Hello my name is Matt Albury and I'm going to lead you now through a five minute mindfulness meditation practice.
The aim of this practice is to ground us into the here and now to centre us using our breath.
To begin our practice allow yourself to get comfortable.
So if you're seated in a chair or a cushion just allow yourself to sit upright and comfortable.
Notice your feet on the floor and notice the sensation of the chair or the cushion against your body.
Notice in its contact with the thighs or the backside or the lower back.
And allow your head to be upright as if you were holding the ceiling up with the crown of your head and your feet firm on the floor.
Take a moment to listen to all the sounds around you where you are.
Notice the sounds outside of the room where you are and the sounds in the room where you are currently sat.
And then when you're ready take a lovely deep breath in through your nose and sigh out through your mouth.
As you sigh out just letting go of everything you want to let go of.
And doing that again taking a lovely deep breath in through the nose and sighing out through the mouth.
And then when you hear the bell I'll start to guide you through this observation of breath meditation which is from the mindfulness tradition.
To start our practice take your awareness to the sensation of the breath coming in and out through your nose.
Notice the breath as it comes into the nose and how the air is cooler coming in than going out.
As you exhale notice the air coming out through your nose and notice if there's a difference in the air flowing in your nostrils.
Just allow your awareness to follow the air in through the nose and out through the nose.
And then when you're ready start to bring the awareness to the whole journey of the breath.
So we're noticing the breath coming in through the nose down the back of the throat and into the body.
Notice your chest rise.
Notice your ribs move as the breath rolls in.
Notice the sensation of the back moving and the belly.
And then as the breath starts to leave the body just allow that awareness to settle again to the movement of your body move in its unique way with your unique breath.
Enough trying to speed the breath up or slow it down.
Just allow your breath just to be rolling in and rolling out.
The thing with mindfulness practice is sometimes we get distracted when we do this.
Our heads get busy.
All sounds around us distract us and that's normal and okay.
And as soon as that happens we just come back to what we're doing.
Watching the breath come and go.
Watching the bodily sensations of the breath moving the body.
Just bringing awareness to the lovely rhythm and softening into that rhythm.
And then when you hear the bell that will be the end of our taster and I will guide you back out of our meditation.
So take your awareness back to all the sounds you can hear around you.
And bring your awareness to the sensation of the chair that supported your body now as we've practiced or the cushion that you are sat on.
Take your awareness to your feet on the floor.
And if you feel comfortable with doing just push the floor away with your feet.
And then take two lovely breaths breathing in through the nose and sighing out through the mouth.
Just letting go as we exhale.
And then when you're ready open your eyes.
And that's the end of our practice.
