Welcome to your anchoring practice.
You can find a comfortable seated posture,
Or you can lie down as long as you won't fall asleep.
You want to find a posture or position that helps you stay alert and awake,
But also feels relaxed and there's a sense of ease in your body.
You can get any wiggles out that you need to before you find stillness.
You can keep your eyes open or closed.
And let's start by taking three deep breaths together to signal to our bodies and our minds the start of a practice.
Inhale to fill your lungs and your belly,
And then open mouth,
Exhale,
Let it go.
Again,
Breathe in,
Fill up,
And breathe out,
Let it go.
One more time,
Inhale deeply.
This time as you exhale,
Can you sense your body softening into the breath out?
Maybe you feel your shoulders soften.
And start to tune into your natural breath without changing it or controlling it.
See if you can drop in to the sensation of breathing just as you are.
Your body might signal an urge to move,
And I encourage you to try to stay still,
Observing the sensation to react before reacting to it right away.
As you notice your breath,
See if you can soften your belly too.
Notice where your hands are resting,
And if you can let them become heavier,
Can you sense their weight?
Are there any sensations you can notice in your hands?
Notice your elbows,
Sense them getting heavy.
Relax the muscles of your face and your jaw.
Can you sense the rise and fall of your belly and your chest?
With a soft body,
Can you sense your breath moving from the inside?
You might notice where you make contact to what you're sitting on.
Can you bring your attention to the sensations of your body and stillness?
And sometimes this feels like nothing,
And that's okay.
Our practice is just to look.
Start to expand your awareness and listen for sounds.
Can you sense what's around you by listening?
Maybe you name what you can hear mentally in your mind.
See if you can listen closely for sounds that are far away.
Can you hear the most distant sound?
Return your attention to the sensation of your breath.
Is anywhere in your body tense that you can relax?
Remember that thoughts will happen,
And it's natural to think.
When you notice yourself becoming lost in a thought,
A judgment,
Planning,
A memory,
Acknowledge it without judging,
And see if you can return to one of the anchors.
Our breath,
Physical sensations in our body,
And sound.
As you move your attention through three different anchors,
Can you sense a receptive quality that comes with observing the moment?
What the moment feels like,
What it sounds like,
And the internal sensation of our breath.
Can you sense the edges of your body becoming soft?
Is there a temperature in the air that you can sense on your skin?
Can you sense any other parts of your body that move along with your breath?
Maybe the arms,
Or the lower torso,
The side body,
The back body,
And just as sounds float into your awareness,
Can you notice them also floating out,
Rising and falling,
Arriving and leaving?
Maybe you notice the space between the sounds.
Take a deep breath in,
And an open mouth exhale to let it go.
Take another deep breath in,
Fill up,
And a big exhale,
Let it go.
Thank you for joining me for your practice.
