Sitting or lying in a comfortable position,
And if you're lying down,
Ensure you're not going to fall asleep.
Allow yourself to bend your knees or raise your arms.
If you're sitting in a chair or you're cross-legged,
Allow yourself in this moment to settle into your body,
Focusing your awareness on your body.
Let's do a simple scan from head to toe,
Noticing if you have any tension.
See in your body if you can adjust your position to release 5% or even 10% more into a more relaxing,
Calm state,
And allowing ourselves in this moment,
Through the breath,
To find our breath as an anchor.
Together,
We're going to take a cleansing breath and sigh it out,
Breathing in and sigh it out,
And let's do that again.
Breathing in,
Sigh,
And one more just like that,
And see if you can really get into it,
Get into the depths of the diaphragm,
Into that belly,
Breathing in and let it out,
Sigh,
And allow yourself to just center here.
As we take those three cleansing breaths,
Recognize we're allowing ourselves out of that sympathetic fight-flight activation into the parasympathetic,
That rest and digest,
That calming and centering and grounding place where we can allow for the breath to be an anchor for us to come back to and center and allow for a more calm and peaceful state of mind.
And as we are entering that rest and digest,
Ease and release state,
Begin to focus on your breath,
And if focusing on your breath feels somewhat overwhelming,
Focus on a very neutral place in your body,
Like maybe your pinky or your big toe.
When the breath is available to you,
As the breath is available to you,
Begin to focus on your attention to the breath and how the breath begins on the inhale through the nostrils and through the sinuses,
To the back of the throat,
To the chest area near the clavicle,
To the chest area of the heart,
And all the way down to the belly,
Filling up the lungs.
See if you can really focus on the sensation of the breath going in,
In this moment.
The nostrils,
The sinuses,
The back of the throat,
Deep into the belly,
And the breath as it rises on the exhale from the belly,
To the chest,
To the throat,
Through the sinuses,
Out of the nostrils,
And the sensation of the warm breath on the exhale above your upper lip.
And at any moment,
If your mind wanders,
That's okay.
Our mind does wander.
Thoughts come and go.
We have so many thoughts that come through us throughout the day,
Where that mind,
Our smart mind,
Is working to make these decisions for us to keep us safe.
And it's scanning,
Trying to take in our environment.
And in this moment,
If a thought arises,
Watch it like the wave in the ocean.
It may be a really giant wave,
A big thought,
Maybe it has a big emotion with it.
Maybe it's just a little baby thought of planning,
Like I need to take out the garbage.
But whatever that thought is that comes in,
Or the series of thoughts,
Notice how a thought really is a wave.
And behind that is the water,
Is that stable source,
The ocean.
And that wave rises and falls away.
Just like the breath rises and falls within your body.
Allow yourself,
In this moment,
To tell that smart mind,
Thank you.
And I'm safe right now.
Thank you for coming with these thoughts into my awareness.
And release it.
Release that smart mind and say thank you so very much.
I'm safe now.
I'm going back to watching my breath.
Breathing in and breathing out.
And if you have any tension in the body,
Where the position that you might be lying in or sitting in is gnawing at you,
Take in this deep breath.
And imagine that you're sending fresh molecules of oxygen to the area of tension in your body.
And these oxygen molecules are allowing for more space.
They're allowing for more expansion.
They're allowing you to sit or lie in this position and expand your window of tolerance to your awareness of the easefulness that can be met in a moment of discomfort.
And breathing in again,
Imagining sending buoyant molecules of oxygen to that area in your body.
That's allowing for more and more expansion,
And more and more release,
And more and more space.
And breathing in and out,
You can release that.
Coming back to the breath.
And out.
And allowing yourself to meet yourself in this moment with the breath,
Wherever you are in life.
And just like moments in our life can be filled with so much,
So much of many things.
The joy,
The frustration,
The easefulness,
The tension.
All these complex experiences are moments that rise into our consciousness,
Into our awareness.
And they fade away.
That whatever experience or circumstance we may be in,
In this moment in our life,
Nothing is permanent.
None of it lasts forever.
And to allow that to be met with that expansive ocean of awareness.
How an ocean is made from raindrops of clouds.
And how clouds form from mist of evaporated dew from the ocean.
That everything is ever changing in this moment.
Right here and right now.
Our present awareness rises and falls away.
I'm going to have you sit here in a moment of silence.
Free from words of guiding.
Allow you to connect to your breath.
Connect to this moment.
And exhaling.
Coming back to the present moment.
The here and now.
Gently coming back to the room.
Maybe tapping your fingers together.
Wiggling your toes.
Gently blinking your eyes open.
And if it's available to you,
And open to you,
Placing your hand on your heart and feeling the breath in this moment of the here and the now.
