Hello,
My name is Paulina and today I'll be guiding you through a short meditation practice to move from anxious shallow breathing into a full body breath,
Relaxing your nervous system which will calm your body and your mind in the process.
To begin you'll want to do this process with a straight spine so either choosing to lay down in a comfortable position or sitting with your spine straight and elongated.
When you're ready making any adjustments you need to your posture and we'll begin.
As you begin to inhale I invite you to bring your awareness to the tips of your nostrils,
Gently feeling the breath moving in and out through your nostrils,
A sense of cool air as you breathe in and a gentle warmth as you exhale.
If your mind starts to wander that's totally normal,
Simply bring your awareness back to the sensations you feel as you inhale and exhale through your nostrils.
We'll take three more breaths here again focusing our awareness on the breath moving in and out through the nostrils,
Noticing your body gently relaxing with each exhale.
We'll take one more breath here and then moving our awareness down to our chest.
This time as you inhale notice your chest gently rising with each exhale gently relaxes moving away from your ears.
Inhale chest expands opening up exhale a gentle release your muscles relax even more maintaining your awareness now on your chest rising and falling with each inhale each exhale maybe taking one hand placing it on your heart on the middle of your chest and again simply noticing sensations here in your chest as you inhale feel the body expanding filling yourself up exhale we let it go relaxing even more.
Let's do two more long slow and deep breaths focusing on the chest.
Inhale chest rises exhale it gently falls.
Now we'll move our awareness down to our ribcage maybe bring your hands to your outer edges of your ribs as well.
This time as we inhale feel your ribs separating opening up space in your body exhale release.
As you inhale feel your ribcage expanding not only side to side but frontwards and backwards as if it's expanding into an even bigger circle filling yourself all the way up exhale gently relaxing.
Inhale filling yourself all the way up awareness on your ribcage opening and expanding.
Exhale a release.
Let's take three more breaths here again awareness on the ribcage expanding open and relaxing as we exhale.
Breathing here.
Last breath focusing on the ribcage inhale creating as much space as you can between each rib cage or each rib.
Exhale let it go.
And now we'll move our awareness down into our belly.
Maybe bring your hands there as well.
This time as you inhale feel your stomach expanding filling yourself up with air.
Exhale let it go.
Inhale filling yourself up.
Exhale gently letting your stomach deflate.
So again as you inhale it's not only your stomach moving try and envision your ribcage also expanding so your body's opening like a big circle getting bigger and bigger as you inhale fill yourself up with air.
Exhale relaxing your stomach your muscles letting it go.
We'll take three more breaths here with the awareness on your stomach and hips expanding as you inhale.
Gently letting go as you exhale.
Two more breaths.
After your next full exhale let go of any intention to breathe in a certain way and simply let your body breathe itself here.
Noticing any sensations you feel in the body.
Maybe a sense of relaxation and ease as you lay here letting your body simply inhale and exhale.
Noticing any shifts you might have created during this short time together and know that you can always come back to this practice intentionally choosing to breathe fully into our whole body as soon as we catch ourselves breathing a little bit more shallow.
Take one last breath here intentionally filling your whole body up with air expanding as you inhale.
Exhale let everything go.
And I invite you to carry this practice into the rest of your day.
Or as you gently fall off to sleep.
