On your inhales,
You can feel the crown of your head lift toward the sky a little bit taller if you're sitting down.
And on your exhales,
You can feel your sit bones grounding down a little bit deeper.
This may be extending the inhales and the exhales.
Just getting a few more sips of air and pausing when you're full.
And then emptying,
Pushing a bit more air out of you even once you think you're empty.
And just seeing how empty you can get and pausing at the bottom there.
Just experiencing what it's like on either side of your breath.
You can also scan your spinal cord,
Traveling from the tailbone to the crown of your head as you inhale and traveling down the spine as you exhale.
This is your awareness tracing your spine.
And start to relax your forehead.
Relax your eyebrows.
And allow the corners of your eyes to get a tiny bit wider just by relaxing those muscles along the lash line.
You can soften your jaw completely,
Softening the tongue and even the teeth and the gums.
Relaxing the lips and the cheeks,
Softening the jawline,
The hairline,
The ears,
And the scalp.
And just start to check in with the posture and the shape that your shoulders are in.
Just making note of what your natural posture is like and no need to fix it or judge it right away or at all.
But just notice where the shape that your shoulders are creating around your heart center.
You can start to bring your awareness into your heart,
Tuning in with your heartbeat.
Oftentimes I find myself sitting with my shoulders hunched forward so my heart is somewhat protected.
For this practice,
Just starting to allow your heart to lead you and to come forward out of the shoulders,
Feeling broadness across your collar bones,
Across your sternum,
And just letting your shoulders be soft and relaxed down away from the ears.
Relaxing the arms and the hands as well.
And then noticing how your neck responds to that change in your shoulders and maybe the head wants or the chin starts to lift.
And then see if you can just tuck your chin really slightly toward the heart so that you extend the length in the back of your neck.
And as you do that you're feeling the very tip of your head lifting a little bit higher or reaching away from the sit bones even if you're laying down.
Just reaching in opposite direction as your sit bones are.
So now just paying attention to that clear channel you've just created from your heart center through the neck and the throat into the mind,
Into the head,
Into the crown of your head.
And then once again reminding your forehead and your jaw to soften,
Reminding your hands to relax your shoulders.
Now just bringing some awareness back to the breath and welcome your breath into your lungs.
So feel your rib cage expanding with each breath in,
The front back and side of the rib cage getting a little bit larger with each breath in and falling with each exhale.
You can almost see your lungs filling up with air and then emptying of air.
Relaxing the bottom of the rib cage and now relaxing your stomach and welcoming the breath to travel even deeper now into the stomach.
So you can feel the belly rising with your inhales and falling with your exhales.
Just welcoming the breath to come deep into the body maybe even sending it into your lower belly or your hips or your pelvic floor.
Really just allowing yourself to ground down with your inhales feeling how you can direct the breath and this doesn't have to be controlling it or thinking about it but just by being open to the possibility and by welcoming the breaths to travel deeper it will.
Just by thinking about a certain body part as you inhale the breath will travel there.
So if you are experiencing any sort of pain today anywhere in the body any joint pain or stomach pain or anything at all you can picture this area as you inhale and instead of running away from that and trying to distract yourself from those sensations practicing sitting there fully and guiding all of your awareness to that area of discomfort in the body and just letting yourself feel what is uncomfortable letting yourself feel what is painful and accepting that as being part of your reality at this moment and allowing for any emotional releases that need to come.
I'm just remembering that every single storm will run out of rain that whatever you are going through at this moment will be part of history in the future and any pain that you're experiencing right now is adding to your sensations of joy and love in the future creating that deeper contrast between times of love and joy remembering that you would not be able to experience joy fully if you do not experience pain fully.
Once again relaxing the shoulders relaxing the hands the forehead and the jaw and just have to bring your attention to the eyeballs into what you can see in your own internal landscape or if the eyes are open in your personal landscape this is you remind yourself that you are the only one who is seeing exactly what you are seeing just appreciating your unique eyes a unique way that your eyes were made to take in light remembering how special you are remembering how important and beautiful your perspective is remembering that you do see things in a unique way and it is beneficial to share that in any way with others to you and to the world around you at first just reminding yourself that you do have something special your eyes are special so turning your inner gaze to maybe peer into the forehead looking at your own internal mind screen instead of looking at all the external screens we look at all day long now using this time to look at the first screen the original screen and just notice anything at all that you see just being that observer there's no need to make opinions or label or think about what you see this is not a thinking process this is a listening process an observing process so even if all you see is black or fuzziness or just little bits of light here and there just looking at that looking and seeing whatever is there maybe starting to feel the pulsing sensation of your forehead starting to bring awareness to that third eye in between the eyebrows your home of intuition we always hear people talking about opening your third eye people to open it and to look through your third eye but there's no real point in opening your third eye before you close it before you turn that gaze inward as it is impossible to see the world or others around us clearly until we see ourselves clearly so maybe even visualizing a third eye there and instead of looking outward let it roll back and turn inward and look into yourself look into your mind into your body softening the shoulders and the jaw as you do so and looking at your heartbeat gazing into your heart center and that unique rhythm that is your own heartbeat you you this is our home of compassion gratitude of love of light I'm just starting to see all of the love that exists in your heart space any person or a thing or a moment that you've ever loved exists to some extent in your heart center every plant every animal every song it's everything that you have ever loved and has shown you love feeding into your heart center at all times and allowing yourself to feel this love remembering that you are worthy of feeling this love feeling love from the world around you the roof over your head the environment that you're in the Sun the moon the ocean the clouds the trees and just remembering everything that you already have to be so grateful for the fact that your heart is beating at all the fact that your lungs are breathing that your stomach is digesting food for you that your ears can hear these messages that your eyes can see whatever it is that they see he's taking this moment to recognize everything that you may take for granted on a moment-to-moment basis and it's taking this time to fully appreciate what you have remind yourself that you already have everything that you could possibly need and everything else that you receive is just that extra blessing and being grateful even for experiences of the past even experiences of the present and the future so even painful times hard times that we are all living through right now finding that space in your heart where you could even be grateful of that of this and reminding yourself that the downs are just as much a part of life as the ups are and if we lived a life that was great all the time we would not feel great ever we would feel confused and stagnant and probably disappointed so a practice like this isn't about pushing out everything bad and only having good it's not about releasing the negative and accepting the positive but it is about accepting the negative as a part of the positive remembering that yin and yang sign that you would not know what darkness is you would not know what light is without experiencing darkness you would not know what happiness is without experiencing sadness you would not know joy and love without pain and suffering just that reminder can be all you really need to get through some hard times and it doesn't make it nice right away or it doesn't make everything better right away but it does bring in a little bit of acceptance and bring some order to what can feel like chaos as you remember the ups and downs of life that are always happening everything is temporary every storm runs out of rain and just take a moment now to listen to your body by bringing your attention to your ears and start to feel that connection between your ears and your heart you can hear your heartbeat clearly and fully hearing the pulse of your body listening and appreciating the fact that your heart is beating and you have nothing to do with that it's not your doing that is not under your control listening to that force that is beating your heart whatever force it is that allows your heart to pump blood through your body reminding yourself to be deeply grateful just for that the unique design of your own body listening to the unique sounds of your own body and even the unique sounds of your mind and if your mind is talking to you right now maybe making judgments or opinions or trying to multitask by traveling to the future or the past and even noticing that the fact that your mind does think and staying in that position of the observer observing the mind thinking being that one inner most self that is always there is always observing from a place of love and not judgment is always patient with you patient with your surroundings and your circumstance is always kind and gentle and loving and just remembering that that innermost self is who you are everything else is who you are also but just extra just more fluff on top of the core of who you are and that is a being of love of light of kindness of generosity of patience of understanding of compassion and gratitude and worthiness and joy and pleasure and safety security honesty truthfulness intuition and connection just feeling all of these truths that are within your body on a deep and cellular level even if you don't feel them today or right away or at all just trusting that these are truths whether you recognize them or not you can trust that your you will be guided by your subconscious to act in ways that support these messages to act in ways of love and patience with yourself and others and trust that you receive messages from spirit all the time in the form of songs and overheard conversations and sensations in the body of urges to speak urges to write there it is to listen to explore these are all things that you can trust you can trust your instincts and you can trust that by trusting these instincts you will add more love and patience and understanding into your reality acceptance with your journey you can begin to listen to your surroundings now the sounds outside of the body maybe seeing where you are in space the outline of your physical body the room that you're in you can take conscious deep breaths into the body and allow yourself to fill up to every corner and edge and calling air into the body letting go of what no longer serves you as you exhale then if it feels good for you to do so you can bring your hands to a prayer position at heart center the palms and fingers making contact the palms pulsing into each other surrounding your heart and just taking a moment now to bow your head to this highest self of yours to the energy that created you to the spirits that help you to the earth for growing you and to everyone else in this space for their energy and time and to yourself for showing up and taking the time may this practice continue to heal you through the rest of your days and nights and may you bring this love into everything that you do and to everyone that you see namaste
