What's up friends,
Welcome back to another meditation and thank you for showing up to practice again today.
Showing up is 95% of the work and you did it.
So without further ado,
Let's get into our practice which today's meditation is around cultivating deep focus by working with the body.
So we'll start our practice by sitting up straight,
Taking an upright posture,
Not too rigid,
Allowing the shoulders to be relaxed.
I'll invite you to tilt the forehead just slightly down and the chin tucked slightly in to get a really nice alignment in the neck and the back.
I'll invite you to place your left hand on your left knee,
Your right hand on your right knee,
And maybe about five or 10% adjustment where you open up your chest,
Receiving the heart to the world.
Feeling your feet on the ground and just taking a moment to notice your body in the space.
Beginning to also notice your breath as you breathe in and as you breathe out.
Continuing that rhythm,
That pattern of breathing,
Just very gently and naturally,
Breathing in nourishment into the body,
Breathing out,
Ease,
And releasing tension that's ready to be released.
And our practice today is gonna be focused on anchors,
Which is another way of saying that when you get distracted,
You have an anchor to come back to over and over again.
The point of our practice is not to get rid of thoughts.
The point is to just come back as many times as we need.
So if you get distracted a thousand times,
Beautiful,
That's a thousand opportunities to practice coming back home.
And as you continue to breathe,
I'm gonna invite you to place your attention on your left hand,
The one that's resting on your left knee.
And beginning to notice just what it's like to feel your left hand.
So maybe you wiggle your left fingers,
Feel the knee beneath your hand and how it feels supported.
Maybe noticing the temperature of your left hand.
Is it hotter or cool?
Feeling the tingling sensations,
Maybe the energy flowing.
And without losing your focus on the left hand,
We're gonna also invite in a second point,
Which is your right hand.
So now we're holding both points in our awareness and see if you can simultaneously notice the sensations in the right hand.
So just like the left feeling,
The fingers,
Feeling the support of the leg beneath you,
Noticing the difference in temperature between the left and the right hand and feeling any sort of sensations that arise and pass,
Whether it be tingling,
Pinpricks,
Pulsing of energy.
And so here we are focusing on both hands,
Sending the breath down to the hands.
And when you get distracted,
Coming back to what you're feeling in the hands.
And just as we did when we added the second point,
We're gonna add a third point now.
So without losing connection to the two hands,
I want to invite you to bring your awareness to the center of your chest,
To the heart space,
All the while feeling both hands and invite you to expand your awareness into noticing what it's like to be present in your chest.
Noticing the chest rising and falling with the inhale and the exhale.
Noticing if there's any tightness in the chest,
Noticing the feeling of the breath in the chest and beginning to notice that these three points that you're holding onto very gently are creating a triangular field of awareness.
Each breath you take brings you deeper into connection into these three points,
Feeling the energetic power of just resting in between these three points.
It may be helpful to imagine a triangle connecting these three points or maybe just feeling into the sensations that are here.
Letting this be your anchor through any distractions.
Also taking a few moments to relax the body even more and I'll guide you from the head to toe.
So taking a few moments to relax the face.
So that might be softening the forehead,
Softening the eyes,
Relaxing the tongue and unclenching the jaw.
Inviting the shoulders to relax.
Maybe you can imagine the shoulders are like blocks of ice melting in the summer sun.
That sensation of ice to water,
Softening the throat,
Relaxing the belly,
Releasing any tension that's ready to be released in the legs and finally in the feet.
And what we're doing here is creating a heightened sense of awareness in the body while simultaneously releasing what's ready to be released.
That doesn't mean all tension will go away,
But we're opening up the opportunity for it to start to move.
All the while staying connected to those three foundational points,
Feeling the left hand,
The right hand and your chest.
Letting this be your home base.
Also take a few moments to open up to the senses all the while staying connected to our three points.
Beginning to notice the sounds,
Sound of my voice and the sounds in your environment,
Subtle sounds in the distance and the sound of your breath.
Feeling the clothes and your skin and the support of what you're sitting on.
Noticing the smells,
The taste in your mouth and perhaps the light peeking in through the eyelids all the while staying connected to your three points.
And for our final part of the practice,
The invitation is to just come back to your breath,
Coming back to the sensations of your two hands and your chest and to simply rest in this field of awareness that you've created.
Each breath taking you deeper and deeper into the present moment.
Remembering that every time you get distracted,
It's this beautiful opportunity to practice coming back to your three points and it's really the quality of how you come back that matters most.
So when you catch yourself distracted,
How gentle can you be in coming back home?
Allowing all that comes up to come up without resisting it.
Knowing that you can always rest and be at home in this space.
And from there,
Allow life to unfold.
The invitation is to stay here as long as you need.
And whenever you're ready,
You're welcome to take a deep breath in,
Releasing out and gently come back into your space and into the rest of your day.
Thank you for meditating with me and sending you so much love.
