Anchoring Your Awareness

Experience simple guided sound, breath and body sensation practices to anchor, ground and become fully present.

Transcript

Alright,

Welcome to this 15 minute meditation focusing on the breath,

Sounds,

And the body.

We'll start by just settling in and getting comfortable.

So go ahead and make sure that your feet are on the floor and that you're seated and comfortable upright position,

Allowing your hands to rest gently in your lap.

And you can either close your eyes or just allow them to remain soft.

Mindfulness is simply bringing awareness to our present moment experiences.

One of those experiences is sound.

So we'll start today working with sound,

Just noticing what's around us.

So notice the music playing in the background,

The hum of electricity.

If you can hear the heat or the air.

Listening to the sounds outside,

The cars passing by,

A bird chirping,

A door slamming,

People coughing,

Clearing their throats,

Digestion.

Just being fully present to the sounds that you hear around you.

Not judging them as good or bad,

Right or wrong,

But just simply letting them come up and being aware.

You'll notice that they don't stay,

But that their essence changes.

They get loud.

They get soft.

They come.

They go.

We'll take a minute here to just focus our attention on the sounds around us.

We'll take a minute here to just focus our attention on the sounds around us.

Our minds are naturally made to wander to things that are important to us in the future and the past.

And it's really hard for our mind to stay present to these things that don't matter like sounds.

So don't judge yourself if your mind runs away.

Just know that that's part of our shared humanity and just allow yourself with softness and ease to just come back to the sounds,

Letting go of your thoughts and your judgments.

We can use the sounds to anchor us to the present.

We can also use the breath.

Just begin to bring awareness to your breath right now.

Just noticing what's going on.

Is your breath deep,

Slow,

Long?

Or is it short,

Shallow,

Choppy?

Not trying to change anything but simply seeing what's there.

Notice where you feel your breath.

Is it at the tips of your nostrils?

Is it in the rise and the fall of your shoulders and your chest?

Or is it in the expansion and the contraction of your belly?

Our breath tells a lot about our state of mind.

When we breathe quickly,

When we breathe from our chest we're often anxious or nervous or worried.

But when we breathe slowly into our bellies,

Expanding them,

Breathing in through our nose and out through our mouth,

We're able to bring a sense of peace and calm,

Alert awareness.

You can try now expanding,

Lengthening your breath.

Noticing how every breath is different.

Your body doesn't move exactly the same way with every breath you take.

Notice the differences in the length of your breath.

You can even notice the temperature of the air as it comes into your lungs and as it leaves.

When your mind wanders away from the breath,

Don't judge it but just simply name it.

Thinking,

Worrying,

Wondering,

Questioning.

Or maybe you're not thinking but maybe your attention was distracted by a sound or a body sensation.

You can name that as well.

You can just note sound,

Hunger,

Whatever it is.

Just allowing your attention to come back to the breath.

Taking some time here to experiment and get really curious about our breath.

You can try breathing in for the count of 4,

Holding for 4,

And releasing for 8.

In 2,

3,

4,

Hold 2,

3,

4,

Release 2,

3,

4,

5,

6,

7,

8.

Allowing yourself to breathe in a way that feels comfortable and easeful for you.

Counting rhythmically or just simply noticing.

Being mindful isn't tied only to the breath though.

We can also anchor our awareness in what's going on in our bodies.

So take a second to just check in with your body and see what's there.

Are you uncomfortable?

Is a leg falling asleep?

Do you feel sensation or pain or pulsing in one spot?

Just allow yourself to notice what comes up without judgment,

Without trying to push it away or judge and say it's wrong but just simply noting it.

We'll do this now with a brief body scan.

Sitting at the top of the head,

Feeling your way down the forehead to the eyes,

Down,

Letting the jaw relax,

Letting the mouth be soft.

Moving down the neck into the shoulders,

Seeing if there's pulsing or pressure or tightness.

Just seeing what's there.

Seeing any sound you hear bring you back to the present moment if your mind has wandered.

Moving down now into your torso,

Your chest,

Your abdomen,

Your back.

Breathing deeply into these places,

Allowing them to soften if possible.

Seeing if there's digestion,

Noticing where your clothes touch your body,

Where the body touches the chair,

Any pain,

Any pressure,

Any tingling.

Sweeping your attention down to your hips,

Your glutes,

Your pelvis.

Seeing where you are in your chair,

Seeing if there's warmth or cold,

Seeing if you feel numb,

If there's tightness,

Just naming whatever comes up,

Noting it and allowing it to just be.

Moving back to the arms,

Going down,

All the way down the arms,

Into the hands,

All the way to the fingertips.

Are they chilly?

Are they warm?

Are they touching each other?

Noticing if the arms feel heavy and weighted or light and airy.

Just allowing them to be.

And now sweeping down the legs,

Just seeing what shows up in your legs.

Are they tense?

Does one feel heavier than the other?

Are they cool?

Are they warm?

Can you feel a subtle vibration or pulsation?

Moving down into the feet,

All the way to the toes,

Just seeing what shows up.

And breathing in,

Just allowing the air to flow all the way through your body from the crown of your head to the bottoms of your feet.

Taking a moment to just breathe here,

Just noticing your body or noticing the breath or noticing sounds.

And as we come to the end of the practice,

Just give yourself kindness in whatever way feels right to you.

Begin to wiggle your fingers,

Your toes,

Bring movement back into your body.

And after the sound of the bell,

You can open your eyes.

Reviews

This was a great meditation practice..
Feeling very grateful for your guidance 😊

Lovely one to share thank you💖🙏

This meditation seemed to induce a feeling of calm equanimity in me almost involuntarily. Victoria’s voice is so sweet and nurturing, it feels like I just gave my soul a bubble bath.

Good focus touch points, and a body scan!

Beautiful🙏🏻❤️Namaste and Thank you💫🦋

Great meditation! Very soothing & grounding, loved it 💕

Sweet soothing voice and beautiful awareness to the physical connection of this experience. Thank you!

A very nice Mindfulness session

That was awesome. Truly awesome. Beautiful soothing voice, spaces to digest the nice flow of content. I loved it. Thank you

This was a great meditation practice for me! Thank you.

Nice way to center myself for the day. Namaste.

Really lovely for a grounding morning practice. 😊🙏🏻