Awaking Our Senses & Grounding

Start your day by awakening your senses with gentle stretching and self-compassion, combined with breathwork and stillness to ground your body. Open the flow of energy to your shoulders, neck, and head allowing expansion and increasing your capacity for the day.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

Today we're going to work on a practice of meditation and breathing and also releasing some tension in our shoulders and neck.

When I wake up in the morning,

My bones,

My body,

My muscles,

They feel stiff.

They don't feel ready to move and get into the day.

Together we're going to breathe and move our neck and head to help wake up our senses and our being.

Begin with taking a few short breaths,

Short and perhaps a bit deeper just to fill those lungs of yours.

And as I do this,

I begin to drop my head down,

My chin to my chest,

Taking another couple of beautiful,

Sweet breaths.

I begin to nod my head up and down,

Chin to chest,

Head to sky.

You can keep your eyes closed or lower your gaze,

Whatever you feel comfortable with.

Breathing out as you look down,

Breathing in as your head slowly reaches to the sky,

Looking up.

The next piece I'd like to add to this is slowly moving your head from side to side,

Looking from left and then to right.

Breathing in those sweet breaths to help focus your attention and ground your body to the practice that is here to serve you.

Take a couple more slow breaths while moving your head,

Looking from left to right,

Keeping your eyes closed if you choose or again,

Lowering your gaze.

Just to bring your awareness back to the intention of what you're creating for yourself in this moment.

There is nowhere for you to be.

There's nowhere for you to go in this moment.

You are perfectly safe here and now.

The next piece I want to add is starting over with your head facing to the left.

Start by creating an arc,

Looking up to the top and down to the other side,

From left to right,

Making those gentle arc movements with your head and your neck.

And as we do this,

Coming back to our breath and noticing our breath,

Taking a breath in slowly as we reach the top of the arc.

I often like to see this as my rainbow process or practice.

I think of the colors in the rainbow as I move my head from left to right,

Drawing this beautiful colorful arc in the sky above me.

Breathing in as you come to the top and releasing it as you drop down the other side.

And you can practice this going from left to right and right to left.

Breathing in through your nose and sighing or releasing out of your mouth.

Looking up to the sky now,

Right dead straight in front of you.

Looking up to the ceiling,

The ceiling that you can visualize in your mind if your eyes are still closed.

Next drop your chin back down to your chest,

Feeling those muscles in the back of your neck,

Extending and lengthening.

You might feel something in your lower back or your mid back of any sore areas that you might have had or are still working through and some healing.

Taking another sweet breath in through your nose and releasing again out your mouth.

And now slowly drawing with your chin,

Perhaps another arc or perhaps a smile.

Some people like to see this as drawing the smiley face and that favorite emoji.

Watching that smile with your chin.

Breathing in from one side,

Out of your mouth as you move and draw that smile back and forth.

Tap your feet on the floor.

Just presence yourself to some of the rest of your body.

And I'm continuing moving my chin slowly from left to right for a couple more sequences.

And back out again with your breath.

And if you choose adding that rainbow again from left to right,

Breathing in.

You might want to slowly feel your thighs with your hands rubbing back and forth to your knees.

Feeling some of the heat generated in your palms.

Feeling the texture and the material that you're wearing.

Breathing in slowly as my head comes to the top of the arc and the rainbow.

Breathing back a bit,

Bringing it back forward and dropping my head back down.

Continuing the circle around,

Dropping your chin down,

Drawing that smiley face with your chin to your chest and following the arc back to the top again.

You are safe here.

There is nowhere for you to be,

Nothing to do.

You are complete,

You are whole.

There is nothing to fix.

Nothing that opens up more possibility for me and perhaps for yourself.

As we continue on with moving our head from side to side,

And you can choose from left to right,

Down or up above.

And something that I like to add to this is some recognition or gratitude.

Gratitude opens up possibility,

Opens up our awareness.

It opens up some elevation in what we're creating for the world and how we're showing up for the world.

For those around us,

For those we love,

Those we care about.

It might be gratitude for ourselves for taking this time to slow down and provide some nurturing and some refueling.

Some gentle stretches to our neck and shoulders.

I'm slowly pushing my shoulders back as my head drops down.

Still taking those sweet breaths in through our nose and releasing out of our mouth.

You may choose to count in your in-breaths and your out-breaths,

But there is no right or wrong to how this practice can go for you,

For me.

This practice,

This time,

It's in service for you.

Continue on with some more breaths,

Nodding your head down to your chest and stretching your neck and your throat back as you tilt your head back and face the sky above.

You might take this time as we've added in some gratitude into our breaths and what we're bringing into our body and maybe what we are releasing with our out-breath.

It might be some tension from our shoulders,

Some physical tension.

It might be some emotional tension that we're carrying.

Where do you notice that tension coming from within your physical body?

I place my hands on my chest,

On my belly.

I cross my arms and place my hands on my shoulders.

In this moment,

My hands are on my shoulders.

I'm so grateful for my arms,

For my shoulders,

For everything that I can carry on my back.

In this moment,

I feel warmth,

I feel myself hugging myself.

You are enough.

I am enough.

I am enough.

And I am grateful for this time to breathe,

To stretch,

To awaken the muscles in my neck,

In my shoulders.

I am grateful for this practice.

I'm grateful for you in taking this time to give yourself this gift of breathing,

Of noticing and increasing the awareness of all that you're creating.

I stretch my arms out wide,

Holding them palms up towards the sky.

I feel tingling in my fingers,

In my fingertips.

I bring my hands up together above my head and bring them down in front of me in prayer position to my chest.

And I slowly bow to you,

To me,

To the universe.

I am so grateful.

And I honor you and what you're creating today for what I'm creating today.

And what we're bringing to those people around us,

Those people that we care about,

That we love,

And the people that mean so much to us.

New and old faces,

People we're reconnecting with today,

Who we haven't seen or spoken with in a while.

The people who we are going to meet today for the first time and welcome into our world.

Thank you for joining me today.

And in this moment for this practice,

This practice of grounding,

Of breathing,

And whatever else you've created for yourself here in this moment.

Again,

I am so grateful.

Have a wonderful day.

You are blessed.

We are blessed.

Namaste.