Hello and welcome to a meditation built to help you release the day's tensions,
The day's stresses,
And step into the rest of your day with feelings of lightness and of ease.
To begin,
Find a comfortable seat.
You might sit on a chair,
Sit on the floor,
Lean up against a wall,
Or maybe even lie down.
As you arrive in this position,
Give yourself a few deep breaths to presence yourself.
Let every inhale be an exploration and an expansion of the body.
As you draw the breath,
All the way down to the diaphragm,
Fill up through the lungs,
And even fill up through the throat.
Before unclenching the jaw,
Parting the lips,
And exhaling fully through the mouth.
You might repeat this a couple different times,
Allowing yourself to truly sink into your physical body.
This linking of body,
Of breath,
Of mind,
Being what might allow you to feel fully present in this moment.
Inhale fully and exhale to release.
Let's do one more inhaling fully.
As you fill up even through the throat,
Try to sip in just a little more air at the top.
And then exhale,
Let that go.
Meditation can look a variety of ways.
Often we imagine a perfectly blank slate in the mind.
But in reality,
We are thinking beings,
And the mind tends to get caught up in those thoughts.
So as we prepare to move into a few moments of stillness here,
I invite you to step back into the role of observer.
Know that any thoughts,
Any resulting feelings of those thoughts are simply as they are,
Are simply separate from you.
You can picture these thoughts almost as things going by on a ticker tape.
You the observer are able to notice what those thoughts are.
But it doesn't mean that you find yourself consumed by them.
On every exhale,
Any thought that emerges within the mind.
You can imagine gently floating out of the mind,
Even if it returns just a moment later.
Take a few moments of silence here to just experiment with observing the thoughts,
Recognizing yourself as separate from those thoughts.
And as thoughts continue to enter into the mind,
It can be helpful to dismiss them with a simple label.
If a thought arises,
You may offer a reason as to why that thought is there.
And then simply let it go.
This reason can be brief.
Maybe you think of what to plan for dinner this evening.
The label can simply be.
That's a responsibility I have that I care to fulfill.
Exhale and release.
Sometimes simply labeling these thoughts allows us to understand the patterns of our mind.
Allows us to understand.
Which thoughts we give priority to.
Which thoughts.
We have patterned into thinking of more commonly than others.
And which thoughts we may be feel are related to things that were held more accountable for by others or ourselves.
And the goal of observation here is not to judge,
Not to change,
But simply to bring awareness into what these patterns might be.
As you continue to observe anything that arises.
Continue to label,
Whatever it is that you might be seeing.
I would invite you to imagine taking a step,
Even further back from whatever it is that you might see in your mind's eye.
Draw awareness from the thinking part of the self.
Downward into something deeper.
You might feel like shifting awareness from the mind or the eyes,
Some location that's physically in the head and drawing it down within the chest within the stomach.
Your focus here,
Your anchor here can be the breath.
And still you might find yourself drawing awareness upward.
You might find yourself seeing your thoughts.
But remember that place of stillness that lies deeper still.
And use a breath to descend back into that space,
Which might feel physically anchored into the torso.
This Pima children quote says you are the sky.
You are the sky.
Everything else is just the weather.
Our thoughts come and go.
We likewise do our emotions.
But still,
We remain.
Still there is something that goes deeper than all of that,
That persists.
And then we get carried away by the weather.
We know that beyond it.
Why is the sky,
Unchanging steady unwavering resolute.
Give yourself one more breath in the space of stillness fully relishing.
The part of you that is steady unwavering resolute.
Remember that this part of you exists,
Always.
If only you take a moment to see beyond the weather.
If only you take a moment to sink into that internal stillness.
Allow yourself another conscious inhale drawing the breath fully inward.
And then part the lips to let the exhale go.
You might continue this breathing as you gently reawaken cracking the eyes open gently.
Maybe circling the shoulders,
Doing anything that feels nourishing to you as you prepare to step out of this moment and into whatever the rest of your day might hold.
You are the sky.
Everything else is just the weather.
