So to begin with we're just going to take a few nice deep slow belly breaths to ground us and centre us.
These breaths will be in through the nose,
Filling up the lungs,
Pressing into the belly,
Holding for one or two seconds and then slowly releasing that out breath,
Letting the belly come down and the lungs come down and the air come out nice and slowly through the nose.
So we'll do three full belly breaths to begin with.
Sits,
Once we've taken those breaths,
We can allow our body to rest into the seat that we're in,
Noticing the sense of gravity as our body is moved towards the earth.
If it helps you can just move your body a little bit from side to side to feel that sense of your center of gravity.
And we can commit to this time of mindfulness by remembering that anything that feels like it's important or needs to be solved or tended to,
That if it really is that important,
It'll be there for us at the end of the meditation.
So it's safe to let it go and let it be and fully devote our intentions and our awareness to the sensation of breathing for these minutes.
So I invite you to move your awareness to the sensation of your belly just below the belly button.
And what you might notice here is that as you breathe in and out that there is some sensation and that there is some movement from that sensation happening in that part of your belly with every in-breath and every out-breath.
So our task is to bring the awareness to that part of our body and to have it stay there,
To follow that movement of the breath with our awareness,
To be interested in the sensations that are arising and passing away.
You You might notice the mind,
You might notice thinking and our job when we noticed thinking or distraction or a movement away from our chosen area of sensation,
That all that's required for us to do is to notice it and we can name it if it helps with a one-word name like thinking and then we direct the attention back to the sensation of breathing.
We refocus and it's this noticing and refocusing that's what's important.
So we devote our awareness to the sensations that are happening within our belly below our belly button and we follow that movement of the breath as we breathe in and as we breathe out and anytime we notice any type of wandering of the mind,
We just acknowledge that it's wandered by naming it and we return it back to the sensation because the sensation is always in the present moment.
So we can use that as our anchor,
As our guide.
You One of the other things that might come up whilst you're meditating is your attention might go to a different type of sensation.
It might go to a sound,
Might go to a sensation of discomfort or even a pleasant sensation.
Anything that deviates from focusing your awareness on the sensation within the belly,
We just want to name it and then refocus.
So if we become distracted by something,
A sensation outside of the belly,
We can just name it sensation.
Just a one-word name so that we can acknowledge it and then bring our attention right back to the belly once again.
To the sensation within the belly and resting our awareness there attentively,
Gently and staying there as long as we can.
And in a moment we're going to finish this meditation.
So in a similar way to how we started,
We're going to do just one diaphragmatic breath which is again breathing in through the nose,
Filling up the lungs,
Breathing into the belly,
Holding for one or two seconds and then slowly allowing that belly to fall and the chest to fall and the air to come up and out through the nostrils in a nice slow even pace.
Allowing your breath to return to its natural rhythm and when you're ready,
Gently opening your eyes back up and going forward into your day.
