To allow is to open,
To soften and to witness the unfolding.
Allowance doesn't carry with it a need to change or to fix.
It only carries with it this listening,
This gentle nudge to soften.
To allow is to be with the ever-changing stream within you,
To be with the expansion and contraction,
To be with all of it knowing that nothing is permanent,
That life is happening in both the tension and the release,
And to be alive is to feel and allow both.
Life is being expressed through you in a series of opening and closing.
You have a stream flowing within your body and this stream carries within it your aliveness,
Your ability to sense and feel your life.
So I want to invite you to connect to your breath with me.
Just beginning to settle in here.
Maybe you feel your seat on the chair,
On the floor,
Wherever it is that you're sitting.
You feel your feet on the ground,
Or maybe it feels better to lay down.
You decide.
Just getting your body in a position that feels supportive,
That feels comfortable.
And just taking a moment to notice how you feel,
To notice what's here.
And we're going to take a few cycles of breath together to just kind of clear it out,
Clear the space.
Drop into presence,
Breathing in through the nose,
Big breath in.
Big exhale with a sigh.
Again,
Just like that,
Breathing in,
Filling yourself up.
Exhaling,
Dropping down.
Beautiful landing in this moment with this breath once more.
Beautiful feeling your body soften.
Feeling your shoulders drop down away from your ears.
Just letting yourself be held here,
Letting yourself be supported,
Relaxing your body into this moment,
Closing down your eyes if it feels good.
Or maybe it feels better to just soften the muscles behind your eyes,
Softening your gaze.
Just dropping in,
Feeling your body in this moment.
And we're going to begin to invite in a breath that is going to really help us to connect to what it feels like to allow.
And we're going to use our breath to feel that.
We're going to use our breath to create a somatic representation of allowance in the body.
So to do this,
We're going to focus on,
You know,
Pushing the exhale out,
Letting the exhale be the active part of this breath pattern,
This breath practice.
We're going to exhale everything.
And then we're just going to let the inhale come in naturally,
Passively.
So it's an active exhale and a passive inhale.
All right,
So we're going to exhale everything,
Feeling the contraction,
Feeling the emptying out of that exhale.
And then just releasing all efforting,
Letting the next inhale just come in.
Just noticing what happens when you let it all go,
When you let go of the doing,
When you let go of the trying and you land in a little bit more trust.
You feel that breath come in every time.
You don't have to force it.
You don't have to push it.
Life just comes back in.
Exhaling,
Empty out.
Letting the inhale come back in,
Filling you up.
Noticing that sensation of tension,
Feeling or imagining your belly button going back to meet your spine with that exhale.
And then release all efforting,
Feeling that breath come back in.
Noticing how it connects you to a current of grace.
This current of grace is always there.
It's always there running through you,
Moving through you.
And your breath is reminding you.
It's this voice,
This nudge saying,
Hey,
I've got you.
You're safe.
You can hold this.
Beautiful.
Moving that breath through,
Connecting to this experience,
Noticing what it's like for you.
Intentionally emptying your body out and simply allowing the inhale to flow back in.
It always comes.
It's always there to meet us when we allow it to.
Feeling this practice,
This breath move through the contraction and the expansion.
Feeling yourself,
Your body open and close.
Just notice,
Experience that.
When you're allowing,
You're not doing anything to it.
You're not trying to control it.
It is happening and you are holding it.
You're witnessing all of it.
Beautiful.
Keep it going.
Active exhale,
Passive inhale.
This is learning how to allow.
It is an integration of what the mind understands.
Okay,
I know what allowance is.
But it's connecting it with the body's experience of allowance.
The somatic experience of allowance.
I embody allowance.
When your breath just comes back in,
I know what allowance feels like in my body.
Or maybe it feels more true for you right now to say,
I am learning or I am in the process of learning what allowance feels like in my body.
Taking a few more cycles with that breath.
That's it.
Then just releasing that breath pattern and allow your breath to flow in and out.
Whatever way feels supportive for you.
Just feeling your body here.
Noticing what is here.
Meeting what is here.
Beautiful.
Maybe placing your hands on your body somewhere.
Just anywhere that feels supportive.
Feeling the warmth of your own touch.
This practice of feeling allowance in the body with the breath can increase your capacity or your ability to be with your life.
All of it.
With the ups and the downs.
With the heaviness and the lightness.
With the things that feel challenging and with the things that feel easy.
It is learning to hold yourself in safety with both the tension and the release.
To remember that one is not better than the other.
They simply are life being expressed through you.
It is in the noticing of I can feel this and I am safe.
This is here.
This is happening and I can do this.
If it feels supportive to you,
Just repeating those things to yourself.
This is here.
This is happening and I can do this.
Yes,
This too.
Beautiful.
Just noticing how one cycle of breath gives us this experience.
One cycle of breath can remind us of how we can take the shape of allowance in the body.
Of how we can breathe to allow life to come back in.
This helps us connect back to our own aliveness and to bring that aliveness.
To meet that aliveness.
To live through that in our day to day.
Just saying thank you to yourself for taking this time to connect.
To feel your body.
To feel your breath.
To feel the earth.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.
Take good care.
