So sit in a comfortable position,
You don't necessarily need an upright back or to sit in any particular way,
Just as long as you're comfortable.
And close your eyes.
So the practice of mindfulness is learning to allow emotions,
Feelings,
Sensations,
Thoughts,
Anything that comes with our senses,
Just to flow through us.
We have a tendency as humans to attribute meaning or try and analyze or overanalyze or interrupt the flow of emotions,
Especially if we don't like something,
We'll try and push it away.
Our practice is to learn to just allow,
To let yourself,
Let those emotions flow through you.
And then you just let the present moment flow through you.
And that is turns into a very relaxing practice because there's nothing to change.
You're just allowing everything to happen.
And it comes with time and practice because,
You know,
Necessarily when we,
If we have something we don't like,
We want to naturally push it away or change it or analyze it or wonder why it's there.
But our bodies do throw up,
Unfortunately,
Things we don't like,
Emotions we don't like or don't feel good.
And it's the fact of pushing away what causes our stress and our suffering.
So if we can just allow them,
And it is possible,
And that's what we're practicing today.
So in that comfortable position,
Start feeling the present moment,
Directly experiencing it.
So let's start with our hands today.
So feeling sensations that are present for you in your hands,
Whatever they're touching,
They could be resting on your lap or resting on the desk in front of you.
It can be helpful to touch the tip of your thumb onto the side of your or the front of your forefinger.
Maybe you just start feeling that as a connection point.
This is us directly sensing the sensations in our hands.
They're bringing our attention downwards into our body.
So this is what neutral sensations really,
There's nothing unpleasant generally with what's going on in our hands.
Just a nice hum or gentle throbbing or pulsing,
Fizzing.
Just gentle sensations that are happening.
And it's just enough to know that these sensations are there.
That's the effort we need to put in.
Not changing them in any way,
Allowing these sensations to change and fluctuate as they want to,
As they are doing.
Perhaps now bringing awareness of sensations in other parts of our body.
So shoulders,
The front of the shoulder,
The front of the chest.
Maybe you can feel the chest moving in and out with breathing.
Maybe there's some tightness or some muscle tension.
So it doesn't feel quite relaxed.
And even that we're not trying to change.
But just the act of sitting with these sensations,
They will change and relax as our body relaxes.
Stepping out of busyness.
We also hold muscle tension in our jaw.
So bringing up awareness into the face now.
Softening your jaw,
Allowing it to relax.
Feeling other muscles in your face,
Other sensations.
The sides of your face,
Your eyes.
Muscles around your eyes.
Forehead relax and soften.
Just feeling whatever sensations are present for you now.
And just be aware that you're directly sensing,
Feeling rather than visualizing.
So your attention is inside the body or on the surface of the body.
Make sure you're still comfortable.
Can you relax any further?
Sinking into the chair or leaning back a bit more,
Whatever's more relaxing for you.
So if we've been busy,
We can come to a body that's quite stressed and can feel a bit unpleasant when we start meditating.
So we just need to sit through it as best we can.
Let that stress leave,
The body relax.
The sensations fade in their strength over time,
Become a bit more pleasant.
So now get a sense of sitting.
Bring your attention right down into halfway down the body.
Connection points with whatever you're sitting on.
Feet on the floor.
And then just let go of anything in particular and just come to the fact that breathing is happening.
So we've got that to notice that's happening in our body.
Shoulders rising and falling,
Chest moving in and out.
Breath entering our nose,
Maybe our belly expanding and contracting.
And just let the body relax on the out breath.
Let go of any desire to control the breath.
And just allow.
So in your own time,
Just follow breathing as it happens for a few moments.
Maybe a minute or two.
Our minds may wander onto different topics or just lose concentration for a moment.
It's not going to stay with the breath unless you're really calm and relaxed.
A great meditator the whole time is going to lose contact with the breath and that's fine.
You just reconnect with however breathing is happening for you in or out breath and just follow an entire breath if you can from start to finish.
But not trying too hard.
Just really still be relaxed.
Make sure your shoulders are soft and face is soft as you're doing this.
And the more aware we become,
We might notice now other types of sensations.
It could be pleasant sensations or unpleasant sensations.
Maybe there's some tension we didn't know that was there.
It comes to the foreground.
There's nothing wrong with unpleasant sensations coming up.
They're here.
Our body's making us aware of them.
Can we just be with those sensations,
Allow them to be there in awareness until they're no longer here and something else calls for us.
It could be our breath again or it could be somewhere else.
And then sometimes as we sit,
Feeling our bodies,
Maybe we'll have a thought or a reaction to something and that will be an emotional reaction.
Maybe something we're worried about something,
A sensation that we felt that we,
A sense of fear or worry comes up or not knowing or a memory comes up about something that we've done in the past or something's happened to us in the past and that causes an emotion.
And those emotions will be in the body.
Maybe there'll be a tightening of a muscle or a feeling somewhere,
A fluttering or.
.
.
So we notice those as well.
Just allow them to be there.
Notice,
Feel them,
Not change them in any way.
Give them their space that they need.
Let a muscle tense up if it wants to tense up and then feel it till it relaxes.
So this is what I was talking about at the start,
Just allowing the emotions flow through you.
So have a whole sense of the body just sitting,
Being present here in the now.
We gain confidence that we can deal with whatever our body throws at us,
Whatever the present moment throws at us through our meditation practice.
We can be with it,
Deal with it and let it go.
Let it fade away.
We don't have to react.
To an emotion we can just allow it to be here.
To help us feel breathing we can also use a technique.
You can say words to yourself silently like breathing in,
Breathing out or positive words like breathing in love,
Breathing out peace.
As breathing happens and it helps our mind stay with the breathing.
Or you can just feel the breath,
Don't have to use the technique.
And now as we sit here just allow sounds to come to your ears.
Maybe there's,
Maybe you've been doing that all along,
Sometimes if the sounds are loud we can use that.
They might be humming or you'll hear your own breathing or sounds of people outside your room.
You don't need to think about the sounds or wonder what they are,
What they mean.
We can just listen.
Relax into them.
And now finally just have a sense of the whole body sitting,
Sensations coming to you from all over.
Including breathing,
Sitting.
Your shoulders are still soft,
Hopefully.
Jaw is soft,
If it's not just allow it to soften.
Forehead,
Eyes.
And then just let go of any control of your attention,
Just rest.
