All right let's make ourselves comfortable then.
First of all planting our feet,
Putting our legs somewhere they can be comfortable.
Our feet and our knees are sort of neutral position.
Then let's take a few deeper breaths.
We can straighten our spine a little bit.
Inhaling get a tiny bit taller and exhaling we can settle into our seat a little bit.
So we're balancing this alertness with relaxation in our body.
We've got a bit of both.
We can put our hands in our lap or somewhere else they can be comfortable for a while.
The back of our neck is long so our spine is all in a nice straight line.
Let's find our breath.
Just noticing the body and the breath as we settle,
As we become calmer.
We take our attention from the external world with everything that entails and we put it on our internal experience.
It'll all be there when we return but for now this time is for us to care for ourselves,
Restore ourselves.
Just checking quickly with how we are in this moment physically,
Mentally,
And emotionally.
Maybe we find things we like,
Things we don't like.
Can we allow it all to be just as it is just in this moment?
So we'll start our journey by becoming a little more physically relaxed.
So we can imagine a wave of relaxation starting at the crown of our head and flowing down our body.
So this wave of relaxation flowing over your forehead and your temples,
Your scalp,
Around your eyes,
Your cheeks and your jaw,
Leaving everything soft and relaxed.
The base of your skull,
Your neck,
Each muscle and joint falling into a comfortable neutral position,
Your shoulders becoming soft and relaxed,
Your upper back and chest.
It's a wave of relaxation flowing downwards over your arms,
Your mid back,
Your lower back,
Your belly,
Over your hips,
Buttocks,
Thighs becoming soft and relaxed,
Over your knees,
Shins,
The calves,
Keeping just enough muscular tension to keep us up but feeling much more relaxed.
Ankles on your feet,
Comfortable neutral position,
Physically feeling more relaxed now.
If there's bits of us that are still uncomfortable,
Can we allow them to be as they are without creating any further tension?
And if that's difficult,
Can we just be okay with that being difficult?
Dropping all the resistance to how our body feels.
And then we're going to create some mental relaxation and I'm going to invite you to bring to mind somewhere you feel peaceful,
A time and place,
Maybe an activity,
That you feel completely at home,
Completely at peace,
Wanting nothing,
Needing nothing.
Put yourself there in as much detail as you can.
Enjoy this place,
This time.
So we're already feeling a little calmer,
A little slower.
I'm going to invite you now to find your breath.
So we'll focus on our breath as best we can without changing it.
So each breath slightly different from the previous one.
So noticing how our chest moves,
Our whole upper body,
Our shoulders and our belly move with our breath.
And if your mind wanders,
It's fine,
They do that,
We just return without any criticism.
In fact you can congratulate yourself and say I've noticed and you come back.
So we're going to use that gentle up and down movement of the breath and imagine ourselves floating in some kind of little dinghy,
Little raft or an ocean.
And as the breath lifts us up,
Gradually lowers us again.
I can imagine the swell lifting and releasing our craft.
Allowing yourself to be here,
This gentle swell,
Rocking us,
Almost as if we're a child,
Soothing us.
So we begin to get a sense of some peacefulness and a vast spaciousness beneath us,
Beneath our raft.
And we put our foot over the side and dip our toe in the water and feel how it feels.
And we decide we would like to visit the depths beneath us.
I want you to pay attention to how you feel when you consider that.
When we consider leaving the raft and allowing our body to sink into the ocean beneath us,
How does it feel?
You want to experience the peace and yet there are frisons of fear,
Sizzles of uncertainty.
Or whatever you feel,
Can you allow yourself to feel it?
So paying close attention to our reactions as we imagine ourself climbing from the raft and entering the water.
And in this world of our creating,
It is our creation so we can breathe in this water.
Let's test that out now.
We allow ourselves to sink.
So you can imagine yourself sinking into your very center.
So your weightless,
Quiet,
Quiet,
Resting.
And because we allow our entire experience,
The uncomfortable and the comfortable we allow it all to be,
We create no resistance.
And the discomfort gradually falls away.
Just be.
Just be here for a few moments.
Soon the world above will call us back.
And when we hear it calling,
Give a little kick,
We come back to the surface,
Fill the air and the night.
And we'll take a few deeper breaths of that fresh beautiful air.
I'm going to release the visualization and bring our focus once again to our body and our breath.
And there's no hurry to return,
We'll do it slowly,
Gradually.
Feeling our body,
How do we feel physically?
Mentally,
Emotionally.
So let's take a few deeper breaths.
We're going to start to bring ourselves back into our regular state of consciousness,
But there's no hurry.
So we can move our fingers and our toes,
Our wrists and our ankles,
Our arms and our legs and have a little stretch if that's for you.
And when you're ready come back to your regular waking state.
Thank you for practicing with me.
