Day 18.
Welcome your body and your breath to your meditation practice.
Please find a comfortable seat and sit with your eyes softly closed,
Tuning into your breath,
Stretching your breath and allowing your breath to help you elongate your spine,
Rest your torso back,
Even your head more in line with your spine.
As the breath expands a little deeper,
Let your attention sink down towards your foundation and into the earth.
Settle your roots,
Soften your mind,
Feel the sweet rhythm of your breath bring you back home into your body and into your heart.
Our intention for today is balance and we'll do a balancing breath practice to begin called alternate nostril breathing.
Starting with the right hand,
Closing the right nostril with your right thumb,
Inhale only through your left side.
Sound your attention down as you inhale,
Close your left nostril with your ring and pinky and open up your right nostril and exhale,
Let the crown of your head stretch a little bit more upward as you exhale.
Inhale awareness descends to your foundation as you stretch your breath in through the right.
Close the right and exhale left,
Awareness ascending as the breath comes out.
Inhale through your left,
Close the left,
Exhale right.
Keep going,
Inhale right,
Close off the right and exhale left.
This time inhale left and hold,
See if you can close both nostrils lightly,
Pause in a relaxed way,
The space between your breaths,
Keeping your mind's eye right in the center of your forehead,
Open up the right,
Exhale all the breath out.
Inhale through the right,
Ground and anchor into your foundation,
Close the right and hold,
Specializing in a nice vertical spine,
A line of energy from the base of your spine through the crown of your head,
Awareness resting in that third eye,
Open up the left,
Exhale the breath.
One more just like that,
Inhale,
Full breath in and hold without creating any tension.
Keeping the left side closed,
Exhale right,
Inhale right and close,
Hold,
Focusing on the beating of your heart perhaps,
Space between your breaths expanding,
Closing the right,
Exhale left,
Release your arm.
Keep your awareness at the tip of your nose and just see if without closing off your nostrils,
If you can take your awareness from your left side only,
Breathe up from the left corner of your nose all the way into the third eye as you inhale,
Trying to only take the breath in on one side in your mind's eye,
Right to the third eye and from that third eye back down and out through your right side only.
Inhale it's a soft breath coming in just through the right side without your hands.
I know that's hard and it might not happen,
Most likely not.
And then through your left on the exhale,
Think of it more as a brain balancing exercise,
Let your eyes follow your breath,
So the eyes go from the bottom left all the way up,
Diagonal up to that third eye and from that third eye diagonal down to the right on the exhale.
Think of this as piercing that third eye a little more,
Inhale through the right side to your third eye and then out through your left.
Now both nostrils come in at the same time breath,
Bigger breath piercing the right into that very center of your third eye,
Think of it as light and then from the third eye back out through both nostrils,
Really feeling yourself spread out on your foundation,
Wider.
Inhale from that width of your foundation,
Gathering your awareness up into that third eye point and exhale back out to your foundation,
Awareness stretches out wide.
Now hold your awareness downward in your foundation as you inhale,
Think of a triangle and you're at the base of your triangle and as you exhale,
Flip the triangle and go down into the earth.
Like you're tunneling down into the earth with your awareness like a downward facing triangle send your roots down,
Watering the roots downward,
Feeling your grounding cord connect you to the earth.
On that next inhalation go back up to your foundation,
Go wide at your base,
Hold it there as you exhale and then one more time we're inhaling up to the third eye and from the third eye as you exhale settle back into the seat of your clairvoyant self as your intuitive wisdom self in the center of your head.
Feel your body rest back into this knowing state where you become a witness to your body,
To the busyness of the mind,
To the movements of the heart,
To the vibrations of your feelings and see if you can sit in this space of silence,
Space between the thoughts as best as you can and as a thought comes in you watch and witness it go by holding yourself maybe with mantra if it helps.
So we've offered many here you can do Om Reem Shreem,
You can do So Hum,
I Am That.
Whatever mantra you choose right now stay steady with yourself for the rest of this time in silence.
Deepen your breath.
Sink up your breath to your body keeping a quiet mind,
An expansive heart,
Seeing if you can utilize the benefits from your meditation practice into the rest of your day creating a little more balance as you go.
We can stretch the arms to the sky.
Deep breath in,
Hands come together and all the way down to your heart in gratitude always.
Realizing your practice is for the benefit of you and all beings.
Namaste.
