Hello and welcome.
Find your way into a comfortable seat and we'll begin right away.
As you get settled,
Begin to focus on your breathing.
Breathing in.
Exhale.
Breathing in.
Exhale.
One more time,
Breathing in.
And exhale.
Now inhale and exhale through your nose.
Breathe in through your nose from your diaphragm.
Begin to feel your belly expand and consciously focus on your lungs filling with air,
Causing your abdomen to rise and fall.
Breathe in,
Pulling the breath down deep into the bottom lobes of your lungs,
Moving the diaphragm down and expanding the belly.
When you can't inhale anymore,
Hold for just a few seconds and then gently,
Very gently release your breath.
Inhale,
Exhale.
Begin to shift gears.
We have a lot going on and one of the most powerful skills we can develop is to learn to shift gears.
We can't show up in the world with presence and compassion if we're scattered and so this is us taking some time to quiet the mind,
To take care of our physical bodies and our hearts so that we can share the many gifts we have with the world.
Feel your mat underneath you.
Maybe your shins are crossed and you feel the crossing of the shins.
Maybe you can sense clothing on the skin,
The weight of the hands and legs.
Just for a moment,
Feel your physicalness,
The weight of your body,
The movement of your breath.
Notice where you feel the breath the most in your body.
Maybe it's in the chest,
Belly,
Nose,
Throat,
Ribs.
Now smooth your breath out.
Find that ocean-sounding breath,
Breathing in and out through your nose,
Little tone in your throat and as you breathe,
Set an intention to cultivate peace within.
Acknowledge places you might not have been accepting yourself lately,
Places where there might live some tension or some adverse energy that we can begin to erode today and instead invite compassion,
Patience and acceptance.
As you let your shoulders drop and your jaw unhinge,
We trigger that rest,
Restore and digest side of the nervous system.
This creates optimal conditions for the functionality of our organs,
Supporting our immune system,
Relieving stress,
Symptoms of anxiety and tension,
Rebalancing our hormones and releasing muscular tension.
This mindfulness practice takes a body that is feeling fragmented and puts it back together again in the kindest way possible.
So consciously ask your muscles to relax,
Consciously ask your mind to release,
Letting go of mental residue left over from the events from yesterday and finding a healthy distance from whatever current dramas are unfolding.
Breathing in clarity,
Lightness and ease,
Breathing out stress,
Tension and anxiety.
In this practice,
We bring the energy of the mind back down into the body,
To the breath and the organic physical reality of our material existence.
Let each breath be an invitation,
An invitation to unravel a little bit more,
Softening the layer of your skin,
Beneath that the muscle,
Releasing the weight of your bones and letting your joints feel slack.
You may notice the body or mind's impulse to fidget here,
To be in motion,
But continue to resist those temptations to move,
Twitch or fuss about.
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
I'll leave you here for a short time to just focus on your breath,
Nothing else.
Anytime your mind gets distracted,
Offer those thoughts,
Those distractions into the fire of your breath and come back to that easy inhale and exhale.
Noticing your breath,
Inhale,
Exhale.
Thank you for practicing today.
I hope that this meditation stays with you for the remainder of your day and even into your week.
Namaste.
