Hello,
Pasha Lindy here.
How are you?
Today we'll be exploring caring for ourselves using caring touch and nourishing breathing.
These two practices release the feel-good hormone oxytocin into our bodies to calm our nervous system and help us feel safe and loved.
First of all,
Inviting you to find a comfortable sitting,
Standing or lying position.
Perhaps somewhere where you won't be bothered for the next 10 minutes or so.
Taking a moment to get really comfortable and check that we're well aligned in our posture.
And taking a couple of nice deep breaths to begin with.
With a sense of letting go on the out-breath.
So turning the attention towards the self and exploring a caring touch.
How does it feel to place a hand on the heart?
What about a hand on the tummy?
Does that feel caring or reassuring?
We could also explore rubbing the arm or patting the arm.
How does it feel to give yourself a hug?
What about the hands folded into each other?
Or maybe it feels caring for one hand to massage the other.
So it's really up to us.
It's really very personal where we feel comfortable to give ourselves caring touch.
So just allowing another 30 seconds to explore different places on the body that feel comforting or reassuring for us when we rest a hand there.
And now making a choice.
Choosing one of those places and leaving the hand there.
And as the hand rests there,
Really tuning in to how that feels.
The physical sensations of contact.
Perhaps some warmth.
Maybe there's a sense of friendliness or a slight smile on our face as we do this.
Just allowing ourselves the time and space to really absorb those feelings.
To really receive this care as best we can.
And now we'll continue into the practice of nourishing breathing but just know that if you feel like you want to,
You could leave your hand resting in this caring touch.
So moving the focus of our attention now to our breathing.
And noticing where in the body we feel the movements of breathing the most vividly.
Is it in the abdomen or the chest?
Is it the flow of air in and out of the nostrils?
Maybe it's the sense of the whole body breathing.
Even the shoulders kind of rising and falling.
And now resting the attention on wherever we feel the breathing the most vividly.
So no need to change the breathing.
It's like the body's breathing and we're just resting our attention there.
And from time to time our attention will wander off and get lost in thoughts and that's totally fine.
It happens.
So when we notice,
Bringing our attention back to the breathing.
And seeing if we can allow the breathing process to feel nourishing,
Enjoyable,
Relaxing,
There's nothing to do right now except enjoy breathing.
And some people like to enhance their practice by putting a little smile on their face and remembering that there's oxygen in the air,
That every in-breath is nourishing our body.
And that every out-breath is allowing the body to release toxins.
So nourishing in-breath,
Releasing and relaxing out-breath.
And some people really enjoy the metaphor of the ocean wave.
Ocean waves coming in,
Ocean waves going out.
And in the same way,
The breath coming in and the breath going out.
And in a moment we're going to come to the end of this short practice.
And just knowing that we can return to a caring touch and nourishing breathing at any time in our day.
And so coming out of this practice we might like to consider how we'll integrate caring touch and nourishing breathing.
When in our week might we benefit from self-soothing using one of these practices?
Would it be perhaps opening our email inbox in the morning?
Or dealing with a difficult client?
Or maybe it's when we notice we feel tired.
Or perhaps we want to practice first thing in the morning to boost our well-being before we get into our day.
And we could really simplify those practices down to just 30 seconds of caring touch or taking three nourishing breaths.
Well we'd love to hear how it goes in the comments.
And there's also a companion talk to this practice called Connect with your Compassionate Self which I'd recommend listening to.
You'll find this also on my channel.
Well until next time may your inner strength and your good heart nourish you and radiate out to others.
Go well dear friend.
Bye bye for now.
