You can be in a seat,
You can be laying in your bed if that's where you still are,
You can be stretching,
Maybe doing some things around your house,
Just hopefully wherever you hear these words they will still be beneficial to you.
So the most important thing is that you are comfortable.
As you arrive you can just start to check in with your spine and the shape that your spine is in,
And the shoulders and the relationship to the hips,
And your throat and your neck area in relationship to your pelvic floor and your pubic bone.
So just starting to check in with the center line of your body.
And if you want to scan the front of your body you can feel your pubic bone and space right in between the hip bones.
Feel that aligned with your navel.
Feel that aligned with your breast bone and your sternum.
Feel that with your throat,
Your chin,
Nose,
Third eye center,
Through the crown of the head.
And if your eyes aren't already closed you can gently close them whenever you feel safe to do so,
Or if you're in a space where you feel safe to do so.
You can mark your arrival to this practice with a big cleansing breath.
So taking a full,
Deep and intentional inhale in through the nose,
Filling up.
And then just pausing for a moment at the top when you are full,
Noticing what it's like to be full,
And without straining exhaling slowly as you need to,
Decompressing.
Pushing a little bit more air out of you even once you think you're empty and just truly emptying yourself,
And then pause for a moment in that emptiness,
In that stillness.
Without straining,
Allowing the next breath to come naturally.
And you can breathe just like that a few more times if you'd like,
Exaggerating the four parts of your breath,
The inhale,
The pause,
And the exhale,
And the pause.
At any point when you feel ready you can release the control over your breath,
Or release the guidance and just simply allow your body to breathe itself.
And just practicing observing the breath without control.
And being okay with wherever you're at in that process today.
So knowing that sometimes it is very difficult,
Nearly impossible to have attention on the breath without controlling it in some way.
And other times it is very simple,
Very self-explanatory.
Just being okay and noticing wherever you are today.
Soften all the muscles across your forehead as you watch your body breathing.
Soften the jaw.
You can also soften the nose and the nostrils,
All those muscles that flare up your nostrils or scrunch your nose.
Feel those even relax.
And as you fully soften your mouth a little bit more,
The lips,
The tongue,
The throat,
You can feel that release continue into the cheeks,
Into the ears,
And to the corners of your eyes as well.
So you kind of feel like your eyelids are getting a little bit wider and spreading just by releasing all those little muscles along the lash line.
And soften your forehead a little bit more.
And allow that softness from the forehead,
From the whole face now,
To naturally spread across your hairline,
Across your scalp,
The muscles by the ears.
So that your entire head feels perfectly safe to be exactly as it is.
There's no need to hold anything up.
Your eyes can rest in their sockets.
Your brain can rest in its place.
And just not feeling the need to do anything specific or hold anything specific.
Just trusting that the way your body will relax and naturally falls in relaxation is exactly the way it's meant to fall,
The way it's meant to sit.
And allow all of that same softness,
That same feeling of acceptance,
Really,
Acceptance of the way the face is,
Acceptance of the way the muscles are in the face and the head.
Feeling all of that just continue to spread naturally down the body,
Down the neck,
Letting your chin fall just really slightly toward your heart.
And as the chin feels like it's kind of drawing toward the heart,
Allow your heart to draw back up toward the chin.
So maybe the heart coming slightly forward out of the shoulders.
Allowing the shoulders to rest down and away from the ears.
Letting all the muscles across the collarbones,
The shoulders,
The arms,
And the hands all soften the same way,
All rest in their acceptance.
Tuning your attention into your heartbeat.
Just noticing the unique rhythm of your own heartbeat.
Maybe just feeling it just with your chest,
Maybe even placing your hand there if you're having trouble feeling it today.
I think that's okay too.
And then as you're feeling this pulsing of your heart,
You can just start to recognize how this heartbeat,
How this pulse is throughout your entire body.
It's not only in your heart center.
So you can allow this sense of love,
Sense of compassion and gratitude that is present in your heart space to aid in that accepting process,
Into that muscle releasing process of your body.
So feeling the rib cage free to rest on the lungs and almost hug the lungs and protect the lungs.
Feeling the muscles in your abdomen and your back resting.
And active only as much as they need to to support you and to hold you up.
But then just resting on your organs,
Hugging,
Protecting your organs.
And the same muscle release,
Love,
Compassion,
Gratitude,
Acceptance,
Spreading down the body into the hips as your hips accept whatever position they're in and soften into that,
Lean into that.
Your glutes fully relax.
The pelvic floor fully softens.
And the full length and weight of your legs all becoming soft.
And it almost feels like all the muscles in your legs and throughout your whole body are just rolling off of the bones,
Just un-gripping from the bones.
And the same in the feet and the toes as well.
And just feeling this first general wave of softness and acceptance across the entire body.
And just noticing the shape that your body is in.
Just seeing how much space you are taking up.
And bringing your attention back into your heart space.
Just becoming curious of how your heart is doing.
And coming at this from a curious and observing and a listening perspective rather than a thinking perspective or a labeling or judging perspective.
And just noticing when those labels or judgments pop up,
Because they will.
But as soon as you notice that a judging thought or a labeling thought has come into your awareness,
Into your mind,
That automatically brings you back into observance.
By observing the fact that you are judging or labeling.
And as you listen closely to your heart,
You can start to notice how your heart is also beating in your hands.
Feeling the pulsing of both palms of your fingers.
And just tracing that natural connection,
Maybe if you're having trouble feeling that right away,
You can just trace your anatomy,
Trace the reality.
Your heart has veins that lead from the heart down the arms and into the hands where there is a pulse.
So that same love,
That same compassion and gratitude that is in your heart also exists in your hands.
We have the power to create from this love in our hands,
In our hearts.
We have the power to heal with our hands,
With our hearts.
Just reminding yourself of that fact.
And then feeling the pulsing also in your ears.
Just noticing how your ears have their own sort of heartbeat.
And you can hear with a full body sort of listening,
You can hear your heartbeat.
And your heart is always beating.
It's kind of like the steady beat that's in the background of everything that you hear throughout your entire life.
Maybe it's really,
Really quiet sometimes and you can't hear it.
You're not aware of it.
But your heart is always there doing its thing,
Keeping you alive.
Without any of your doing,
There is nothing that you are doing to allow your heart to beat.
This is a pure gift of life.
And just feeling a deep sense of gratitude for the reality of that.
You have been gifted this beautiful heart that keeps you alive for so long,
However old you are.
It's been keeping you alive this entire time.
Just taking this moment to give it a little bit of credit for that.
Seeing the heartbeat as well in the center of the forehead.
And just continuing to observe your body and the heartbeats throughout your body as you listen to the following words from Young Pueblo.
Self love begins with acceptance of where we are now and the history we carry.
But it does not stop there.
Self love is an energy we use on our own personal evolution.
It is a meeting and balance of two critically important ideas.
Loving who we currently are and simultaneously transforming into the ideal version of ourselves.
Through these ideas,
Though these ideas may seem contradictory,
They are both required for our ultimate success.
Without acceptance,
Our transformation into a happier and freer self would be highly difficult.
Why?
Because it is much harder to change and let go of what we hate.
Self love helps us delve deeply into ourselves and release the patterns in our subconscious that impact our behavior and emotions.
True self love is when one understands that the inward journey is the path to freedom.
That observing and releasing our inner burdens is what will make us feel lighter and more aware.
Self love does not grow the ego.
It does the opposite.
It is our ego that carries the craving that causes our suffering.
The incessant craving that rests at the center of the ego is the ultimate block that stops us from achieving freedom.
Since true self love is the gateway to unconditional love for all beings,
This must mean that many people in our world are suffering from the lack of self love,
The missing piece.
Your self love is a medicine for the earth.
As your self love grows stronger,
So do the waves of change that you can create.
The beauty of self love is that it can grow into the unconditional love that can end all harm.
I'm just letting those words settle.
Letting anything that served you or interested you in any way settle within you so you can contemplate further.
Anything that did not serve you will naturally just fall away from you.
Just taking this moment to,
If it feels like something you want to do,
Place one hand or maybe both hands on your heart itself.
Just remind yourself of the physical heart that is here and how your physical heart has these spiritual powers and loving,
Healing abilities.
Remind yourself that it is impossible for you to love anyone fully before you love yourself fully.
You can only love someone else as deeply as you love yourself.
That goes for the world as well.
Remembering that healing power that's also in your hands and feeling that feeding into your heart naturally and feeling your heart feeding into the hands and just this transfer of energy,
This feeding.
Take a deep breath into the body,
Into the heart.
You can feel yourself filling up.
As you exhale,
Maybe bringing your hands to a prayer position at heart center and just feeling the pulse of your palms into each other.
Reminding yourself of this power that you always have even when you forget it and gently bowing your head to that power,
To the one who granted you this power,
To your maker,
Your creator,
Whatever word you have for them.
Giving a deep sense of thanks for your heart that is beating and for your body that is here.
Thinking your angels,
Spirits,
Guides,
Ancestors,
Whatever word you have for the love that's all around you.
Bowing to everyone in this space for their time and energy for showing up.
Most importantly,
Bowing to yourself for taking the time out of your busy life for this pure act of self-love and self-care.
May this act continue to heal you through the rest of your days and nights and may you bring the same love into everything that you do and to everyone that you see.
Namaste.
