I am grateful for all of you that are part of our mindfulness community,
Be it live in this moment or joining later by recording,
All making up this community of practicing mindfulness and self-care and changing how we show up in the world with all of our relationships and activities.
So thank you for being here.
And let's begin with our guided meditation for today.
First bringing attention to our body and feeling feet resting comfortably upon the floor and even pushing down a little bit into our feet and giving ourselves a literal sense of grounding down through the floor and recognizing that down through the floor actually connects us down to the earth as well and opening to this possibility,
This sense of being connected and grounded to the earth below.
Then maybe rocking your body a little side to side as a way of feeling this connection to the chair as well through thighs and bottom.
Again giving ourselves a literal sense of grounding into the chair,
Which is connected to the floor,
Which ultimately is connected to earth below.
And then inviting a comfortable rising up of torso,
Rising up of spine all the way up through neck and head up towards sky and how through tending to our posture,
We are uniting earth and sky in this moment,
Groundedness and spaciousness.
And then maybe a shoulder roll or two,
Inviting a loosening and lowering of shoulders upon torso,
Finding a comfortable place for hands to come to rest,
Maybe resting on thighs or cuffed within lap.
Head supported atop spine and shoulders,
Inviting a loosening of jaw,
Lips either gently touching or slightly parted and eyes either opened or closed,
Whichever you prefer in this moment.
Bringing your attention into this belt sense,
This experience of body in this moment.
Bringing your attention all the way down your torso,
Down into your toes and feet.
Just noticing the sensations,
The experience of toes and feet and some gratitude for our toes and feet,
How they invite us to take a stand in the world,
Supporting us in the world.
Bringing your attention now up into calves and thighs and hips as we simply make contact with the felt sense of our legs.
Opening to gratitude for legs,
Allowing us to move around in the world and be a presence.
Bringing our attention now up into torsos,
Becoming aware of a felt sense of body and maybe you can even feel your heart beating.
This filling and releasing of chest is an indication of our lungs at work.
Maybe some gurgling down in the belly and how all of these different sensations within torso,
That's our organs keeping us alive,
Keeping us going and maybe a moment of gratitude for all that our bodies do to keep us up and going and active in the world.
Bringing your attention now into fingers and hands and forearms and arms.
As we become aware of the sensations within arms and hands,
An opportunity of gratitude,
How our arms and hands allow us to engage in the world,
Take action,
Have an impact and influence in our world.
So maybe some gratitude for our arms and hands.
Bringing your attention now into shoulders and neck,
Rising up the back of head.
Moving attention forward across ears and jaw and face.
Rising up to crown the top of head.
As we become aware of the felt sense of shoulders and head and neck,
Maybe some gratitude how just through our face that we communicate,
Come into relationship with others.
Wondrous brains held high atop that allow us to have these thoughts,
These concepts,
These ideas that we can change the world with.
So maybe some gratitude for how we can generate these thoughts and communicate them out to the world,
To others.
Some gratitude for that.
Now bringing our attention back to the physical sense of body breathing.
Simply a way of inviting our full attention into body and into this moment.
Also remembering to practice setting aside of judgment and striving for those moments that we do drift off.
Opportunity to practice some compassion and kindness for ourselves.
There's no perfection here,
Folks.
This is just living life with this wondrous mind and body that we have and being grateful for just who we are showing up in this moment.
There's no perfection,
Just practicing showing up as best as we can.
Just noticing different sounds either in your environment or coming through the microphone.
Another opportunity to practice allowing and acceptance.
There's no distractions.
There's just experiences unfolding in this moment.
And continuing with this theme of gratitude in today's meditation,
Bringing to mind someone in our life,
Either present or in the past,
That we are so grateful for the presence of this person.
And if you'd like,
You can even envision this person in your mind's eye,
In your imagination,
Either seated before you or by your side.
Or maybe even a beautiful memory of a past time with this person,
Bringing them to mind.
Holding this person within your awareness in this moment.
Maybe bringing to mind some sage wisdom that this person shared or a moment of suffering or struggle that presence of this person eased in your life.
Noticing as we bring this person into our awareness,
Perhaps there's a felt sense down within body somewhere.
And if you'd like,
You can actually place your hand where you feel that felt sense.
Feeling your connection with this person.
Noticing some emotions may arise anywhere on the continuum.
Being kind and gentle with yourself.
Acknowledging these emotions as an indication of the relationship with this person.
And if for whatever reason you find that,
Oh,
This is a bit much,
You can always come back to body breathing.
Always having that option or pressing your feet back into the floor,
Grounding yourself again.
And using this as an opportunity of using this relationship as a way to tap into gratitude in general.
Such a powerful experience of being human,
This experience of gratitude.
Opening up to the possibility,
What would it be like to let this sense,
This experience of gratitude be a way of leading ourselves into our day and into our week?
When we encounter struggle or difficulty this week,
Pausing for a moment and recognizing what's going right in this moment as well.
How may we show up differently to the moment,
Making space for gratitude?
Letting this upcoming day of Thanksgiving be a day of practicing something we can apply all the other days of the year.
What kind of world may we create by leading with gratitude?
Now,
If your eyes were closed,
Opening your eyes,
Inviting back in your surroundings,
Looking through your world with eyes of gratitude in this moment.
And then maybe a gentle stretch or two and enjoying and being grateful for what's typically a pleasant experience of a stretch or two.
And I am grateful to each and every one of you in this moment for coming together and cultivating this innate capacity of mindfulness.
So I appreciate that.
Thank you.
And until we meet again,
May you be well,
Spreading gratitude in your world.
Goodbye now.
