Hello friends,
My name is Mahi Davida.
I am a meditation mentor and consciousness coach.
And today I'm excited to be sharing with you a meditation that recently came through as I was meditating myself.
And I called it the breathing body meditation.
And it's really based on the fact that so many of us actually are not breathing correctly.
And especially during a lockdown last year,
So many people experienced new forms of stress.
I know I definitely did.
What I started noticing myself is when I was breathing,
I was starting to breathe in a neutral state quite high.
So I was breathing a lot in my upper chest but not so much into my abdomen.
And this in turn caused my nervous system to be quite stressed.
And I feel like it was just causing many more imbalances within the body,
Which makes sense because if you're not breathing correctly,
We are not really feeding the body.
We are feeding the body with a strong flow of oxygenated blood.
So this meditation is not for a complete beginner.
So if you've never meditated before,
I would recommend to go towards one of my other meditations.
And if you have a little bit of experience already with meditation,
Kind of know what it's about,
Then you're more than welcome to join this.
And of course,
If you haven't done a meditation before,
You're still welcome.
But it might just be a little bit more challenging.
Because we're going to be working with our pointed awareness,
Our pointed concentration.
And before we dive in,
I want to take a moment to experiment a little bit with what is actually possible when we focus our mind onto a body part.
Let's say you are a left hand's pinky finger,
Right?
So without staring at it,
You kind of know that it's there.
And the more you focus upon the fact that you simply have a pink pinky on your left hand,
You might notice that there is also a little bit of a vibration starting there,
Perhaps a pulsation,
Or perhaps simply like a deeper sense of knowing.
So in the same way,
We are going to be breathing throughout the body by first bringing our awareness onto our neutral way of breathing.
And perhaps your neutral way of breathing is quite stagnant already.
And that's okay.
We're just gonna work with what is there,
Accept the way it is.
And then we're going to bring that to different parts of the body,
Parts of the body as well that don't hold your lungs.
I'm going to invite you to come along with it anyway.
Invite yourself to play a little bit with how your mind can bring an activation and deepening within the body itself.
So if you haven't done so already,
Please find a comfortable seat.
And perhaps if you're always used to crossing your legs one way,
Perhaps having your left leg out in front,
Then I want to invite you to now put your right leg out in front,
Just to switch things up a little bit.
And whenever you have arrived,
Please close your eyes.
Take a moment to relax the muscles in your face,
Letting the jaw hang,
Even letting your posture hang a little bit.
Not even needing to sit up super straight just yet,
But kind of allowing yourself to just be like a bag of rice just chilling on its pillow.
And perhaps you are noticing that when you let your body hang a little bit too much,
You are also influencing your capacity to breathe.
So on your next inhale,
Allow yourself to sit up just a tiny bit more straight,
Giving a little bit more freedom to your lungs to receive the air.
And exhale,
Relax.
On the next inhale again,
We sit up a little bit more straight.
And exhale,
Relax.
So let's do this for a few more rounds where on every inhale you sit up a little bit more straight.
And on the exhale,
You relax until you ultimately come into a posture where you're seated upright,
Where you're not tensing.
And as you arrive into this upright position,
Bring yourself to step into the role of the observer,
Not the protester,
Not the change maker,
But the observer.
And simply look at the way that you're breathing right now.
And where in your body are you feeling the breath the most?
And are you feeling it more on the left-hand side or more on the right-hand side?
Perhaps it feels quite even.
And allow the breath to breathe itself.
There is no need for you to change it now.
We simply observe.
Now whilst keeping a very soft gaze,
I'm going to invite you to open your eyes.
And as you continue to breathe naturally,
Take a look at your hand palms.
And then I'm going to invite you to bring these hand palms to a part within the body where you felt the breath the most.
And without touching the skin underneath the hand palms,
Allow them to float above the skin.
It's going to be a couple of centimeters.
This can be a little bit further out.
And whenever you feel the inhale coming in,
Allow the hands to expand the body with that inhale,
Opening up.
And then on the exhale,
It's like your hands are pushing the air out a little bit.
Maybe you give it some permission to become quite a graceful movement,
Quite a natural flow that is connecting more and more with the cadence of the breath.
Now,
Let's bring the hands,
The palms still facing the body.
Let's bring them to a different part.
Perhaps you felt like you were breathing quite high and so you want to now bring that breath and bring the hands more towards the lower abdomen.
Perhaps it's the other way around or you feel more pulled to bring the palms of your hand towards the side ribs so you breathe more to the sides.
You get enough options to experiment with this.
So allow your intuition to lead you.
Once your hands have landed,
Allow that breath to do the same thing,
To be led and deeply connected to the movements of the hands,
Breathing in,
The hands moving further away and breathing out,
The hands supporting and pushing out the air.
And when you feel like you're getting lost in thoughts and to-dos,
Bring back your awareness into the movement of the hands,
Guiding your breath,
Being a very soft yet powerful shepherd.
Let's do one more round of breathing just like this.
And then bring the palms,
Bring the hands towards a different place that you like to breathe towards.
For example,
I'm going to breathe a little bit more into my hips now.
So I'm placing my hands near my hip bones and I breathe and gently move my hands onto the cadence of the breath right here.
And check in with yourself whether this is already caused a slight shift in how you breathe at the start.
How is it different?
Let's take two more rounds here.
If you want,
You can close your eyes,
Perhaps you've done so already.
And then bring the hands towards the next place.
Perhaps you want to imagine the hands being more around the shoulders,
Breathing a relaxation into the shoulders where you want to bring them in the knees if you've experienced some tightness there.
You get to design this.
And in the same way,
Start breathing together with your hands into the place that you've landed on now.
Bring your breath,
Your beautiful awareness,
Your attention,
Your kindness into these spaces that you breathe into.
Now let's go to the final place of this guided session.
I think I will bring my hands in front of my heart and expand my capacity through the movement of my hands as I breathe in,
Open up,
And as I breathe out and I exhale.
Perhaps there is a part of your body that could use a little bit of extra love today.
Perhaps you can invite yourself to go there with your breath,
With your flowing awareness.
Now,
To round this practice off,
I'm going to invite you to bring the hands anywhere that feels like it's touching the entire energetic field that is you.
And let's take a few rounds of breathing into the entire body,
All the way into the feet,
Into the fingertips,
Perhaps even into the skull and higher up.
Take one more round and on the exhale,
Bring your palms out in front of your heart.
In Namaste Mudra,
Your palms touching one another,
Perhaps your thumbs are touching your heart space.
And take a moment to feel the life that is inside of you,
That is moving you on every round of breath.
And on the next exhale,
I invite you to bow your head towards your lungs,
Thanking your breathing for the life that it provides us by receiving the air time and time again.
You may lift your hand,
Release your hands.
Welcome back.
And so this technique is one that you can always apply whenever you feel like you're not breathing fully.
Allow your hands to guide the breath back into the body.
And with that,
Increasing blood flow,
Increasing life flow.
My name is Mahi Davida and I thank you very much for being here with me today.
Until next time.
