So in this moment,
If you're feeling overwhelmed,
Just give yourself some space to just sit for a moment and feel the contact of your body on a chair or cushion,
Your feet on the floor,
And take a moment to notice any touch sensations in this moment that ground you to being here right now.
If you can take a nice deep breath in and breath out,
Do that.
Or even a subtle little sigh,
And see what you can let go of.
But if it's a little hard to breathe,
If you're feeling tight,
Just pretend you're breathing out through a straw,
Making the opening in your mouth quite small,
And breathe out through that imaginary straw,
Which will naturally elongate your breath out.
Just letting the breath out be longer than the breath in,
Even if just a little bit.
Take your time.
And if after breathing out,
You need a little catch breath in between,
That's fine.
You just take a little breath to make you comfortable in between the longer breaths out.
And when you're ready,
Breathe in and do another elongated breath out,
Like through a straw,
With or without the little catch breath in between.
Whatever feels easiest for you.
Go at your own tempo and pace.
And no matter how many you've done thus far,
Take another easy,
Gentle,
Long,
Slow,
Cool breath out,
Like through a straw.
And know that you can continue doing this if it feels good for you.
Or you could do it at any point.
If the overwhelm starts to rise,
You always have that breath out that brings down the water level.
Now,
I'm going to invite you to extend your attention now to the outer boundaries of your body.
So there's this whole body with all these sensations on the inside,
But you've got your attention to the outer boundary of the body.
You've already before this come in to feel the touch sensations of the weight of the body grounding you,
And feet on the floor,
The butt on the chair.
But now we easily and lightly extend our attention out to the whole outer boundary of the body.
We're spreading our attention out.
And you will lose detail of specific sensations as you hold more in awareness.
That's fine.
That's natural.
Just let everything on the inside go soft as it naturally will.
As you spread your attention to the outer boundary of your body,
That's a large area to cover.
And then let your attention extend outside of the boundary of the body to the space around you.
Maybe a foot,
Maybe two feet,
Maybe more.
It's like you're opening to the space around you.
And there's nothing in this space.
It can be peacefully empty and spacious,
Or maybe it's filled with a color or a flavor of energy.
Allow your attention to fill that space.
And as you do,
You can maybe allow yourself to open,
Maybe allow yourself to be supported by this space.
Almost like there's a buoyancy,
Or maybe a hug,
Or warmth,
Or maybe an opening that you can allow yourself to release into.
Ah,
More space.
And if none of that is available for you now,
That's fine.
Just allow your attention to tune in to the space around you.
Rest in it.
No need for anything to happen.
Just allow your attention to expand out to this space around you.
It can include everything in the space,
In the inside part,
Where the body is.
Get softer and lighter the more you spread your attention outside.
The spreading of attention just gives space for everything to move and sort itself.
Let nature do it,
And maybe it supplies some loving support at the same time.
In any event,
There's just plenty of space.
And you may or may not have a visual impression for this,
Whether it's a color,
Or another image,
Or it may just be the visual impression of your body with space around it.
Just allow that space.
Allow it.
Open to it.
It's space to help you expand out into it.
So it's almost like there's more volume to you,
And everything has all the room it needs to do whatever it needs to do within this larger space.
And with this larger space,
Notice if now there's any flow,
Any movement,
Change,
Vibration,
Tingliness.
The body itself might be softer,
Might be lighter,
Might be vibratory.
And let anything that wants to move in any way move however it wants to move,
Trusting that nature knows the way to move.
And if there's any tension anywhere in the body,
Little pockets of tension,
Let this movement soften it.
And if there isn't movement,
Maybe on a breath out,
Which is a kind of movement,
As you expand your focus,
You can give that tension an invitation to unravel,
To let go,
To soften.
And that may release some energy.
Tension is caught energy by softening around it.
You're releasing energy.
You may get warm.
It's all good stuff.
Just let it flow.
Let anything move that wants to move.
We are opening our attention to include more spaciousness,
Which allows everything on the inside to soften and maybe flow.
And now,
If you're any more open than you were,
If there's more flow,
If you're more relaxed,
More present,
Keeping with that spaciousness,
That open attention,
Imagine going through your day or evening or whatever comes next,
Maintaining that easy,
Open,
Spacious,
Supported awareness.
It's available to you in any moment.
So whenever you need to,
You need just consider it.
And it can flood in and help you open and flow and soften,
And at the same time be present and grounded.
Notice how that changes things.
You may have new insights.
What's it like to be more present and grounded and open and flowing as you deal with your daily life?
