Find a comfortable seated position.
You can sit on the floor.
You can sit in a chair with your feet flat.
Just anywhere that you can ground down through your sit bones and lengthen up through the crown of the head.
Allow your eyes to close or find a soft focus.
Allowing the eyes to close allows us to bring our attention inwards.
Just starting at the top of the head,
Giving yourself a little check in with your body.
Feeling the top of the head.
Bringing your awareness to your forehead.
Your eyebrows.
Space around your eyes,
Letting it soften.
Relaxing your jaw.
Finding a little bit of purpose and intention in your seat.
So bringing the ears back in line with the shoulders.
The shoulders back in line with the hips.
Maybe feeling the shoulder blades slightly engage in the back body.
Just a little slight pull back from the belly button in towards the spine to help the lower back lengthen.
Start to bring your attention to the sounds in the room if there are any.
If you're in a very loud place this can be easy to do.
If you're in your bedroom and it's pretty quiet you might actually have to start to listen to pick up the sounds.
Whatever the case just start to notice them.
Name them in your head so that you're actively recording them as opposed to being distracted by them.
And as you file them away just put that piece of paper,
That mental piece of paper off to the side.
Then start to bring your attention inward.
Without trying to control your breath just yet,
Start to hear it inside of you.
Start to see it in your mind's eye,
The inhale and the exhale.
Maybe you even start to hear and feel the heart beating.
We're going to start the practice with three deep diaphragmatic breaths,
Meaning we're going to be expanding the whole lung to allow the oxygen to come into the body completely and also to signal to our mind and body to relax.
So take a normal inhale and a normal exhale and then inhale,
Fill up into the belly,
Let it expand,
Fill up into the ribs and fill up into the chest and then sigh it out.
Two more like that,
Inhaling into the belly,
Inhaling into the ribs,
Think about the sides of the ribs,
The back body and the heart.
Sigh it out.
One last one like that,
Inhaling into the belly,
The whole rib cage and into the heart,
Into the chest,
Feeling the clavicle expand,
Sigh it out.
Now seal your lips,
Can induce you to breathe out through the nose but think about creating that warming,
Sighing exhale with the lips closed,
All the way down,
Inhaling,
Feeling everything expand,
Imagining your lungs and then exhaling.
We called our Ujjayi breath.
It's that oceanic sound.
As you allow yourself to take these deep breaths of audible exhale,
Imagine the air traveling through the nostril,
Into the space behind the forehead,
All the way down the length of the spine,
Like a line of energy and as you exhale,
Feel that line of energy glow and expand,
Traveling all the way back up,
Out through the sides.
Feel how the breath travels,
Not just down the length of the body but expands out.
See if you can feel yourself breathing into the basin of your pelvis,
All the way out the length of the legs and the arms,
Breathing out through each of the fingers,
Feel the breath traveling down the legs,
Out through the toes,
Feeling on the soles of the feet.
Imagine that breath as you inhale,
Focusing on it behind the forehead,
Breathing into the space.
Imagine you are breathing in shining light of energy,
Holding it in front of your mind's eye,
Your third eye,
And then exhaling out through that space.
With each inhale,
This light starts to fill up the whole frontal lobe of your mind,
Not just with the light but with that sense of warmth and expansion.
Imagine it filling up so much,
That any thoughts you have,
Good or bad,
Just dissipate,
The light pushing them out and away from you,
So that all you hear is your Ujjayi breath.
Feeling that light and energy entering through the nostrils,
Shining out through the crown of the head,
Feeling that same light and energy pulling you energetically the top of your head up,
Lengthening through the spine,
Feeling the whole body glowing with that breath.
Staying here and breathing just like this for as long as you like.
If you are ready to come back,
Start your day,
Allowing your breath to find an appropriate length for you,
Letting your exhale soften,
Touching your thumb to your pointer finger and your middle finger and your ring finger and your pinky,
Letting the left ear drop over to the left shoulder,
Letting the chin drop down towards the chest and then the right ear to roll over towards the right shoulder,
Allowing yourself to go back and forth like that a few times and then shifting your ears back in line with your shoulders,
Reaching along through the crown of the head again.
Go ahead and allow your eyes to blink open when you're ready.
I hope you have a great day.
