Welcome to this guided meditation.
Today's meditation will last approximately 5 to 8 minutes.
So let's get started and find a comfortable seat.
Now I like to think of the comfortable seat as a place that supports us in strengthening and lengthening our spine.
So our spine and our neck should be aligned and it's almost as if we're lifting upward.
We almost feel like somebody is above us,
Tugging ever so slightly to align our spine and bring it straight to the sky.
Once our spine is straight,
Let's lift our shoulders up,
Back,
Roll them down nicely to our sides.
We can place our hands in our lap or we can place our hands on our thigh.
If we place our palms up,
We're receiving energy.
If we place our palms down,
We are grounding.
Now before we go any further,
Let's take a big breath in through our nose and exhale.
This is a very good way to calm the nervous system,
To calm the body,
So we're bringing calm to our meditative practice right away.
Now let's close our eyes and focus on our breath.
Breathing in through our nose and out through our nose.
Let the breath become natural and calm.
Let's find the edges of the breath,
Any kind of roughness to the breath and try and smooth these edges and roughness out.
So that our breath is really not as much an in-breath and an out-breath as it is one cycle of breath.
So just be conscious of the breath knowing that every inhalation is bringing in life force energy to your body and every exhalation is releasing that which is not serving you.
Continue to stay with your breath as a focal point.
Relax,
Relax,
Relax.
Now continue to be with your breath.
As your breath is your guide,
Your breath is your anchor.
Let the breath keep you solidly grounded in the present moment.
There will be thoughts that will pop up and as the thought pops up,
Simply recognize and acknowledge that this thought came to your field of vision and let it leave.
We are not attaching to the thought.
We are not expanding the thought.
We are not growing it and we are not minimizing it.
It's our job in meditation to simply know the thought is there.
Every time a thought comes to us and we react to it or attach to it or give it energy,
That thought is depleting to us.
So as we sit and meditate,
As we sit in stillness,
Our job is just to notice the thought,
Not to expand it,
Not to try and find out what it meant or means to us.
And if you can,
Try to expand the space between each thought.
If we are able to expand the space between thoughts or the gap,
What we are doing is we are building a buffer on either side of the thought so we can actually see the thought more clearly for what it is.
And when thoughts are less compressed or jumbled together,
We as an aware being actually get more clarity from the meditative process.
It's not to say that you are supposed to be examining each thought while meditating,
But the clarity that you develop in the meditative process is something that you will take away from the meditative process.
And in your daily life,
When you are doing something,
You will see a clarity that you have not seen before and everything comes from being aware in meditation.
So if somebody cuts you off on the street,
On your way home from work,
You will not be processing it as though that happened directly to you.
It had nothing to do with you.
And this is where meditation and clarity of thought all come back together.
Now in this last couple of minutes,
Let's just focus on bringing in the breath,
Letting it circulate through the body,
Exhaling as it leaves the body.
Let the process of awareness take you into your environment so that you feel the chair,
The floor,
The sounds you hear.
Just simply become closer.
Breathing in,
Breathing out.
And allow this time to be about cultivating your own space in the present moment,
Becoming closer to a presence of your own.
Simply stay with this,
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Let your awareness be clear,
Concise and peaceful.
Hold on to this moment and as you leave meditation,
Carry it forward with you into your day.
It is a slice of the present moment that was given to you.
And in every meditation,
Understand that it is special,
It is yours and that you can grow this into something simply amazing,
Something you can take into every aspect of your life.
Thank you for meditating with me today.
