Hi I'm Amy and welcome to Underbelly,
The art of slowing down.
This is a much slower,
Spacious,
All-encompassing,
All-inclusive way of being with your body and essence as it travels through this human experience.
All guidance is improvised in the moment so feel free to find some space now to sink into your body and to locate your breath.
Beginning to allow the muscles of your eyes to relax.
Noticing if you want to keep them open or if the lids want to shut.
And just allowing the ball of the eye to rest back into each socket.
And perhaps allowing a warm pool of energy to hold each of your eyes.
And we use the eyes so much to scan,
To look for,
To move forward with,
To look outside.
And so here just allowing the eyes to slowly return back to themselves.
A quality of listening,
A quality of not having to look for the next thing but just to rest right where they are.
And then begin to notice the shape of your body in this moment whether you are at rest or perhaps moving or stretching.
Whether you're seated,
Maybe on your feet,
Maybe on your side or your belly,
Your back.
And you just having the agency to really find where your body would like to be right now so that you can breathe a little deeper.
So that you can just take a moment to notice where you are in your life at this moment.
And you don't have to be right.
You don't have to be in a particular pose.
Just letting the body unveil itself to you.
Whatever shapes come,
Whatever impulses come to perhaps move or become still again.
Bringing some more of our awareness,
Our focus,
Just into our physicality.
Our very bones,
These muscles,
The joints,
The organs.
And take just a few moments to really breathe yourself into your body.
Receive your body.
Allowing all of your energy to come back to you.
Wherever it's being spent right now,
Just for these moments here,
Go ahead and reel all those lines and tethers and cords all the way back to you.
So that you begin to notice more and more,
Okay here I am,
Here I am.
One of the easiest ways to know that we are alive is feeling the way we breathe.
Allowing yourself the time and the space to become a little bit intimate,
A little bit more intimate with this thing that is always in the background of our life so long as we are living.
The inhalation of air because we need it and the exhalation of air because we also need this.
And so to feel the really steady waves of your breath as they roll in and pull back.
Resting any urgency here to speed up the breath or to make it do something but to again let the breath know that you're you're here.
Here you are.
I'm with you breath.
And start to feel the capacity for which you can breathe.
The length,
The distance that the inhale goes and travels.
Noticing that very physical feeling of bringing oxygen in.
The expanse,
The filling.
Noticing when the air is ready to be released,
To be given.
The decompression and the relief.
Slowly letting every exhale relax the jaw.
Allowing that bottom jaw to hinge open.
As we hold this area sometimes so tight without our own knowing.
To allow the muscle of the tongue to rest inside the mouth without needing to shape itself to speak.
Allowing the back of your throat to feel a warm relaxation.
And so as you breathe welcoming any tones or sounds or hums or sighs.
Not because you need to sound good or right but because you can actually feel the effect.
You can feel relief.
You can relieve yourself.
Perhaps even relieving masked tension or tension that you know really well.
Allowing the breath to find pockets of tension in your body and literally letting the breath touch and make contact with these tighter spaces.
These spaces that we hold,
That we constrict.
Oftentimes without our own knowing.
Allowing your tightness to receive your breath.
Bringing space and fluidity to the constriction.
And even if you'd like moving parts of the body that you feel pool up with tension or stagnation.
To allow your movement to reach these areas.
Again to allow the breath to give space to these areas.
And not necessarily because we're trying to fix or solve or get rid of.
But primarily to connect.
To make contact with places inside of us that are hurting.
Places inside of us that are scared.
Places inside of us that feel a great deal of pain right now.
Uncertainty.
Hope.
Hope.
Allowing your body to give you access to what is tender for you at this time.
To really notice your relationship to tenderness.
I know for me sometimes I unconsciously shield myself from it.
Keep myself far away.
Because sometimes it's too painful to go toward.
Or I feel I'm just going to disappear if I allow myself to hold this amount of pain.
And so letting all the layers that are here to be here.
So that we can now we can notice.
We can begin to locate ourselves a little more deeply.
And sometimes we just we don't have to know how.
Sometimes we don't even have to know why.
And in these moments perhaps just resting those wheels of momentum.
Coming back to the simple landing.
This landing pad of the body.
The landing pad of this feeling.
That these feelings right here are valid.
And that you have time to be here.
You have time to be right here.
And sometimes I get in the practice of using my own body in my own hands to self soothe.
Whether it means my hands touch my skin or perhaps roll over my clothing.
Perhaps my hands know exactly where to hold me.
I'm giving you permission for your own hands to hold you for a little bit more time than you would normally think.
To let the hands feel all the way down beneath the skin.
Letting the hands drop.
They're sensing all the way into the center of your body.
All the way into the middle of your bones.
The middle of your organs.
How do you touch yourself?
What sort of touch do you offer?
For some of us that this may feel kind of foreign.
Like we're not used to the idea or the experience of touching oneself,
Soothing oneself,
Nurturing oneself.
And perhaps for some of us we do this once in a while or maybe even daily.
So whatever relationship you have to this right now just letting it be that.
Again allowing this inside voice of yours to let your body,
Your organs,
Your feelings,
Your tenderness,
Your heart know that you're here.
I'm here.
Through whatever it is I'm here.
Allowing more space to come around you.
Really feeling the floor.
Allowing the floor to rise up to hold you.
Wherever it's holding you.
To perhaps even breathe down all the way into the soil and back up.
Anchoring every exhale a little deeper into the ground.
Staying here with your body and with your earth.
Even noticing the ways in which the earth needs us.
Coming back to the essentials.
Being needed by the body.
Being needed by your heart.
Being needed by this planet.
And allowing your practice to unravel.
Going at a pace that feels really good for you.
To not have to force,
Hurry,
Or speed up.
But to remember that you can continually rest back into a deeper listening.
Commuting with the subtleties that are here.
This quality of presence with yourself.
Take as much time as you need.
Thank you so much for showing up.
Thank you.
You you
