Welcome to today's meditation.
Please find your way to a comfortable seat or you may choose to lay down on the earth.
Wherever you are just be sure that you can feel the spine straight and strong,
Steady and at ease.
You may choose to close your eyes or you can have a soft gaze in front of you.
And right away take your attention to your hands,
Noticing how your hands feel in this moment.
Maybe you feel some sort of sensation in the hands whether it's an ache or a pain.
Maybe the hands feel at ease.
Let's extend the hands,
Extend the fingers as long as possible.
Spread the fingers out as much as you can.
Reach out through through the fingers.
Feel a little tension traveling through the hands because all the muscles are held tight as you extend and draw another inhale and relax on the exhale.
Then squeeze your fists,
Fingers coming into the palms,
Thumbs clasping over the fingers and you squeeze those fists together.
Squeeze,
Squeeze,
Squeeze.
Super engaged.
Feel that tension traveling up through the arms.
On your exhale relax the hands.
Maybe you notice the sensation in the hands here,
The warmth of that energy.
And then you can gently lay the hands on the lap,
Palms face up if you're seated or if you're laying down the hands can come down by the sides.
Again palms facing up.
Your attention will travel from your hands to your heart feeling the breath coming in and out.
Notice the movement through the lung space,
Through the heart space and stay with this breath right here.
Now as you breathe in and like you to visualize and notice this feeling of the breath,
The energy drawing in through the nose,
Down through the throat into the heart.
That's your inhale,
This filling and softening of the heart.
Exhale to take that energy from the heart down the arms out through the hands.
So the inhale,
The breath travels into the heart filling the heart and on the exhale you move from heart to hands.
And keep breathing in this way,
Filling the heart space and then using that heart energy to travel down to the hands.
We're focusing today on learning to hold lightly rather than tightly and one of the best ways to create that softness in our actions,
That softness in our holding is to let it come from a soft heart.
The energy of our heart and our hands they are connected.
Traditional Chinese medicine there's many meridian lines,
Energy lines that travel between the heart in the center of the chest and out through the fingertips.
So as we begin to soften through our heart we can allow some of that softness to travel into our hands and into our actions.
So continue to breathe into the heart and out through the hands.
Let's draw to mind someone or something that fills your heart with love,
Something that calls deep joy within you.
Feel that deep joy in your heart,
See that person or that thing and again with each exhale send that deep joy or contentment or happiness to the hands.
You can release that image of someone or something that fills you with that joy and love and then call to mind something you're truly grateful for.
Again might be a person,
Might be a thing,
Might be a situation but really be in that moment of gratitude.
Really let it fill and inhabit the heart and continue to bring that gratitude to the hands on the exhale.
Release whatever it is you are grateful for and draw to mind something that inspires a sense of awe or wonder.
Maybe it's a sunrise or a beautiful tree,
The majestic mountains or the ocean,
Rainbow or just something that inspires some awe.
Breathe it into the heart space.
Feel that sense of awe,
Exhaling it to the hands.
Release that image and call to mind something that inspires care and compassion.
Maybe it's a small child or an animal,
Someone you're driven to help in your world,
Just anything that wakens the desire to connect to another.
Again this might even still be nature that you have a desire to connect with.
Inhale that care and compassion filling the heart and exhale it to the hands.
You can release that image.
One more time we'll inhale to fill the heart and exhale down through the hands.
You can bring the palms to touch the center of the heart or if you're laying down you might rest one hand on top of the other on top of the heart.
And here with palms pressed or palms at the heart space take a moment to set an intention for the rest of your day.
See whatever it is you are going about and doing and the rest of your day or perhaps into your morning and see how it would go.
See how it would feel if you approached that day with this love with this love and awe and gratitude and compassion.
Setting the intention to hold lightly to let your hands be an extension of your heart.
May you go forth in peace and love.
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.
