This meditation is a guided practice of around 10 minutes.
So taking a moment to get comfortable in a chair,
Maybe lying down on the floor.
And taking this as an invitation to pause,
To step away from the busyness of the season and connect to the everyday,
The ordinary,
The mundane.
To begin with,
I invite you to check in with the body,
Perhaps noting the points of contact that you're making with the earth,
Shining the spotlight of your attention around the body,
And perhaps taking an internal weather report.
How are you today?
Gently scanning from the feet to the ankles,
The knees,
The thighs,
The pelvis,
The stomach,
Chest,
Lower back,
Upper back,
Your hands and arms,
Neck,
The scalp and the face.
Perhaps noting points of tension and maybe adjusting.
Remembering though that there's no need to change anything.
We're exploring what is in this moment,
Taking the time to pay attention to our bodies and listen to its wisdom,
Learning its language,
Exploring the messages it sends us.
Within our days,
We often ignore these messages.
So this is an invitation to check in with yourself.
How are you today?
How are you feeling?
How is your body in this moment?
What is this felt sensation of being you in this moment?
We've stepped out of the doing mode and into the being mode,
Being present for this moment with the body.
And now I invite you to narrow the spotlight of your attention to the breath and finding a point within the breath that's most vivid for you today.
It could be the nostrils or the back of the throat,
The upper chest,
The belly,
The sides of the ribs,
Perhaps even the gentle expansion at the back as the ribs slightly push out with each in-breath and then deflate with each out-breath.
So just exploring for a few moments your breath and finding a point that's most vivid for you today.
With curiosity and interest and playfulness,
I invite you to narrow your attention within the breath to the out-breath,
Exploring the sensations of the out-breath.
Each time your mind wanders,
Which it will,
That's its job,
Congratulating yourself for noticing and bringing yourself back gently but firmly back to the breath and the experience of the out-breath and that point that you found most vivid earlier.
And now I invite you to bring your attention to the in-breath.
Using that same point within the breath that you found earlier,
Just gently turning your attention to your experience of the in-breath.
Like snowflakes,
No breath is the same.
With curiosity and interest,
Noticing and exploring what you find here in this ordinary everyday moment.
And now I invite you to move your attention towards the pauses,
Those spaces between the in-breath and the out-breath.
They may only be a nanosecond.
I invite you to pay attention and notice those pauses.
And now I invite you to expand your attention from the breath to include all of the body.
The experience of breathing within your body,
Making note of the space above you,
The space beneath you,
To the side of you.
Where do you begin and end as we practice being in this moment?
The felt sense of the breath within our body.
It's not about changing anything.
We're noticing what is here,
What's present for us.
Being with what is.
And I invite you to scan your body again from head down to toe and check in with your internal weather report.
How are you now?
And as we draw this meditation to a close,
I invite you to take this centered,
Connected and awake awareness with you into whatever you have left to do today.
And well done for taking this active step and taking care of your own health and well-being.
