Welcome to Day 25 of Insight Timer's Intention Setting Challenge.
Setting an intention is making a decision about who you want to be and how you choose to show up.
Over time,
Those choices become change.
Let's begin.
Hey,
I'm Chibzo Kereke and in this short practice we'll be noticing when the mind runs ahead of reality and then we're going to gently invite ourselves back to what's true right now.
Let's allow the body to arrive before the mind tries to sprint off into the day.
You can close your eyes if that feels comfortable or simply soften your gaze with the eyes open.
And let's begin by feeling the support beneath you,
The chair,
The bed,
The floor,
Holding you safely.
See if you can allow the shoulders to drop a little,
Maybe unclenching the jaw,
Softening the belly.
And now let's take a slow,
Comfortable breath in through the nose and a soft,
Easy breath out through the nose or the mouth.
Breathing in through the nose and out through the nose or the mouth.
One last breath in and a slow breath out.
And now allowing the breath to return to its natural rhythm.
And now I invite you to bring your attention to the simple reality of this moment.
Perhaps you can feel the feet on the ground,
The body breathing.
Maybe you can hear some sounds in the room.
Just taking a moment to notice that you're here.
Now the mind will want to run ahead into what ifs,
Worst case scenarios,
Conversations that haven't happened yet,
Problems that haven't arrived.
That's just your nervous system trying to prepare and protect you.
Today we're practising something different,
We're noticing the moment that our thoughts start to sprint into the future and we're choosing not to feed the frenzy.
So as we breathe in,
Feeling the breath moving low into the belly.
And as we breathe out,
Letting the exhale be just a little longer than the inhale.
A slightly longer out breath tells the nervous system you're safe.
And if a thought pops up about something we said or something we're worried might happen,
Just seeing if we can notice it in the same way that we'd notice a cloud passing across the sky.
Thoughts like to predict,
But the body knows what's real.
Presence is where clarity lives.
Now before we close,
I invite you to set this intention for your day.
Today I will notice when my thoughts run ahead of reality and I will come back to what's true,
Right here,
Right now.
And whenever you're ready,
You can open your eyes and if you like,
You can set this intention on your home screen so it's there to remind you whenever the mind starts to sprint ahead again.
