A Morning Meditation Ritual

This is my favorite morning meditation ritual where we will perform a few different practices for keeping us calm, intentional, loving and grateful. In 20 minutes we will create a sacred moment of peace by creating calm with a simple breathing practice, before creating a personalized I am affirmation to empower ourselves, and send love and kindness to yourself and others. The final minutes focus on changing the wiring of the brain to become more grateful. This is a powerful daily practice.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Kori and I will be guiding you today on one of my favorite morning meditation rituals.

Let's begin this meditation by coming to a seated,

Comfortable position.

Make your spine nice and long.

Ground into the floor with your hips or your tailbone.

And bring your awareness to the tip of your nose as you consciously watch the breath moving in.

And slowly flowing out of the body.

Feel the breath moving in through the nose.

Down through your throat,

Expanding the lungs,

Massaging the heart,

Lifting and expanding each and every rib.

Exhale,

Feel all the muscles of the body release and relax.

Inhale in.

Feel the crown of the head lifting up.

Bringing that prana,

Chi,

Oxygen into all the little spaces of the body you're creating.

And let it all go with each and every exhale.

In Tibetan Buddhism,

They refer to this practice as Shamatha and believe that it's calming.

Softening the thinking mind,

Bringing you back into the body.

As the air moves in and out,

Keep your awareness on the physical sensations you're feeling.

Does the air feel cool or warm as it moves in through the nostrils?

Is there an area of the body you feel may need a little extra attention?

If so,

Feel free to bring this energetic breath into that place.

Feel the breath moving in and breath moving out.

Breath moving in and breath moving out.

With each conscious breath,

You move more into this present moment.

Less in the past or the future of the mind and right here into the now and what your body is feeling and what is currently happening.

Breath moving in and breath moving out.

As you inhale,

Swing your arms up overhead,

Lengthening the body even more than before,

Reaching as high as you can with your fingertips and as you exhale,

Allow them to move wide out away from you and all the way back down to the ground like an angel.

Inhale,

Swinging your arms out to the side and all the way up to the sky.

And exhale,

Release them,

Lengthening them away from your heart and then down to the ground.

Three more rounds,

Breathing and moving.

The mind wanders away,

Just come back to the breath.

One more deep,

Full breath.

Slowly bring your hands back down,

Either onto your knees or folded into your lap.

And as you inhale through the nose,

Bring your awareness to the crown of your head.

To the very tip.

This area that is open when we are born.

Where many believe the soul enters the body.

This area,

The crown of the head,

Your crown chakras,

Often an easier place to feel sensations like tingling,

Itching,

Warmth,

Some sort of activation.

From here,

Bring your awareness down the front line into your forehead.

Your third eye.

Feel your eyebrows and your eyes with your eye sockets,

Supporting your eyeballs.

Held up with your cheekbones.

Which connect to your jaw.

Wiggle your bottom jaw and find a nice relaxed facial expression.

Unfurl,

Untense,

Release the face.

Feel where the tongue is touching the back of your teeth.

Move in from the lips into the mouth.

Follow the mouth down into the throat.

Feel where the neck is touching your shoulders.

Feel the top of your arms and your clavicle bone all the way around the edge of your shoulders where your arms begin.

And follow your consciousness down your right arm from your shoulder.

Down your right bicep,

Your right elbow,

Your right forearm,

Wrist,

Palms.

Your thumb and all four individual fingers beside it.

Inhale up through those fingertips all the way up through your arm and into your heart center.

Take a deep breath here.

Feeling the lungs massaging your heart.

On the next inhale,

Allow your breath to move up and through the chest into the other shoulder where the shoulder meets the arm.

Move down your left bicep and upper arm,

Your left elbow,

Forearm,

Wrist,

Palm,

Thumb,

Pointer finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger,

And pinky finger.

Inhale and bring your awareness from those fingertips all the way back up into your heart again.

And again,

Another deep breath into your core heart center.

Feel the expansion and the motivation that happens on the inhale and the release and rest that takes place on the exhale.

Take another deep breath into your heart.

And as you exhale,

Allow your awareness to move down through all the core organs,

Down into your belly and into your pelvis.

Feel where your butt cheeks or your tailbone are touching the ground and feel that support of the earth holding you.

Move down your right leg from your thigh to your knee to your shin,

Ankle,

The top of your foot and the bottom of your foot and feel all of your toes.

Inhale,

Bring your awareness up into your pelvis and move down the other leg.

Thigh,

Quad,

Knee,

Shin,

Foot,

Ankle,

The top of the foot,

The sole of the foot and all of your five toes.

Take a deep inhale into your toes and feel the breath moving all the way back up the body,

All the way up through your spinal channel.

And bring your awareness back up to the crown of the head.

Within one breath,

Move from the crown of the head all the way back down to the feet and all the way back up.

Do you feel any energy moving or places that you're called to spend extra attention right now?

Is your intuition asking something from you today?

Does your mind feel busy?

Does your mind feel calm?

And without reacting,

Just observe and bring extra breaths to any area you might be called.

Move into your heart center again and ask yourself,

And ask yourself,

What do I need to feel safe and secure in my body right now?

If there is a certain feeling you would like to amplify in your life and in your body,

Let's use an affirmation to plant that seed into the subconscious now.

This affirmation will be an I am statement and feel free to enter anything you would like into that space.

If you've been feeling stressed,

Perhaps use the affirmation,

I am calm.

I am at peace.

If you've been feeling insecure,

Perhaps you can use the affirmation,

I am healthy and I am whole.

Repeat your I am statement as many times as you need here.

And feel that statement moving throughout the body,

Moving into each and every cell.

And send love into each and every cell.

Take a moment now to love yourself.

Feel a warmth,

Like warm honey,

Dripping all over your body as an image of love,

Thick,

Unconditional love.

And think of someone you deeply love.

Send them love.

Someone you barely know,

Maybe someone you feel neutral for.

And take a moment now to send them love.

And someone you might have had a struggle with recently.

Let this person come to your mind.

And even though it may be difficult,

Send them love.

And imagine yourself,

This person that you love,

The neutral person and the person you're struggling with all together in your mind.

And say,

May all sentient beings know peace.

May all sentient beings know happiness.

May all sentient beings be free from suffering.

And rest in this realization that pain and confusion and ignorance are inevitably inevitably rest in this realization that pain,

Confusion and ignorance are inevitably a part of the journey.

We all want to know peace and happiness.

And we don't have control over the outer world,

But we can nurture our inner world and how we respond by taking the time to practice these healthy rituals.

So finally,

On your last few breaths here,

I want you to breathe in love.

So you can exhale kindness.

Take a moment to breathe in love and think of ways that you're grateful for yourself.

Think of the things you love about yourself and list them in your head.

You'll get better at this with practice.

So practice finding ways to love yourself each and every day and the ways you love yourself will grow.

And add a few more things that you're grateful for in your whole life.

And finally,

Let's bring our hands back up to the sky with a big inhale all the way up.

As you exhale,

Bring your hands and prayer position down into your heart.

In front of your heart.

Inhale and on your exhale,

Let's make the sacred sound three times to feel the vibrations moving through the body and to wake ourselves from this meditative state.

Inhale.

Ah.

Ah.

Thank you for joining me for this morning meditation ritual.

I hope you found comfort and peace here.

And I invite you to join me again.

Tomorrow morning.

Or any morning that you mean.

Choose to start your day in such a beautiful way.

Shanti Shanti Shanti.

Namaste.

Reviews

I loved this. I really felt this deep in my heart and body. Beautiful and soothing.

You are so wonderful….this is the fourth consecutive morning I’ve practiced your meditation and it is medicine for my soul.

Such a beautiful meditation, I especially love the incorporation of arm movement . Thank you for a calm loving start to my day . Sending love