Take a breath into this new day,
Deciding that this day is as good as any day to have a good day.
Sensing the freshness that the morning brings,
A total mind-body reset as the opportunity clock goes off and signals the start of something new.
It's time to set an intention for today and to begin the day with a moment of checking in and settling in before you get carried away and feel the pull of all the different demands on your attention.
Begin by letting your whole body stretch into a smile.
Take a full body stretch.
Reach the arms up,
Maybe twirl the wrists.
Take a full deep breath and then on the exhale,
Close down the eyes,
Release the arms.
Settle into a comfortable seated posture that allows you to stabilize the body and stabilize the attention.
Then smiling inward toward yourself,
Offering yourself a bit of gratitude for giving yourself the gift of your time and attention before you get busy with the rest of your day and you forget all about yourself.
Putting into mind just one thing that you're grateful for right now this morning and letting that feeling of gratitude become more deeply grooved by reflecting on why you're grateful for that thing.
We're just going to begin this day and this practice by coming back to a sense of ease and clarity so we set the tone for the rest of the day and so that we're better able to catch ourselves when we spread our attention too thin and we lose sight of the important things at the expense of the urgent and less important things.
Recognizing these patterns of doing and non-doing that don't always serve us,
Relearning how to focus the mind.
Starting by taking a few deep breaths,
Inhaling through the nose,
Exhaling out the mouth.
Deep,
Deep breaths down into the belly,
Creating space in the body and space in the mind.
Breathing in and exhaling,
Relaxing open.
As you continue with this deep body breathing,
Bring to mind an intention in the form of three feeling words,
Three feelings you would like to invite into your day,
Knowing what's ahead.
Maybe a feeling of focus,
Of clarity,
Of excitement.
Maybe a feeling of inspiration,
Of discipline,
Of commitment.
Or perhaps a feeling of mindfulness,
Of compassion,
Of creativity.
Three feelings that you would like to bring into the day.
Continuing with the breaths and on your inhales imprinting those feelings into the body one by one.
What does it actually feel like to experience those feelings now in your body?
Maybe you can notice where you feel each feeling the most.
It can be helpful to refine the attention to this place so that as you move throughout your day,
You're able to breathe into this part of the body as a rapid point of access to these feeling states.
So if you feel you need to come back to them,
You can always bring your attention there and just breathe deeply.
Deepening those feelings.
What does it feel like to feel those feelings now?
Now where do you feel them the most?
Bringing an easy smile to your lips.
Just noticing what it feels like to smile on the inside of the mouth.
Relaxing and enticing on the inner walls of the mouth.
Letting the smile spread from the mouth down across your chest.
Just feeling the felt expression of a smile across your chest.
Letting the smile spread across your mind,
Relaxing the atmosphere of your awareness.
Just allowing the mind to merge with this felt sense of a smile so that whatever shows up today,
You can experience yourself a little less at the effect of your mind and much more as the force behind it.
This friendly presence.
Bringing a smile,
A quality of acceptance to whatever happens next.
Bringing back these three feelings,
Maybe helpful to name them,
And then just drop back into the experience of them in your body.
As if you could feel them now,
Breathing into them,
Directing your mind and deepening your breath.
To close,
Just recognizing that these emotions are always available to you.
Most of us experience the world from the outside in,
But through the mind and the breath,
You can train yourself to experience the world from the inside out by being aware and meeting whatever happens with a willingness to breathe into it.
As if every day you find a reason to say,
Yes,
This will be a good day.
And every night you find a reason to say,
Yes,
This has been a good day.
Then one day,
Looking back on all your days,
You will be able to know that yes,
This has been a good life.
Every day is a new beginning.
Take a deep breath and smile.
The day has just begun.
