This guided sitting meditation will help you learn to simply be present and reconnect with yourself.
Allow yourself to switch from the usual mode of doing to a mode of non-doing,
Of simply being.
As you allow your body to become still,
Bring your attention to the fact that you are breathing and become aware of the movement of your breath as it comes into your body and as it leaves your body.
Not manipulating the breath in any way or trying to change it,
Simply being aware of it and the feelings associated with breathing.
Try observing the breath deep down in your belly,
Feeling the abdomen as it expands gently on the in-breath and as it falls backwards towards your spine on the out-breath.
Being totally here in each moment with each breath.
Not trying to do anything,
Not trying to get any place,
Simply being with your breath.
You may find that from time to time your mind will wander off into thoughts,
Fantasies,
Anticipations of the future or the past,
Worrying,
Memories,
Whatever it may be,
When you notice that your attention is no longer here and no longer with your breathing,
Without judging yourself,
See if you can gently bring your attention back to your breathing and start to ride the waves of your breathing,
Fully conscious of the duration of each breath from moment to moment.
Every time you find your mind wandering off,
Gently bring it back to the breath,
Back to the present moment,
Back to this moment to moment,
Observing of the flow of your breathing.
Using your breath to help you tune into a state of relaxed awareness and stillness.
Now as you observe your breathing,
You may find from time to time that you are becoming aware of sensations in your body.
As you maintain awareness of your breathing,
See if it's possible to expand the field of your awareness so that it includes a sense of your body as a whole as you sit here,
Feeling your body from head to toe and becoming aware of all the sensations in your body.
Being here with whatever feelings and sensations come up in any moment without judging them,
Without reacting to them,
Just being fully here,
Fully aware of whatever you're experiencing.
And again,
Whenever you notice that your mind has wandered off,
Simply bring it back to your breathing and your body awareness as you sit here,
Not going anywhere,
Not doing anything,
Just simply being,
Simply sitting moment to moment,
Being fully present,
Fully with yourself.
Now as you sit here once again,
Allowing the field of your awareness to expand,
This time expanding your awareness to include thoughts as they move through your mind.
Letting your breathing and sense of your body be in the background and allowing the thinking process itself to be the focus of your awareness.
And rather than following individual thoughts or getting involved in the content and going from one thought to the next,
Simply seeing each thought as it comes up in your mind as a thought and letting the thoughts just come and go as you sit and dwell in stillness.
Witnessing them and observing them,
Whatever they are,
Just observing them as events in the field of your consciousness as they come into your awareness and as they linger and dissolve.
If you find yourself at any point drawn into this stream of thinking and you notice that you are no longer observing them,
Just come back to the observation of thoughts as events and use your breath and sense of body to anchor and stabilize you in the present moment.
The thoughts can take any form,
They can have any content and they can either be neutral or very highly charged.
If thoughts come up that have fear in them,
Just be aware of fear being here and letting these thoughts come and go.
The same for worries,
Preoccupations and so on.
Regardless of the feeling that a thought might create for you,
Just observing it as simply a thought and letting it be here without pursuing it or without rejecting it.
Noticing that from moment to moment new thoughts will come and go.
As the meditation comes to a close,
You might give yourself credit for having spent this time nourishing yourself in a deep way by dwelling in the state of non-doing,
In the state of being,
For having intentionally made time for yourself to simply be who you are.
And as you blink open the eyes and move back into the world,
Allowing the benefits of this practice to expand into every aspect of your life.
Namaste.
