So,
I absolutely love meditation because to me,
This is a practice that allows me to give myself,
My body,
My mind,
My heart,
The attention that it deserves.
And to me,
Attention is a love language.
It is the most pure way that we can show ourselves love and attention and care.
So thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for giving yourself this gift of meditation.
And today we're going to begin with our meditation and at the end,
We will have 10 more minutes to stay and share any reflections or any questions.
And usually I like to offer a couple more words about the meditation that I guide.
Today we will be working with the first two foundations of mindfulness,
The mindfulness practice.
So let's begin.
Let's start.
I will be sharing a little bit more during the meditation.
So finding a comfortable place,
Whether you prefer to practice sitting down or laying down,
Honor whatever your body is guiding you to do in this practice.
So allowing yourself to arrive here with ease,
Finding a comfortable posture.
If you are cross legged,
I usually like to lift my hips with a pillow so that they release some of the pressure from my knees.
If you're using a chair,
I also like to make sure that I am touching the ground with my feet.
So you feel that support.
You can always use a pillow as well.
Allowing your spine to be straight,
Not too rigid,
But alert so that you can be present for this practice.
Allowing your hands to rest on your legs or by the side of the body.
And to arrive here,
I usually like to invite a couple of intentional breaths.
So let's take a deep breath through the nose and sighing out the mouth.
Take another deep breath through the nose,
Sighing out the mouth.
One more time,
Deep breath through the nose and breathing out the mouth.
Allowing the body to arrive here in this moment in time.
Noticing as the weight of the body serves as a grounding anchor to this moment.
Noticing as it feels as if we are rooted in this moment as our feet or our legs come in contact with the ground,
With the earth.
Observing how the body arrives here,
The quality of the body.
Perhaps we feel rested or perhaps we feel a little rigid.
Simply noticing as the body arrives here,
However it arrives here.
In mindfulness meditation,
We have one intention,
One goal.
That goal is to be here in the present moment.
And as we begin our practice,
We arrive here with the intention to experience moment by moment whatever arises for us.
Traditionally,
The first foundation of mindfulness works with the body.
The body as an anchor,
As a guide to rest our attention in this present moment.
So as we begin our practice and we connect with the body,
We notice how it's arriving here.
We notice any points of contact that the body's making with objects or even the hands resting on the legs,
Hair resting on shoulders,
Headphones as they come in contact with the ears.
All of these are practices that fall under the first foundation of mindfulness.
As we notice the breath and its natural rhythm,
As we observe the falling and rising of the breath,
We are practicing with this first foundation of mindfulness.
The body serving as an anchor to this present moment.
As we rest our attention in this first foundation,
In this home base,
Our body or our breath,
I want to invite you to connect with any point of contact that the body's making or maybe the breath,
Whatever anchor point you want to use today during our practice to rest and float your attention there,
To be here in this moment.
The second foundation of mindfulness meditation invites us to connect and use our emotions,
Our feelings,
And sensations as these anchors to rest our attention in this present moment.
Today,
I want to invite you to rest and bring your attention to any sensation that arises in the body.
And we will be working specifically with the feeling tone of the sensations.
We will be noticing if the feeling tone of the sensation is pleasant,
Unpleasant,
Or neutral.
So as we rest our attention in this anchor point that we have chosen for the practice,
Perhaps we're going to notice that some type of sensation arises in the body.
It could be a pain,
A tingling sensation,
Perhaps an itch.
And the invitation here is to simply notice that sensation,
To allow just a small gap between the noticing of the sensation and the noticing of is this pleasant,
Unpleasant,
Or neutral.
We're not engaging with the thought of it.
We're not engaging with the sensation.
We're not judging it,
Making comments about it.
We're simply observing the feeling tone of this sensation.
And if at any point you find yourself distracted with anything in your environment,
With thoughts,
Emotions,
You can always go back to that anchor point that you chose in the body.
You notice the distraction.
You notice the thought.
You gently let it go.
And then you come back to that anchoring point as the next sensation arises.
And you notice it's pleasant,
Unpleasant,
Or neutral.
And always remember thoughts and distractions will happen.
These are completely normal.
As we become aware of them,
Our mindfulness has kicked in.
We simply notice,
We let it go,
And we come back to our anchoring point.
We're not engaging with thoughts,
Not engaging with the thought of whether this is really neutral.
Is this really pleasant?
We're simply noticing.
If there's not a clear answer,
We can simply let go and come back to our anchoring point.
And as the practice comes to a close,
I want to invite you to bring your hands to your heart area,
If that's available and accessible to you.
And as the hands come into contact with this area,
Perhaps bringing the same type of awareness and attention here,
Noticing any type of temperature,
Texture,
Sensation that arises from this contact,
Perhaps noticing the pulse of the heart,
And bringing your awareness to the feeling tone of this experience.
There is no right or wrong answer.
There is no permanent answer.
What does it feel like today,
Right here in this moment?
And slowly bringing your hands down,
Resting them on the legs,
Bringing your attention here on the hands for just a couple moments,
And starting to invite gentle movement to your fingers,
Your toes,
Perhaps your neck.
And whenever you're ready,
You may float open your eyes.
