Welcome to Lucentia Insights with Michelle Maldonado,
A place where you can relax,
Refuel,
And replenish any time of the day.
In this meditation practice,
We're going to play with creating our own mental maps and body maps.
In this way,
We can help and cultivate our understanding and connection to the information and patterns that arise within the body.
Let's get started.
Begin by finding a comfortable position,
Seated in a chair or on the floor,
If in a chair,
Allowing your feet to be flat on the floor,
Elongating the spine,
Feeling that comfortable balance between being relaxed and alert.
At any time,
You may place a hand on your heart if that's supportive for you.
Sometimes when we bring emotions forward,
They can be difficult for us to experience or even joyful,
And the sense of touch by gently placing a palm of the hand on the chest can be comforting and soothing.
Let's take three deep belly breaths in and out,
Noticing as the cool air enters the tips of your nostrils,
Traveling down your throat and into your lungs as it makes its way down into the belly.
With each inhale,
Allowing the belly to expand,
Almost as if it were a balloon,
And with each exhale,
Allowing it to gently contract,
Pulling it back towards your spine.
Taking another few deep breaths in and out as you allow the body to settle,
Gentle into positions of comfort and ease,
Allowing the mind to settle,
Letting go of what was before this moment.
All there is is right now.
There is no other place to be than right here.
Now allowing the breath to simply settle into its natural rhythm and cadence,
Breathing in and out.
First we're going to practice with cultivating our awareness of emotions in the body.
We're going to create our own body map.
To do this,
I invite you to bring forward someone you love.
Bring them to mind.
Someone who is very special and dear to you,
Who you would move heaven and earth for.
Someone who,
Just at the mere thought of them,
Makes you smile.
Take a moment to bring that person forward in your mind's eye,
Allowing all the feelings for this person to flood through.
Noticing perhaps the sway the person smiles,
Or maybe even a special time you spent together that made you smile and feel warm and content.
Perhaps bringing to mind a small action or act of kindness that this person did.
Bringing as much detail to the surface as you can.
Seeing it in your mind's eye play almost like a movie as you think of this person that you love so much.
And now I invite you to press pause on that movie that's playing in your mind's eye and bring your attention to the body.
I invite you to take these next few moments to notice what sensations you might feel in the body when you experience love.
See if there are places,
Locations around your body where you might notice something.
And if you don't notice any sensations in the body,
That's okay too.
Sometimes we don't have any and sometimes we just need to practice learning how to tune into them.
Whatever is there,
Whether it's neutral or something else,
Simply notice.
And now I invite you to take these next few moments to notice what sensations you might feel in the body when you experience love.
And now I invite you to take these next few moments to notice what sensations you might feel in the body when you experience love.
And now I invite you to take these next few moments to notice what sensations you might feel in the body when you experience love.
And now I invite you to take these next few moments to notice what sensations you might feel in the body when you experience love.
And now I invite you to take these next few moments to notice what sensations you might feel in the body when you experience love.
Perhaps you notice something happening in your chest or belly,
Or maybe your head or shoulders.
Or maybe there's an overall full body sensation.
Taking a moment now to imagine an outline or silhouette of the human body in your mind's eye and just noting on that silhouette,
Making an indication of where in your body you might feel a sensation.
You could use circles or Xs or squiggly lines,
Whatever it is that helps create a body map for you.
In this way,
This full picture tells you,
Ah,
This is where love shows up in my body.
This is where adoration and feelings for another show up in my body.
Taking another gentle deep breath in and out,
Allowing all that goodness to just settle into the nooks and crannies of your beingness of your body.
And now I invite you to bring your attention to your mind,
The nature and quality of the thoughts that you experience when you're feeling love.
What are you saying?
What's the story or mental narrative?
What are the words that come to mind when you experience love?
Take a moment now to notice.
You can see the difference between what you experience when you're feeling love and what you experience when you're feeling love.
You can see the difference between what you experience when you're feeling love and what you experience when you're feeling love.
You can see the difference between what you experience when you're feeling love and what you experience when you're feeling love.
Now taking another deep breath in and out and allowing all of that to simply settle here for just a moment.
In a moment,
I'm going to ring the bell.
And when you hear it,
I'm going to ask you to just bring your attention to the sound of the bell until you hear it no longer.
And when the sound is gone,
I invite you to gently stretch and feel your feet on the floor and open your eyes if they're closed,
Taking another deep breath in to conclude the practice.
You may even find that you wish to go in-journal after this to write down your body map so that you have it for the future.
Thank you for your practice.
