Hello and welcome to Brain Break,
A guided meditation for beginners.
When you're starting a meditation practice,
Comfort is queen.
And so go ahead and get yourself comfortable in a seated position of your choice that you can hold for the entire length of our practice.
That could be sitting on a chair where your feet are comfortably flat on the floor or sitting cross-legged with a cushion or meditation pillow to prop your hips up.
And let's begin,
Start to close the eyes or maybe an unfocused gaze if you find that this is more relaxing.
And together let's take a deep breath in,
Connecting to the shared energy in our virtual space and a slow even breath out,
Relax.
We begin tuning into our breath,
Just noticing the pattern of how we breathe,
How far the breath travels down through our body.
Maybe noticing if the breath is reaching as far towards the pit of our belly and to the base of our pelvic floor and sit bones.
Or maybe the breath is just up to the chest.
Take a few breaths,
Just noticing the pattern of your breath.
Now with every inhalation,
Try to stretch the breath all the way down to the bottom of the belly without tensing the chest or shoulders.
And with every exhalation,
Slowly release,
Growing heavy into the sit bones and light on the chest.
Playing with the shape of your breath with every cycle and keep in your mind's eye as you tune inward to relax even further.
Notice how the breath moves the body,
The subtle movements of your ribcage,
The side body even start to notice how your back body is also breathing.
In today's practice,
We'll learn one of the limbs of yoga called pratyahara,
Means withdrawing of the senses.
By muting our five senses that allow us to interact with the external world so we can drop inside and access the deep part of ourselves that is completely quiet and peaceful where clarity and wisdom arises.
And so imagine you're looking at the ocean,
A lot of waves and turbulence on the surface.
But as you dive deeper into the bottom of the ocean,
The water is more stable,
Quieter,
Calm.
Take a deep breath in and out and imagine yourself sitting on the surface of the ocean as if you are floating on top of the water.
And see in your mind's eye the waves that the surface brings,
The ripples of external sounds that you may hear,
The pitter patter of the rain,
Maybe cars passing by or chatters outside your room,
Anything that throws your mind around,
Keeping you from being still.
Imagine whatever is happening around you.
Wait.
As you go deeper,
You feel yourself sink lower and your head is now below the surface.
Breathe comfortably here.
Being underwater,
You begin to notice that the distractions start to fade or being muted into the background and you're just listening to your breath and feeling the shape of your breathing pattern.
Keep working on fading.
And fading the distractions out from your mind's eye.
When you're ready to go deeper,
Begin to slowly feel yourself again dropping into the air and even further down.
The distractions,
The noise,
Become even more muted close to an audible.
You are not trying to contextualize nor analyze those that enter your mind.
You slowly detach yourself from these distractions.
You become quieter and you feel the turbulence of the surface above becoming more distant.
At this point,
You feel even the subtleties within your body,
Feeling your heartbeat,
Flowing throughout,
Connecting,
Carrying much needed oxygen and nutrients all over from the top of your head all the way down to your little toes.
If you find something that pulls you back up close to the surface,
It's okay.
Acknowledge the reality of how things are at this moment.
Don't be frustrated and just begin again.
Finding stillness and calm.
Keep sinking into relaxation.
Diving deeper into the calm,
Inner stillness of our being.
Looking up from the surface,
We see a huge gap now between the external and internal worlds.
Pratyahara,
Withdrawing ourselves from the external world and enjoying our own internal world that is peaceful,
That is blissful,
That is calm and still.
We're here.
Closer to the ocean floor.
Where everything is much more calm and still.
Getting acquainted with our subconscious mind.
To just be with our thoughts and emotions.
Seeing in our minds eye as each one passes in front of us.
Call to mind whatever you want to bring in front of you,
One at a time.
With each one entering the frame of our mind through the imaginary lens of our eyes.
And then allowing them to pass through without attaching ourselves to it.
Just like on the surface we try not to contextualize nor analyze them.
Each thought and emotion that come into frame.
We acknowledge its existence.
We don't try to push it away.
We embrace whatever it has to say to us yet keeping a mental distance from it.
And when it's seen and heard it peacefully leaves us.
From here we will escape.
The more we are able to distance ourselves and dive deep within,
There we find wisdom and clarity.
All the answers are within us.
We don't have to look externally.
Keep practicing and hearing our higher self as we are part of the Divine.
When you're ready to come out,
Slowly ascending upward,
Seeing the light guiding you towards the surface,
Honouring the emotions and thoughts that showed up today as we slightly bow down our head as a sign that it is time to resurface.
Like in diving,
You want to take your time on the ascent.
As you leave your subconscious mind,
You may begin to start noticing your heartbeat once again,
The blood flowing through your veins.
Surface level is actionable.
Start the Ord Layer with only becoming the Moving upward.
Noticing external sounds as we wake up our sense of hearing.
Moving close to the surface.
We then notice our breathing pattern once more.
And the shape of our breath.
Then we finally take a deep energizing inhale as we break out of the water back to the external world.
And we exhale through our mouth as we begin to slowly open our eyes.
You may choose to stay here for a few minutes in silence.
Otherwise you are all set to close your day and back you have a good night's rest.
In light and love my soul honors your soul.
Namaste.
