For this meditation,
You can be sitting upright or maybe find a comfortable,
Reclined position.
Begin by finding that comfortable place and then starting to draw your awareness towards your breath.
As you invite the focus towards your inhales and exhales,
You'll often find that your thoughts,
What's going on in your mind,
Your mental landscape,
Or sensations in your body,
Your body scape,
Draw your attention.
So what we can do is continue to focus on the breath and using a visualization practice to help the breath soften away the sensations in the body or the thoughts that come up of the past or the future.
So as you're breathing here in this present space,
Your eyes softened or closed,
You might start to imagine an ocean and the shore.
And any thoughts,
Any essences outside of this space in time are like writing in the sand and the waves are your breath.
So as you're aware of your inhales and exhales,
The thoughts that come up,
An inhale like a rushing wave smooths out over the sands of your mind.
And as you exhale,
Softens back to the ocean,
Taking away those thoughts.
Maybe they,
Similar or other thoughts,
Come back up in the sand.
We're aware with the inhale of those thoughts and we exhale just allowing them to wash away.
We continue to ride the wave of the breath to build our awareness and clarity here.
Nothing wrong or bad about our thoughts,
But simply something outside of this moment.
So we let that settle into the sand.
Inhale.
We're aware of the thought.
Then exhale,
We let it wash away,
Taken out to sea.
The same thoughts may come up and we can invite a bigger wave,
Maybe an active sigh with the exhale to encourage that simple letting go.
As you continue to sense the inhales,
Maybe you notice sensations in your body,
Places you might hold unnecessary tension.
You shift your awareness there and as you exhale like a warm wave,
Could you let that tension soften away?
Maybe many waves of breath,
Maybe many practices take the time to wash away.
But we stay with the breath.
Each inhale an opportunity aware,
Each exhale an opportunity to release.
Sometimes adding a sound to your breath,
An oceanic sound by softly hollowing at the back of the throat can help settle in this sentiment,
Creating a wave of sound with your breath to help the wave of awareness wash over.
Not straining to create sound with the breath,
But just that soft encouragement,
Allowing the waves to wash over and draw you back to where you are.
