Hello and welcome in the class.
This is a short and sweet meditation practice.
Today we'll be working with the inner smile and heal the parts of ourselves that are craving a little bit of smile and healing.
Please find a comfortable seat.
I'm sitting on a block.
I suggest you sit up on a block or a bolster,
Meditation cushion,
Really anything or a chair so that your spine can be nice and upright.
Place your hands down to your legs,
Either palms facing down for more grounding feeling or palms facing up for more uplifting feeling.
So depending on how you feel,
Position your hands and your legs,
Roll your shoulders up,
Back and down a couple of times and then release the shoulders down and gently close your eyes.
We're going to start our practice with three deep breaths.
Your next inhale,
Imagine you're pulling the inhale from the center of the earth and it travels through your sits bones,
Through your spine,
Up to the crown of your head and beyond and then you sigh out with your exhale and send the awareness back down,
Connecting the sits bones with the crown.
Again,
Deep,
Deep breath in,
Feel your body grow more spacious,
Your entire being expands.
Sigh out,
Soften the shoulders and the face and send your sits bones even more into the ground.
One last deep,
Deep breath in and a grounding breath out.
Feel your two sits bones pressing against the ground and this feeling gives you a sense of presence.
You know that you are right here,
Right now.
Connect it with the present moment through all of your five senses.
Listen with both ears,
Noticing any sounds that travel through your ears.
Notice the taste in your mouth.
Become aware of what you can smell through your nose.
Notice what you can feel through the surface of your skin,
The fabric of your clothing,
The temperature of the air,
The ground that's holding you.
Finally noticing what you can see through your closed eyes.
Rumi says in one of his poems,
Close your two eyes to see with the other one and so we close our two eyes that connect us with the external world to open our third eye that shows us our inner landscapes.
Begin to ask yourself and kindly observe what does it feel like to be me right now?
Asking yourself,
What does it feel like to be me right now?
And you listen for the answer with curiosity and compassion.
Notice how is your physical body doing today?
Where do you feel open?
Where do you feel closed?
Where do you feel energized?
Where do you feel weak?
Where do you feel healthy?
Which part of your physical body is in need of healing?
Give yourself your undivided attention and listen.
Moving your attention,
Towards the area of your heart,
Your emotional body.
How is your heart doing today?
What emotions are swirling through it?
Is there a feeling of expansion or feeling of contraction connected to these emotions?
Observe with kindness,
Holding space for yourself so that you can open up,
Let it out and be honest with yourself.
How's your heart doing today?
How are you really?
Finally,
Moving your awareness into your mind and you begin to observe your mind.
How is your mind today?
Is your mind slow and calm?
Or is the stream of your thoughts rather chaotic and wild like a river?
Are your thoughts like monkeys jumping from one topic to another?
Or do they have a pace of a tortoise?
Slow and wise.
Again,
You just want to observe.
And notice how is your mind doing today?
Is it concentrated or scattered?
Observe it with compassion.
Next,
You begin to notice the two corners of your mouth that you have and you pull them apart.
Right corner traveling towards the right ear,
Left corner of your mouth traveling towards the left ear and they form a mysterious smile of Mona Lisa or a big smile of a child that just got their ice cream.
Let this smile sit on your lips.
You know that when somebody smiles at you,
It feels good.
The effect of a smile is healing.
Now you're smiling too.
You feel the smile from the inside.
You're smiling at yourself from the inside.
And you let this smile travel through your entire body.
You feel this smile fill up your entire being.
Let this smile fill up your body,
Your heart and your mind.
Maybe there's a color connected to that smile.
Stay with this image for a few more moments.
Smile your inner smile touching your body,
Your heart and your mind with a healing quality to its touch.
Then you turn your attention towards the breath,
Still keeping that smile on your lips.
Take a deep breath in.
Let it out.
Join your hands at your heart.
Bow your head down gently.
Lift your chin up and very slowly blink your eyes open.
I thank you for joining this practice.
I wish you a beautiful day.
Namaste.
