Settle in to your space for meditation,
Allowing yourself to sit comfortably but alert,
Relaxed and not rigid.
You can make minor adjustments,
Settling your hips or shrugging your shoulders.
And you may choose to bring a hand to rest on your body at portions of this practice.
Begin to bring our awareness to the sensation of breath.
Not trying to force or change anything,
Notice where you sense your breath in your body,
Missing in your face,
In your torso.
Bringing awareness to the sensation of an inhale,
You may feel an expansion such as a rise in your chest or a balloon of your belly.
As you exhale,
The navel drops towards the spine and the chest settles.
We can accentuate this essence of a horizontal expansion in the breath.
Maybe resting hands on your torso along your low belly,
Feeling it press out as you fill your lungs on an inhale and allowing it to soften or slightly actively draw in as you exhale.
Moving your hands to your upper chest and collarbones,
Feeling the space expand on an inhale and softly settle with an exhale.
More subtly,
You may notice this in your side body,
Your ribs expand with an inhale and hug in with an exhale.
In your lower back or your upper back,
An expansion on the inhale and a settle on the exhale.
We use our inhales to feel that sense of expansion and our exhales a sense of centering.
We use our inhales a sense of expansion.
Our exhales bring a sense of centering.
You feel your body expand with your breath.
You feel your body soften with your breath.
Each inhale an opportunity to broaden,
Each exhale an opportunity to draw inward.
You can emphasize this more to the chest or the belly,
But see if you can feel the expansion front,
Back and sides expanding with your inhale,
Settling and centering with your exhale.
