Welcome to this short meditation on breathing in hope.
If it's your first time doing something like this then please don't worry about the being a right and a wrong way and if you start to drift off then just bring your attention back to my voice and the instruction that I'm giving you.
So I invite you to get comfortable in a seated position where your back is upright but relaxed and it'll probably help you to close your eyes or at least lower your gaze.
I'm going to start by just bringing our attention to our breath as it is.
We're not seeking to change it.
Notice the depth or shallowness of each breath.
Notice the rhythm or irregularity.
There's no judgment involved.
And you'll probably already be finding that your breathing has relaxed so that the breaths are slightly longer and slightly more rhythmical and that you're already feeling relaxed because of this.
And I wonder if you can just start to lengthen that breath a little more so that as is comfortable you're inhaling for a count of four and exhaling for a count of four.
I'll let you count inside your head.
Just fixing your attention in a rhythmical way on that count of four in and count of four out.
And this is going to help you feel more relaxed but the focus of this meditation is on hope and so we're going to use the breath as a vehicle of hope as it were.
The breath conveys different things to our bodies,
To our beings and I believe it can convey hope to us if that's our intention.
And so I want you as you're just breathing in this lovely relaxed rhythm to attach your breath to hope so that you are breathing in hope and as you exhale you're allowing that hope to gently diffuse throughout your body.
Each in-breath is an intake of hope.
Each out-breath is a releasing of that hope within yourself.
Perhaps as you bring your attention to your out-breath,
The exhale,
You can feel that hope gently diffuse throughout your body.
Maybe it starts in the lungs and you can just feel or imagine that hope gently percolating down through your core,
Down your legs to your feet and up through your shoulders and your head and down your arms.
Each in-breath,
An intake of hope,
Each out-breath,
A releasing of that hope to the whole of your body and being.
And this hope can just be hope in the abstract,
The thing we long for or you could attach it to something greater depending on your own worldview.
I suggest that hope is often situated in a source and origin beyond ourselves.
So that could even be God for you.
You can choose but just enjoy breathing in hope,
Ultimate hope,
Divine hope,
God's hope.
Breathe that in and allow it to be released throughout your body,
Restoring you,
Bringing hope to reside within you.
And I invite you to take five more breaths,
Breathing in that hope.
And then whenever you're ready you can open your eyes and end the meditation,
Continue in a state of peace and hope if you wish by all means.
But carry that with you today and when you find yourself requiring more hope then remember you can use your breath to invite hope,
Ultimate hope,
God's hope,
Into your being at any point.
Thank you for listening.
