Let's find a comfortable position.
Close your eyes.
And we'll begin with some deep breathing in and out through the nose.
So beginning with a really big inhale,
Filling up,
Opening up.
And then a long,
Slow exhale.
So just continuing at your own pace.
Taking deeper and bigger inhales.
And longer,
Slower exhales.
And at the end of your next exhale,
Allow your breath to be natural.
And so we'll check in with the body now,
See if there's any areas where we are still holding on to some tension in the body.
Becoming more intimate with what it is that we're feeling in the body.
So bringing your attention first to the crown of your head.
Your forehead.
Your eyes.
Your cheeks.
Your nose.
Your mouth.
And tongue.
Your jaw.
Your neck.
And shoulders.
And bringing your attention into your right arm.
Your hand and fingers.
And your left arm.
And hand.
Your fingers.
Becoming aware of your upper back.
Your mid back,
Your lower back.
Down into your sit bones and the muscles around your sit bones.
Just noticing what you feel in your chest.
In your diaphragm.
Your abdomen.
And your hips.
And noticing what you feel down your right leg.
Into your foot.
Down to your toes.
And down your left leg.
Into your left foot.
Your toes.
And whenever you're ready,
Let's all meet at the heart center.
In the center of your chest.
And we can imagine as if we're breathing.
In and out of our heart center.
And ask yourself.
What is it that you want more than anything else?
In the world for yourself.
Without our answer being dependent upon anything in the external world.
In fact,
Not being dependent upon any conditions at all.
What is it that you most intrinsically want to feel?
And while the most common answer to this question that I've heard over the years is that what we want is peace.
Or contentment.
Another way of putting this is,
We want to feel okay.
We want to feel okay with ourselves.
We want to feel okay when we're with other people.
And it's just good for us to remember.
What it is that's most important to us.
We so easily get distracted by the shiny objects.
By the praise,
The validation.
But what we really want is to feel okay.
To feel okay inside.
And so you can imagine this intention dissolving into your heart center.
The most important part done.
Simply acknowledging what it is that's most important.
And we can take our attention out a little bit further than our heart center.
And really feel the breath as a whole.
Feeling the gentle rise on each inhale.
Softening on each exhale.
And feeling the breath as it moves through your body.
As our attention so very gently rests on the rhythm of our breath.
Rising and falling.
Expanding and softening.
Until our attention is so completely merged into the rhythm of our breath.
All we are aware of.
Is the breath.
Maybe the occasional thought floats by.
But there's simply no impulse to follow that thought.
And as your attention rests here in the breath,
We can also notice.
That we feel okay.
That we feel the peace.
The openness,
The spaciousness.
That what we answered to what it is that we must want was never far from us.
In fact,
So close we overlooked it.
And in allowing our attention to rest on the breath.
To rest in presence.
We see that it was here the whole time.
The peace never left us.
It's just that our attention leaves the peace.
So in meditation we Allow ourselves our attention to rest here in presence.
Remembering that this is always available to us.
We didn't need to become someone,
We didn't need to push anything away.
We simply needed to acknowledge what was always here.
We'll just rest here for another minute in silence.
And as we begin to come out of the meditation,
With a big inhale,
Take your arms over your head.
With a big stretch at the top.
And as you exhale,
Gently lower your arms.
And slowly open your eyes.
