Welcome to this mindful awareness meditation practice.
To begin,
Please find a comfortable position.
Allow your spine to be reasonably straight.
Relax the shoulders away from the ears.
And gently close the eyes if that works for you.
I want you now to go ahead and rest your attention on your breath for a minute.
Be aware of the flow,
The sensation,
And the movement of your own breath.
Great.
Now when you're ready,
I want you to go ahead and open up your eyes if they were closed.
I want you to look around where you are,
Seated,
And just notice what you see in front of you.
Become aware of the range of different colors,
Tones,
Shades.
What do you see?
What are the shapes?
Look at your surrounding with fresh eyes as if you're seeing it for the first time.
Activate the sense of sight.
Have you noticed something that you weren't aware of before?
Maybe a painting on the wall you haven't paid attention to?
An object?
A new color?
A new shade?
Just allow yourself to be fully present and notice your surrounding fully.
Expanding your vision and be aware of what's around you.
Now slowly and gently close your eyes as we start to shift our awareness and attention to our body.
Going through a mini body scan,
Starting from the top of your head and moving all the way down to the bottom of your feet.
As you do that and as you breathe gently and naturally throughout,
I want you to start to notice the sensations in your body as you walk and guide your attention from top to bottom.
What do you feel?
Do you sense any tension anywhere?
Maybe in your neck,
Shoulders,
Upper or lower back?
Or maybe you're not sensing anything that is an awareness in itself.
Just gently and mindfully go through your body,
Go through each part and notice how you feel.
And if you notice a tension area,
I want you to take a deep breath in and then exhale the tension out with a deep,
Long exhale.
Allowing your body to relax and release the tension with your out breath.
Notice your body awareness.
Notice how connected you are to your body or the lack of connection.
Without judging it,
Without analysing it,
Just be aware.
And if your mind begins to wander at any point during this practice,
Just take a deeper breath in to connect with your breath and to ground yourself and bring yourself back to the present moment.
Part of this practice is training our awareness and accepting our wondering mind in a gentle way.
We just bring the attention or draw the attention back to the breath and continue with our practice.
Now slowly let go of the body awareness and turn your intention for a minute to your breathing.
Notice the duration of your inhales and the duration of your exhales.
Notice the physical sensation of your inhales and your exhale.
How do you feel?
How does the breath make you feel?
Connect with the breath.
Get to know your own breath.
Now slowly let go of that attention as we move into the sensation of smell.
The scent.
Be aware of the scent and the air around you.
What can you smell?
Do your best not to judge the scent as nice or I like it or I don't or I can't smell.
Just focus on the sense of smell for a minute.
If you can't smell anything,
Just accept that.
It's absolutely okay.
As we continue to train our awareness by engaging the senses.
We're going to be shifting now to the sense of taste.
So start to slowly becoming aware of any sense of taste in your mouth.
Notice if you're able to detect any taste.
Maybe after the last meal you've had before you started this practice.
Is there a lingering taste in your mouth?
Or maybe there's another taste.
Just allow your attention to rest on the sense of taste.
Be fully aware of any sensations in your mouth.
Notice if bringing awareness of the sense of taste is bringing about any thoughts or images of food or cravings.
Or maybe not.
Be aware of those if they come up.
Don't judge them,
Just let them go.
Now slowly letting go of the sensation of taste.
Allow your attention to shift in a mindful and gentle way.
The sense of hearing the sounds.
What are you hearing?
What are you listening to?
Can you hear anything near you?
Around you?
Is it easy for you to focus on sounds?
Be aware of that.
Maybe you can hear the sound of your own breath.
Connect to that.
Follow that sound without judging.
Or maybe you can hear far sounds.
Maybe someone in the other room.
Or maybe outside of your window.
How far can you hear?
Focus on listening.
On deep listening.
And as you do that,
Do your best not to label the sounds that you're hearing.
Maybe not to judge them as likes or dislikes.
Just be aware of them.
You're detached from them,
But you can hear them.
Beautiful.
Now slowly start to let go of any effort in placing your attention on your senses.
Just completely let go.
Now I'd invite you to turn your attention now inwards and just notice how you feel after this practice.
Notice if you feel more relaxed than you started or more present and more aware.
Whatever your observation is,
Just go inwards.
And notice the effect of this practice on yourself.
Now slowly as we bring this meditation to a close,
Just gently let go of everything.
Let go of attention,
Observation,
Of awareness.
I know that whatever you've experienced is perfect just the way it is.
And feel free to come back to this practice whenever you want to train your attention.
And only when you're ready.
Gently open up your eyes.
Thank you for practicing with me.
Namaste.
