I invite you to find a comfortable position for yourself.
I recommend either sitting or lying down.
And taking these first few breaths to really allow yourself to not just arrive into this position.
Also begin to really settle in here.
I invite you to maybe use this next breath to scan your whole body and just notice the parts of you that are being physically supported by the chair,
The ground,
Your bed,
Whatever it is that you're lying on.
Maybe see if you can allow those parts of your body to grow a little heavier.
Releasing a little deeper into the support beneath it.
With your next inhale if you'd like,
I invite you to scrunch up your face,
Tense up your shoulders,
Bringing them up toward the ears,
Make fists with your hands.
And then exhale,
Sigh that breath out and soften the face,
Your shoulders,
Relax your fingers,
Your hands.
Bring a slight tuck to the chin.
Imagine the skin right between the eyebrows smoothing out.
Notice if your tongue is pressed up on the roof of your mouth and just see if you can bring a heaviness to it,
Resting it behind the lower palate.
Maybe even bringing a little bit of space between your lips,
Relaxing the jaw.
And the shoulders melting down the spine.
And I invite you to bring your awareness to how your body's already breathing for you.
There is no need to change the breath at all.
Just attune to the natural rhythm of your breath here.
And begin to notice where the breath is most evident to you in the body.
Perhaps it's the inhale and exhale in and out through the nose or the mouth.
Maybe you're noticing the breath bring some physical awareness to your chest or shoulders or maybe even the lower abdomen.
There's not a right or wrong way to breathe here,
So try to release any judgment of your breath if there is any.
Just keep bringing this gentle awareness,
Tracking your inhale,
Noticing where it lands,
And tracking the exhale.
Now,
I invite you to bring your awareness to your lower abdomen,
Navel center area.
And begin to experiment by first seeing if you can breathe right into that area.
And then you may want to take this a step further and experiment by seeing if you can push your belly button out on the inhale,
Expanding the whole belly.
And then with the exhale,
Feeling the belly button soften and draw in toward the back of the spine.
Our inhale expands the belly.
And the exhale softens the belly inward.
Release.
It's just an experiment.
So again,
Any judgment of this breathing that you're aware of,
If you can just let it go and just be in the felt sense,
Encouraging the belly to expand with an inhale,
Releasing,
Allowing the belly to soften with an exhale.
Five more full breath cycles like this.
And I invite you with your next inhale,
To scrunch up the face,
The shoulders,
Your fists.
Take another little sip in if there's space.
Open up the mouth,
Let the breath go,
Soften the face,
The shoulders,
Your hands.
Just come back to releasing any control over the inhale and your exhale.
Just allowing the body to breathe for you.
Continuing to bring a gentle awareness to the breath and maybe even noticing what,
If anything,
Feels different from when you started your breath practice.
I welcome you to stay here as long as you'd like,
Bringing a sense of curiosity and compassion to whatever arises into your awareness.
Thanks again.
You you you you you you
