Let's go ahead and begin our meditation practice today.
We will be sitting for the next 10 minutes,
So go ahead and find a comfortable place to sit or rest your body.
Comfort is your priority.
Feel free to use props or adjust the body as you may need to feel safe in your space.
You have full agency over your body and you can adjust as you may need throughout the practice.
If closing your eyes is within your practice,
Go ahead and gently do that now.
And if you prefer to leave your eyes open,
You're welcome to do so with a soft gaze a few feet in front of you.
Let's go ahead and take a deep breath in through the nose and a generous exhale,
Helping you to arrive right here into this moment.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Acknowledging the transition we're making from whatever we were doing before,
The busyness to being right here into this present moment with your awareness on your breath.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Here I ask and invite you to gently move your awareness from the breath to your body,
Bringing your awareness to the crown of the head,
Beginning to scan the body,
Releasing any areas of tension or stress,
Softening the space between your eyebrows.
Unclench the jaw.
Adjust the shoulders.
Perhaps your spine can be tall and proud.
Softening your heart,
Releasing the abdomen,
And continuing to work your awareness all the way down through the body,
Letting go.
The invitation is to rest here into the present moment with whatever it brings,
Inviting in a calm mind,
A calm body,
An invitation of ease.
And here I invite you to begin to bring your awareness back to the crown of the head.
Begin to notice if you can sense any sensations,
Any sensations of the body at the crown of the head,
Maybe a tingling or a cool breeze or an itch or no sensations at all.
Here we're just observing.
We're the witness.
We're not judging good or bad,
Simply observing the sensations at the crown of the head.
And as our mind wanders and questions,
We simply just routed back gently to the sensations of the body,
An observation,
Noticing.
We continue to scan the body,
Come to the forehead,
To the cheeks,
Chin,
To the whole face,
Noticing any sensations of the body,
Noticing anything that may live here or not and simply observing.
We release our attention on the head and move down the body to the throat and to the chest and noticing any sensations that live in this part of the body,
Bringing our full awareness to the throat,
Into the chest,
Into your shoulders,
To the upper back,
The back of the heart.
What sensations live here?
Neither good nor bad,
Just is.
As we let go of the awareness of the chest and the upper back and the upper chest area,
We continue to move down into the abdomen,
To the lower back,
To your hips.
What lives here?
Any sensations?
No sensations?
We observe.
We observe any thoughts that arise and the invitation is to let go,
To notice,
Observe,
Without judgment.
And lastly,
We bring our awareness to the lower part of our body,
To our legs,
To our feet,
To our roots.
And here we notice any sensations that live in this part of the body.
If there are no sensations,
We notice that without judgment.
Really keeping our focus on the sensations of the body,
We get to observe our mind and notice the impermanent nature of thought and sensation.
We get to hold a calm mind,
A place of equanimity,
Of non-judgment,
Of noticing,
Observing both the mind and the body.
You are the sky,
Everything else.
It's just the weather.
It's a beautiful quote by Pema Chodron.
Go ahead and take a nice deep centering breath in through the nose and a cleansing exhale.
For a few moments,
A few breaths,
Perhaps you can just be.
Perhaps this moment is enough.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Take one last deep breath in as we calm the mind and a deep breath out as we calm the body.
Go ahead and begin to wiggle your fingers and your toes,
Or perhaps you can bring a gentle smile to your face or place your hands over your heart to make connection to the body.
As we close out our meditation practice,
I'll offer you a few gentle phrases.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be free.
Thank you so much for practicing today.
Feel free to open your eyes,
Flutter them open if they've been closed through your meditation practice.
Feel free to raise your hands over your head or take fuller,
Deeper breaths as you're coming back.
Just keep in mind,
The more we value things outside of our control,
The less control we have.
It's a beautiful quote.
Thank you so much for practicing and thank you for being here on Calm Point.
I'll see you in the next episode.
