Taking these first few moments just to settle in,
And perhaps if you like,
Starting with a few deep relaxing breaths.
When you're ready,
Just emptying your lungs of air on a natural exhale,
And then taking a very conscious,
Deep,
Deep belly breath in,
Really filling your lungs with fresh air,
And then just hold that breath for a second or two.
And then when you're ready,
Slowly exhale the air through your mouth as you imagine the air flowing up along your spine and out the top of your head.
So just in your own time,
Taking a few deep,
Relaxing breaths in that way.
And then just allowing your breathing to relax into a natural rhythm and pace.
And you might like to set the intention just silently to yourself,
I intend to relax and observe my experience.
Or perhaps just setting your own intention if you have a different one.
And then just casually tuning into your posture,
Just noticing how your body is sitting on the chair,
And making any little adjustments to your posture to allow your body to sit in a comfortable yet relatively alert position.
And just notice how your body with gravity goes down into the chair,
Feeling the weight of your body resting on the chair,
The weight of your arms resting on the surface below them,
And feel the weight of your legs and your feet resting on the floor or whatever they're resting on.
And just allowing your body to relax into the floor,
The chair,
And then you might even like just to have a sense of your connection all the way down to the earth.
A sense of the earth holding the building up,
The floor up,
The chair,
And you up.
And if it feels right for you,
Maybe even sending a word of thanks,
Of gratitude down to the earth for providing you with shelter and food and water and everything you need to live.
And letting your attention flow back up into your body,
All the way up into your feet,
Feeling the soles of your feet,
Feeling into your toes,
Your big toes,
Second toes,
Third toes,
Fourth toes,
And your fifth toes.
Feeling the tops of your feet,
The arches,
The heels of your feet,
All the way through your feet,
Tingling,
Pulsing,
Alive,
Noticing perhaps feelings of warmth,
Coolness,
Pressure,
Numbness.
There might be discomfort,
Or maybe a sense of ease,
And just really giving yourself permission to let go of all of the mental load,
The emotional load,
Everything you're carrying from your life,
Just really allowing yourself this time just to simply be,
To connect with your body,
Your mind,
Yourself,
And just to really feel your feet from the inside out,
Giving yourself this time for self-care.
And knowing that any time you become caught up in a train of thought,
In a memory,
Or an imagination,
To-do list,
That's entirely normal,
There's no fault in that,
Or it's not the sign of a failed meditation.
It's just another opportunity just to have a mini-awakening moment,
Where you realize your attention has drifted away.
Another moment of presence,
Where you can choose to shift your attention back to your body,
To the meditation.
Letting your attention gently move up through your ankles,
Feeling up into your lower legs,
And just observing what sensations do you feel here from the inside out.
No need to think about them,
Or judge them,
Or evaluate them,
Just having a moment of direct connection,
Intimately one with the sensations you feel as they are.
And becoming aware,
When you're ready,
Of your knees and your upper legs,
And sometimes it can help to welcome what you notice.
If it feels a little challenging,
Or you notice some resistance,
Very natural response,
You might choose to welcome whatever it is that is a little difficult or challenging,
Allowing that genuine,
Sincere welcome to help soften any urge to get rid of anything,
Or change it,
Or judge it.
And so when you're ready,
Welcoming sensations in your hip and pelvis area,
Allowing a natural curiosity to notice how these sensations feel without thinking about them.
Taking a nice belly breath,
And when you're ready,
Shifting your attention up into your torso,
To feel your belly,
Your middle chest,
And your upper torso from the inside out.
And welcoming what's here,
And allowing yourself some time to really observe intimately your breath,
The subtle sensations and movements you feel as your body breathes in and out.
And notice your awareness of your breath.
You only know the movements and sensations of your breath because you are aware of them.
This awareness is one and the same as your being.
You're being aware of your humanity,
Your humanness.
When you're ready,
Shifting your attention over to your hands and fingers,
Noticing how your hands and fingers are feeling right now.
You might notice what they are touching,
How that feels.
Notice any sensations present inside your hands and fingers,
Feeling your thumbs,
Your second fingers,
Third fingers,
Fourth fingers,
Fifth fingers,
The palm of your hand,
The back of your hands,
The whole volume of your hands and fingers,
The sensations dancing and playing within.
And when you're ready,
Observing with a welcoming attention any sensations in your wrists,
Your lower arms,
Elbows,
And upper arms,
Feeling up into your neck and your head.
It's really no problem if you become distracted or find your mind is too busy to focus on the meditation.
Just notice that every time you realize you're not present,
You are present once again.
Enjoy that moment of awakening.
And coming back when you're ready to feeling the sensations in your head,
Pressure,
Pulsing,
Tingling,
Numbness,
Temperature,
Comfort,
Discomfort,
All welcome here.
Then you might like to begin casually observing what thoughts arise and pass away in your mind.
Word thoughts,
Picture thoughts.
Just begin to observe your mind for a time,
Perhaps welcoming any challenging or difficult thoughts,
Observing how one thought triggers another and another,
Perhaps also observing the gaps between thoughts.
And notice again your awareness of thoughts.
If that is not clear for you,
You might ask yourself,
Are thoughts aware of themselves?
Or is something aware of thoughts?
Perhaps you can notice that just like sensations appear across a full spectrum from pleasant to unpleasant,
Thoughts too appear as pleasant thoughts and unpleasant thoughts.
They come and go.
Are aware of them.
If you find it hard to,
So to speak,
Separate yourself from your thoughts,
You might ask a question like,
Who is aware of this thought?
Don't let your mind try to answer that question,
But let the question take you to the experience of being aware,
That silent witness within you that knows your experience.
Just for now,
Letting go of watching your mind,
Feeling again the sensations in your head from the top of your head and the sides,
The front and back of your head,
And letting this attention flow down your whole body,
Feeling your whole body from the inside out.
Alive,
Breathing,
Your heart beating,
And if you like letting your attention when you're ready,
Just gently turn towards your emotional self,
Becoming gently aware of any emotional feelings present for you from your day or from your week.
Perhaps asking yourself,
How do I feel right now?
Or what emotions are here?
Staying in the observer position,
To observe without evaluation,
And being curious to notice where you feel any emotional feelings in your body.
If you identify a particular feeling,
Perhaps naming it,
Labelling it,
And then asking,
Where do I feel this in my body?
Giving it some space and just being present with your breath,
Just to feel any emotional feelings,
Perhaps in your belly or your chest or your shoulders,
Your neck or head,
Somewhere else in your body or around your body.
Just noticing.
And if you're not sure what you're doing,
You're doing it right,
Or if you identify any feelings,
Perhaps you can label that confusion,
Uncertainty,
And then ask yourself,
Where do I feel that in my body?
Tracing the emotion back into its energetic source,
The feeling,
The sensation in the body.
And again,
Noticing,
You are aware of this feeling.
Is an emotion aware of itself,
Or is something or someone aware of it?
When you remember that you are aware of your emotions,
It's easier to hold them as emotions happening within me,
Rather than to me.
Coming back again to your sense of your centre,
Yourself,
Perhaps taking a few conscious breaths,
Feeling your body breathing,
And notice that you are the awareness of your breath.
That which knows your body is breathing.
And now,
Spend the next while allowing yourself to keenly observe anything that arises for you.
Notice that every experience is made of a mental component,
Element of thoughts or images in your mind,
And a physical component.
Sensations,
Energy moving through your body.
And yourself,
That which is aware.
And just wherever you are,
Just letting that go,
And lastly,
Let your attention rest all the way back into your being,
Into its source.
Just for a time,
Just let go of everything you are aware of,
And rest in the fact of being aware itself.
This awareness that you are is innately free of thought,
Free of sensation,
Free of emotion.
It is transparent,
Empty,
Infinite.
Your self-aware being soothes the human.
And perhaps just gently and casually reconnecting to your breathing,
Feeling the natural flow of your breath,
Intimately one with your breath,
And feeling the whole of your body from the inside out.
Sensations,
Dancing,
Playing.
Thoughts and emotions rising and falling,
Coming and going.
You observing them all,
Including the sounds that you can hear around you,
Feeling gravity gently holding you here,
Your body sitting on the chair,
The floor beneath the chair and the earth beneath the building,
Holding you up.
And just taking some time to process your meditation,
And having a sense of where you are in your own time,
Whenever you're ready.
Gently reawakening,
And coming back to the group whenever you're ready.
Thank you.
