Aligning With The Spirit

This is a meditation entitled,

Aligning with the Spirit.

So I invite you to close your eyes or cast your eyes down.

As you come to a seated position or lying down or standing,

Just noticing whatever feels most responsive to where you are in this moment.

What would feel responsive to your body?

What posture?

And then settling into that posture,

Whatever you land on.

And first drawing your attention to the feelings and sensations in your body,

Making contact with whatever is beneath you.

So if you're lying down,

That's going to be the entire backside of your body making contact with whatever you're lying upon.

If you're in a seated position,

Noticing the feelings and sensations of the backs of your legs,

Your bottom,

Sitting on whatever you're making contact with.

Just ever so lightly drawing the attention to the feelings and sensations of making contact.

And now drawing your attention to your breath,

Noticing the feelings and sensations as air moves through your nostrils.

And then dropping that attention a little bit further down into your torso,

Noticing that slight rise and fall of your chest.

As life giving air moves in and out of your body.

And then lowering that attention even further.

Noticing that diaphragmatic breathing.

See if you can notice a slight expansion and then deflation of your belly.

Just noticing those feelings and sensations in your body.

This life giving air moves in and out.

Now,

Lowering the attention even further,

Dropping down into the area between your hips,

Your lower back and lower abdomen.

See if you can have a sense of dropping your breath all the way down into this lower region of your torso.

And now with your attention already in your hips,

Use this as an opportunity to ground in your hips and pull through your hips,

Elongating your back so that your back is a nice long line.

As if you have a thread that moves from your tailbone all the way up through your spine,

The back of your neck and out the back of the top of your head.

So again,

Grounding in the hips and pulling through the hips,

Stretching through that back.

Rolling your shoulders back to create a nice opening through your chest and slowing your breathing down,

Watching the wisdom of your own body,

Noticing what feels responsive to you.

How much extra in breath,

How much extra out breath feels good and right to you in this moment of meditation.

So stretching the breath on the inhale,

Stretching the breath on the exhale.

You may have the sensation of feeling filled up as you breathe in in this elongated way.

And on the exhale,

Making sure that every single last bit of breath leaves your body.

So continuing in this pattern of elongated breath just a bit longer.

Noticing the feelings and sensations through your torso as you're taking these elongated breaths.

Beautifully done.

And so as we're working with this elongated breath,

Let us take in these words from Galatians.

If we live in spirit,

Let us also be aligned with spirit.

If we live by the spirit,

Let us also be guided by the spirit.

So let's work with the first piece first.

If we live in spirit,

Let us also be aligned with spirit.

So as you're taking these exaggerated inhales and exhales,

See if there is a way in which you can connect with the divine presence of the Holy Spirit.

So that as you breathe in and fill up,

You are noticing that your breath is ever connected to the divine breath itself.

They become one and the same.

So through this practice of meditation,

As you're coming home to your breath over and over and over again,

You're also coming home to the presence of the Holy Spirit,

The Holy Spirit who moves in and through us.

The Holy Spirit who grounds us in God's grace.

As you breathe in and out,

Sense that tether between your breath and the breath of the spirit.

So lighting your attention on breath is alighting your attention on the Holy Spirit.

And as you breathe,

See if there is a way in which you sense an alignment as if the spirit is moving through your mind.

The spirit is moving through your heart space.

The spirit is moving through your power center.

The spirit is moving through the lower region of your torso and that lower region between your hips,

The lower back and the lower abdomen.

Following that breath all the way down allows you to stay open for all the ways in which the Holy Spirit is aligning your heart,

Mind,

Body and spirit,

Your very soul in alignment with each other and then also with the spirit herself.

So that air moves in through the top of your head,

Moves through the head space,

The throat space,

The place where we give birth to our voice,

The heart space,

The power center down into your soul.

And allowing yourself to simply breathe with this awareness that the spirit is breathing in and through,

Aligning every aspect of your being with itself,

Which is then ultimately aligned with the spirit.

Staying with this.

So getting still,

Becoming quiet,

Practicing meditation becomes a spiritual discipline of coming home to your own body,

Breath and soul.

It also gives you a spiritual opportunity to connect with the spirit and through connecting with the spirit,

You are able to align with the spirit.

So let's live into this next piece,

Meditate our way into this next piece,

If we live by the spirit,

Let us also be guided by the spirit.

If we live by the spirit,

Let us also be guided by the spirit.

So there's a way in which when we take this time to get still,

To draw our attention to our own bodies,

Our own breath,

Remember that connection to the breath of the Holy Spirit,

That alignment,

That alignment that we experience with the spirit,

Gives us a way in which to access the Holy Spirit at any given moment throughout our day.

So that we're not only guided by the spirit when we're sitting in meditation.

Meditation helps to prime the pump so that at any moment,

Day or night,

We have better access to the movement of the spirit within us and ability to be guided by the spirit.

So whether we need guidance with our decision making,

Guidance with interacting with other people,

Guidance in our own thoughts or managing our emotions,

Or managing physical pain,

Discomfort,

A lack of ease,

Whatever it is that we need guidance with,

We can attune to the Holy Spirit and allow the spirit to guide us.

So just a moment more of this meditation,

Staying connected with your own breath,

And how that breath connects you to the presence of the spirit moving in and through you.

And opening your eyes if you've had them closed,

Taking a couple deep cleansing breaths,

You may want to even use your arms to come up over your head on the inhale,

And then releasing on the exhale in your own rhythm,

Following the wisdom of your body.