.
The mind is like a muscle,
So it takes some time to train it over and over again.
Now let's shift our awareness from the mind into the body.
And so again,
Not really looking for any problems,
Just noticing what's really happening right now in this moment.
Maybe you might become aware of an itch that all of a sudden wants to be scratched,
Area where breath might be flowing with ease or areas where you might be holding tension.
And know that you can just simply be with whatever is and notice it.
Or if you'd like,
You can make some subtle adjustments to invite in a little bit more ease into this practice.
So where there's tension,
You might actually then relax some muscle.
You could always shift your body a bit if you need to,
To find a little bit more comfort and ease.
And investigate if there's a place in your body that really wants to relax a little more and just needs your permission to do so.
By attuning to the needs of our body,
We become more flexible,
Less rigid.
So coming back to the imagery of nature,
Before I mentioned the rootedness of a tree,
Now I want you to sense the stillness of a big mountain,
A mountain that is vast and quite high.
Imagining your posture like this,
That is relaxed and yet alert,
Open and aware of what's all around.
And when you think about the openness all around,
It might be helpful to bring the image of an open sky,
Maybe it's a bright blue daytime sky,
Or maybe a nice vast open evening sky with stars.
As you imagine that wide open space,
See if you can sense that space within your own physical body,
Areas where there is a sense of ease and openness.
And maybe you can and maybe it's not possible,
And that's okay too.
And now imagine in the mountains that there's a waterfall cascading,
The waterfall that's imagining and kind of helping us to notice flow and letting go.
Might even see if you can allow your shoulders to melt down and back like a waterfall.
Sensing your body like the stillness of a mountain,
Really sensing your core stability,
Your feet,
Your legs,
And even your hips as a solid base,
A foundation.
And all the while,
You can start to become aware of the changing landscape of those thoughts,
Emotions,
And even different physical sensations that are coming and going.
And this is a practice,
It's not about being perfect,
But rather just noticing,
Not getting caught up in the changing landscape.
And if and when you notice that your mind has got swept up in the past or daydreaming about the future,
Not making it a problem,
Simply come back to your breath.
Maybe come back to feeling that sense of rootedness.
So when you think of a mountain,
Over time,
You can remember how much it witnesses changes over many seasons,
The sunrises and sunsets that occur daily as the seasons change,
The snowfall and snow melting away into water,
Cascading waterfalls.
The mountain witnesses the blooming of beautiful flowers in the spring and then the changing of the trees and the leaves.
So we can look to nature to inspire us to be with things just as they are.
Nature helps us to remember that nothing stays the same and we can't always control what happens,
But we can absolutely choose how we're able to respond.
Relaxed and alert.
Open and aware.
Not trying to stop the thoughts,
But rather just noticing,
Naming them as they arise,
Doing our best not to get too swept up.
You might think of a situation that you might be working through that you can really,
Can really help to have a bit of perspective.
So come back to noticing the rootedness.
Just like a mountain,
That sense of calm,
Confident.
Aware of any changes occurring and how we might be feeling,
And that could be with a particular emotion.
Or feeling as in a sensation.
Doing our best to practice remaining grounded as changes occur within our lives and when things don't go as planned.
Over and over again,
We do our best to come back to ourselves,
To find our center,
The sense of relaxed,
Alert,
Open and aware.
To make the best possible choices.
And we get caught when things feel like there's no possibility.
Can we imagine standing on top of a mountain,
Looking out into that wide,
Vast,
Open space?
Wide open space symbolizing a sense of openness.
A sense of many possibilities,
A more broadening of our perspective.
And we can relax our body and our mind.
So much more perspective is available to us.
If your eyes were closed,
Gently allow them to open.
And we'll end just as we begin by placing one hand on your heart,
The other hand on the top,
Taking in a nice,
Deep inhale and a slow exhale.
