There's so many layers to our experience.
One of the layers is our personal experience of what's going on in our life right now.
And in our body in this moment is another part of that,
Another component of that,
As well as the thoughts in our mind.
The people that we have in our life,
The relationships,
All of that is part of our experience in the moment.
And we also know that our experience in the moment is very much informed by every moment that's happened leading up to this moment.
When we bring our attention into this moment,
There's a richness here,
And a history,
And a relationship with the moment.
Notice what response you have to that.
We bring our attention into the physical body.
Notice how you're located.
Notice the sensations,
The sense perceptions,
As well as any sensations of stillness,
Restlessness,
Pain,
Ease,
Tight muscles,
Breath moving in the belly.
Just notice the sensations that are here.
And we'll slow that down in a minute.
But it's good to start with an overall view.
Generally speaking,
What am I noticing about being in my body right now?
As you look out and you look around the room,
We notice what we bring in through our eyes.
One of the things that we often do at the beginning of a practice,
And we can do it anytime,
It's very helpful to touch into that during the day,
Is cues of safety.
I'm in my home,
I'm looking around,
Everything looks pretty predictable,
Pretty predictably safe.
And that's going to be the experience for most of us.
Some people might be in a different environment,
But if someone was in real danger,
They wouldn't be doing a practice.
They wouldn't have tuned into this.
So that's one of the things that we could notice is there's a high level of predictability around our safety when we start to do a practice,
Our physical body safety.
Notice what it feels like to take a few deeper breaths.
Is it comfortable to breathe in deeply?
Take some longer exhales.
You could hum on the exhale,
Feel the vibration in your chest if you want.
If you can have some deep inhales,
Long slow exhales,
Even three or four breaths like that can release a lot of tension out of the body,
Bring us into this moment.
And notice that there's experiences as we're looking around and we're getting visual input as we're noticing textures,
Sensations in our body,
That we're aware of what our experience is.
And then often we have a commentary on the experience as well.
We don't like something or we do like something.
There's an awareness here that's not strictly the experience.
We're aware of the experience we're having.
Bring your attention to your forehead and eyebrows.
Let them soften as you breathe out.
Notice the corners of your eyes,
The deep muscles of your eyes.
You can let your eyes close or just have your gaze soft if you like.
When we go into this part of the practice,
It's helpful to be internally focused.
We can always open our eyes and look around if we need to to anchor again.
Just for now,
Really to be aware of the sensations in your face,
Forehead and eyebrows,
Your eyes,
Let the corners of your eyes soften.
Notice the sensations of breath as it flows in the membranes of your nose.
Coming down into your mouth and jaw,
You could move your lower jaw around a bit if you want,
Release the tension out of the hinges of your jaw.
If you're clenching your teeth,
Put a bit of space top to bottom.
Let your tongue rest on the floor of your mouth.
And as you're exhaling and inhaling,
Let yourself be very present to the experience.
And then let your attention drift down through the sides of your neck,
Your shoulders into the arms.
Let it roll down through the upper arms,
Lower arms,
Hands,
Fingers,
Fingertips.
Bring your four breaths with this rolling awareness,
Letting your body release tension really help to relax your body.
And imagine it rolling down through the sides of the neck,
The top of the shoulders down through your arms,
Hands.
Let it drain out the ends of your fingers and release out of your body.
And then bring your attention to the back of the neck,
The shoulders,
The large muscles of the upper back.
And then again,
Let this attention roll down your back like warm water in a shower,
Let it release and carry away any tension or tightness.
Your mid and lower back down through the back of your arms,
Back of your legs.
Three or four breaths.
Exhale,
Let your attention,
Your awareness flow from head to toes to your back.
And then come back to your face and let your awareness flow through your front in the same way.
Let it carry away any tension,
Fatigue from the softness of your forehead,
Your mouth and jaw,
Down through your collarbones,
The front of your shoulders,
Front of your arms,
Your chest and belly,
The front of your legs,
Your toes.
And again,
As you exhale,
Let everything release and soften.
And then come back to awareness of your whole body,
Head to toes.
Not so much awareness of thoughts,
Although thoughts would be here too.
Notice what it is that you're noticing.
What are you experiencing right now?
And a lot of that experience is in our sensory perception,
Sight,
Touch,
Sound.
And then of course we have thoughts about that.
We bring our past into the present through our thoughts,
Through our nervous system as well.
And then a little bit of it is what's going on right now.
What are the sense perceptions right now?
Part of the mind is trying to figure things out all the time,
Bringing in associated thoughts,
Projects into the future.
See if you could just notice that part of the mind is also here.
Sometimes it's very noisy and intense.
Other times we can experience a lot of stillness because it's a little bit more in the background.
It settles as our body settles,
Our nervous system settles.
That layer of the mind also settles.
And again withdraw a little bit so that you're aware that you're having the experience that you're having.
And what a blessing it is to be in a moment where we can relax and soften,
Enjoy,
Let go of some of the strain and tension of our daily life.
So we could notice that too.
