Welcome to Meditations from My Paddleboard.
It's a beautiful day.
We're in paradise surrounded by blue skies and turquoise waters.
So come and find a comfortable seat,
Sitting up onto a cushion,
Elevating yourself on the paddleboard of your practice.
Take a moment to get comfortable and arrive.
Look around.
Look all around you.
Your eyes can be open or closed as you take in all the sights,
All the sounds.
The boats in the distance,
The children laughing,
The waves underneath the board.
Just grounding into the present moment,
Giving yourself this time to arrive with all of your senses.
Relax all the muscles of the face,
Please,
The bellies,
Nice and soft.
Just begin to bring awareness to the breath.
So deepen the breath,
Running out with a sigh,
Opening the mouth.
Big breath in,
Fill your whole body,
Expanding with this fresh new energy you're drawing in and exhale,
Open your mouth,
Let it all go.
Just noticing the instant effects of the breath on the body.
Let's bring our awareness now to the heart center.
And as we sit on this beautiful imaginary blue pattern geometry paddleboard,
Just take a moment to connect with how you're feeling.
How are you really?
Everything is welcome.
Everyone is welcome.
Every feeling is welcome.
Just deepen your breath into the heart space.
Take a moment to consider how you want to feel.
You want to feel free and in flow,
Relaxed and at ease.
Calm and grounded.
As you bring to mind these intentions,
This feeling,
Really intensify the feeling by bringing your awareness to the sensation you experience when you form the thought.
And let that go.
Let it all go.
Just sit,
Lengthen your spine,
Open the heart,
Relax the hands.
Take the next few moments to relax into simple beingness.
No need to do anything,
Achieve anything,
Master anything.
It's more a subtraction of doing.
We'll just come to bring our awareness now to the breath.
Letting go of anything else,
Just bringing your awareness fully to a nice,
Deep,
Slow inhale.
A nice flowing,
Full exhale.
Watching the space between the breaths.
Watching the space at the top of the inhale and the bottom of the exhale.
Just riding on the waves of the breath.
Your mind may wander,
It's okay,
It's normal.
Come back to the breath,
Just keep coming back to the breath.
Let that be the practice.
Anytime the mind wanders,
You celebrate yourself for noticing and then you just come back to the breath.
Training the mind in concentration,
Dharana,
Focusing the mind.
That flow can come effortlessly into your life in all the ways so that you feel the lines in yourself,
In your body,
In your work,
In your words,
In the ways that you show up in relationship.
All the ways.
Keep coming back to the breath,
Do five more cycles.
Long,
Slow,
Flowing breaths.
With your next exhale,
Letting go of the breath and drawing your hands together in prayer pose at your heart center.
So as we sit here and meditate,
I have a glowing sun to my right,
Turning the sky all shades of orange and white and pink.
Further off in the distance,
To the left,
There's a storm cloud.
Just a perfect gray fluffy storm cloud and you can see the bars of rain coming toward us most likely.
To my left,
There are musicians and dancers and meditators on the beach coming together in community,
In connection,
In celebration.
We are all sending you so much love.
With your hands in prayer,
Take a moment to consider five things that you feel grateful for.
One for every place your fingers are touching.
So the thumbs,
The index finger,
What are you grateful for?
Bringing to your heart five things,
Five people,
Five experiences,
Five blessings.
Letting that go.
Bring a soft smile to the face,
Celebrating yourself for showing up and sticking with this paddleboard meditation practice.
Sending you so much love and peace from Koh Phangan,
Thailand.
I look forward to seeing you in the next meditation.
