Take a few minutes to step back from the busyness and the doing of the day.
Close your eyes or rest your gaze softly on the floor.
You might look out the window and observe something in nature.
Then bring your attention to your body and feel your feet firmly planted on the floor.
Or perhaps your body resting in the chair.
And bring a sense of dignity into the body.
Relaxed,
Comfortable,
But upright posture.
Take a moment to feel the connection points of your body with the chair or the floor.
See how sensitive you can be to the weight,
The pressure,
The sensation.
Take a deep inhalation and let it fall out of your mouth.
Try that again.
A nice deep inhale.
Open the mouth and let the exhale fall out.
You might even feel your shoulders relax a little bit.
Invite a heaviness into the shoulders,
The elbows.
A sense of being weighted down.
The forehead might smooth.
Release,
Relax.
Just scan through the body for a general feeling tone.
Without getting caught up in details or the story behind it.
Just the general feeling tone in your body right now.
Can you feel what's happening in the belly?
Perhaps in the chest?
Just observing without judgment,
Without labeling good or bad,
Wanted or unwanted.
And then bring the attention once more to the breath.
Notice what moves in your body as you breathe.
Where can you feel the breath most acutely?
Can you watch that place?
Not thinking about the breath,
But experiencing the raw sensation of the breath in that part of your body.
And when the mind wanders away from the breath,
Just notice that.
Label it,
Thinking,
And come back to the breath.
The sensation of the breath as it moves in and out.
A sense of meeting each breath,
Welcoming each breath.
Just exactly as it is.
Right here,
Right now.
Allowing this moment to be exactly as it is.
Nothing to fix.
Nothing to add.
Nothing to push away.
Awake,
Present,
Here.
Observe how this feels.
And know that you can return to this feeling again and again throughout your day just by taking a breath.
And bringing your attention to the breath and the body.
