Welcome to practice.
My name is Neil Seligman.
Thank you for joining me today for this guided mindfulness meditation,
Problem solving,
Opening to mindful solutions.
So if you're ready,
Just allowing yourself to find a position of comfort and balance.
Bringing a sense of alignment to the spine.
And just allowing the posture to adjust until we find a sense of centeredness.
A sense of stability in the body.
A sense of stillness.
And arriving.
As if the body was saying,
I am here.
And just breathing into this body.
Breathing into this body of presence.
Just enjoying the inhale and the exhale.
Being curious about its shape and rhythm.
Opening to yourself.
A sense of including everything that came with us into practice and just allowing it to settle.
And simply breathing,
Breathing through the body.
Imagining the warmth of your own awareness traveling through the body like ink dissolving through water.
Breathing with everything you've got.
And just touching in with heart.
And just noticing if the heart feels open today.
Bringing awareness to heart.
If it helps bringing one or both hands physically to rest over the heart.
And in this way just connecting to this deep ancient tradition of compassion and self-care.
This connection.
The body is here,
The heart is here.
Connection is here.
And it's in this space of connection.
That we welcome an issue or challenge that's currently sitting with us into our practice.
And my suggestion is to bring not the biggest,
Not the smallest,
But a medium weight challenge into this practice just for exploration.
Something that feels okay for today.
Just bringing that situation,
The circumstances,
The challenge,
Whatever it is into awareness now.
And holding it within the embrace of connected,
Heartful,
Mindful presence.
Allowing ourselves to explore the challenge and notice what it might be connected to.
Gifting yourself the ability to take an expanded perspective on this challenge.
To notice the other individuals who might be connected or related to this issue.
To notice your own values that might be at stake regarding this issue just by asking yourself what's important to you here.
Bringing a sense of heartful perspective to the complexity,
The nuances of this challenge.
Imagining it laid out in front of you almost like a map.
Seeing the terrain upon which this challenge lives.
Breathing with awareness into all of the connections,
The nodes,
The interrelationships,
The others involved,
Your values,
The possibilities for how this might play out.
And just tuning into the question,
What is called for from me in this challenge?
Is there something I need to say?
Is there an action I need to take?
And if there is,
How might I do that from this space of mindful presence?
How can I bring my conscious awareness to bear in this situation?
And what is my next right move?
Maybe even testing out a few different options just by feeling through those options.
What's my next right move?
And just breathing,
Breathing with everything that you've traveled with in this practice.
Giving it a little bit of space,
A moment for integration.
If there's still confusion,
Allowing that to be present.
And if there's a sense of clarity arising,
Just being the witness of that.
Coming back to the breath and letting the contemplation of this challenge just fade into the background as we come back to the breath,
The breathing body.
The body parts connected to the floor,
The chair,
Resting,
Following the rhythm of the body,
Breathing.
Coming back to the sensations of the breath in the nose,
The inhale,
The exhale.
And in your very own time,
Allowing the eyes to reopen.
Thank you for joining me in practice today.
