Let's make ourselves comfortable then.
And take a few deeper breaths as we place our bodies somewhere comfortable.
So we'll place our feet on the ground where our knees can be comfortable,
Where our legs are in neutral.
We'll put our arms and hands somewhere they can be still for a little while.
And when we take our next in breath let's make it slightly deeper and lengthen our spine a little bit so we're feeling alert.
And as we exhale let's soften into our seat a little.
So we're balancing,
Alert,
Dignified but we're still a little bit relaxed and comfortable.
We're going to take our attention inwards.
Let's check in how we feel right now.
Physically.
Mentally.
And emotionally.
Let's notice our judgements about these feelings,
Our existence.
The bits we want to push away.
Can we have the practice of allowing our experience to be just like this?
So let's take our attention to our body.
We're going to relax our body.
Starting at the top of our head,
Relaxing our forehead and our scalp.
We release a bit of tension in our scalp,
The temples and our forehead.
Our jaw and our neck.
It may help our neck to be comfortable if it's balanced right on the top of our spine.
With the back of the neck slightly elongated.
Nothing extreme,
Just gentle adjustment.
We're allowing our shoulders to soften,
The arms to be relaxed and still.
If we're seated we've got a little bit of muscle tension holding us up.
But only what's needed to keep us upright.
Are there any other tensions we can allow to be released?
Our seat,
Our thighs and our buttocks.
We let them be relaxed.
Our legs,
Our lower legs.
Our ankles and our feet,
Still and quiet.
We're feeling a bit more physically relaxed.
Let's bring in now a little bit of mental relaxation.
So to do this we're going to visualise a place or a time that we love to be.
Maybe a place where we feel completely comfortable.
It may be imaginary.
Maybe it's an activity that feels completely comfortable,
At peace.
Let's put ourselves there now.
Visualise it in any way that feels right for you.
In as much detail as we can,
The things we see,
The things we feel.
We may be able to bring in other senses like smell.
We may be temperature,
We may feel the sun on our skin or cool water,
Whatever it happens to be.
So feeling mentally more relaxed.
I'm going to count now from one to ten and as I count I invite you to become even more relaxed in a healthier state of mind.
We're leaving our doing mode for a few minutes and entering our being mode.
So one,
Two,
Three.
Becoming still and quiet.
Four,
Five,
Six,
Allowing ourselves to become more relaxed and in a healthier state of mind.
Seven,
Eight,
Nine,
Ten.
Feeling centred and still.
Being here and now.
Let's bring our awareness towards our breath.
And our practice here is to observe our breath.
Allowing the breath to flow naturally.
Understanding where our conscious mind wants to interfere and change it.
Do we set up a tension between what the breath wants to do and what our consciousness thinks it ought to do?
Can we let the breath flow comfortably?
Or do we judge that breath is too short or too shallow?
Or in some way inferior to this ideal that we hold up?
Can we allow the breath and the judgments?
Can we allow it all just to flow through the river of our experience?
Just as it is.
Each breath perfect.
Each judgment allowed.
So we're not even judging the judging if you see what I mean.
Let's bring our attention now into our body.
Noticing our physical body.
And noticing the thoughts we have about it.
If we have aches and pains.
Can we allow them to be?
And that might feel quite wrong because we don't want them to be.
But if they are,
If we already have them in our experience,
How does our judgment affect it?
How does the fact we don't want it there affect it?
Does our disowning that part of us make us in some way less whole?
Can we then own all of us?
Except every bit.
The bits that we don't like.
Imperfections.
Signs of age.
Things that don't work as we would like them to.
Just for a moment are we able to embrace our entire physical body just as it is?
And if we can't,
If we find that too difficult,
There's bits of us we still are in resistance to,
Can we accept that?
We always get another chance.
Can we accept our resistance?
Let's take our attention now to our thoughts.
Observing the mind.
And knowing this is where it all begins.
Our thoughts,
Our beliefs,
Which are just thoughts we think a lot.
How they create our whole experience.
How crucial they are.
So let's turn our attention to our thoughts.
And our observer sits back in our seat.
And he says to watch the weather in our mind.
If it's hard to watch our thoughts,
Can we notice that?
If our mind wanders off,
We notice that and allow.
Just like this.
If we're doing it wrong,
Notice that.
And then we say it's okay just like this.
Just for this moment see if we can embrace our entire mental experience.
Whatever we find in there.
If part of us is still quietly saying oh it's not quite right,
I did that bit wrong.
Are we able to observe and bring that in?
Welcome that as part of our experience.
And we expand and become a little more whole.
The more we embrace.
More of ourselves we allow.
The greater our understanding of ourself.
One last moment.
See if we can hold in our awareness our entire experience and be grateful for the lessons it is showing us.
For the experience it has created for us.
Even when it highlights the bits of us we don't like.
Because when it happens and we allow them,
We're halfway towards healing it.
When we disallow things stay in the shadows.
We are not entire but when we allow each and everything in our experience we expand to include it.
We don't have to do that forever we're just doing it for this moment.
But that's the important one.
So releasing the practice and resting for a moment with our breath and our body.
Go back to being in resistance.
If that's what comes up.
So we're gradually,
Gradually going to come back to our waking consciousness.
I'm going to count slowly to five.
We're gradually going to return to our regular waking state.
Feeling better than we did before.
One two.
Starting to move our feet and our hands and take a few deeper breaths.
Three four.
Starting to move our arms and our legs.
Feeling a bit more active and awake.
Five.
Ready to open our eyes and return to our regular waking consciousness feeling refreshed and feeling better than we did before.
Thank you for practicing with me.
