Hello and welcome to your Intro to Meditation session.
I'm Ellie Bosmorova and I'm grateful to be guiding your practice today.
Go ahead now and get in your comfortable space,
Either lying down or sitting down.
The details of how you position your body are up to you.
It's what feels most comfortable to you without you running the risk of falling asleep.
Our practice today will be very simple,
Guiding you to start to relate to your mind in a more intentional way while connecting your body and your breath.
When you're ready,
Take a deep breath in through your nose,
Letting the air fill your lungs,
And then sigh out and exhale.
Take another deep breath,
This time imagining you're pulling air into your body through the bottoms of your feet,
All the way up through your body to the top of your head.
And then let out another sigh all the way out.
And just notice if there are any sensations in the body,
Tingling,
Areas where you feel more presence,
More feeling,
And maybe places where there's just a sense of neutrality,
Numbness,
No sensation.
Now I want you to start to follow your breath in its natural rhythm,
Simple inhales and exhales.
Follow the breath as it moves in through the nose,
Pauses somewhere,
And then flows back out of the body.
See if you can do this without changing the breath in any way.
You might notice that in fact,
Your breathing might be irregular.
It might be felt more in the chest,
Or the belly,
Or the throat.
Your breathing might be deep or shallow,
Fast or slow.
And it likely won't take long for your mind to wander,
Which it naturally does all day and all night.
So this is a natural okay process.
In meditation,
Our object is to gently let go of where the mind wants to take us,
And simply come back to the breath,
At least in today's technique.
So anytime your mind wanders,
Can you lovingly and gently bring it back to the breath?
Without judgment.
Noticing too,
If you feel a desire to follow the thought.
Our mind can tell us things require our immediate attention,
Even when we're meditating.
See if you can practice dropping the thought,
Just for now.
And coming back to the simple fact of this inhale.
To the simple fact of this exhale.
Allowing your body to let go of anything it's holding onto,
And simply be present.
As effortless,
As easy,
As peaceful,
As you can make it.
Remembering there's no such thing as meditating perfectly.
Monks who have been doing this practice for 40 years still find difficult thoughts and feelings arise.
But the way they relate to them has changed.
Simply letting the thought go on its way,
Arise and pass,
As they reconnect,
As you reconnect with the simple present moment.
Breathing in,
And breathing out.
This concludes our Intro to Meditation session.
Again,
I'm Ellie Bozmarova,
Super proud of you,
And excited to meditate with you again soon.
