Welcome to this guided meditation practice.
Before you take a journey into your mind and body,
Take a moment to find a comfortable position,
Sitting or lying down.
Place your arms gently by your sides or rest them in your lap.
When you are ready,
Close your eyes.
Begin to notice the weight of your body against the surface you are on.
Feel gravity pull you down.
Allow your body to go with it.
Now,
Imagine a string coming from the top of your head,
Reaching the sky.
As the string pulls,
Allow your body to be pulled into alignment with it.
Feel your spine lengthen,
Your shoulders drop,
And your chin tuck slightly towards your chest.
As you practice finding alignment in your posture,
You will notice that the better it becomes,
The more at ease you feel in your body and mind.
Now,
Gently release that image and turn your attention to your breath.
Take a couple of deep,
Full breaths to the count of 4,
Releasing them with a sigh.
Inhale,
1,
2,
3,
4,
And exhale,
Let it out.
Inhale,
1,
2,
3,
4,
And exhale,
Sigh out the breath.
Allow the day's tensions,
Worries,
And stresses to flow out with it.
Inhale,
1,
2,
3,
4,
And exhale.
Continue with this deep breathing on your own for a few moments.
Remember to give your body permission to melt with each exhale.
If you find emotions bubbling under the surface,
Perhaps they feel like they want to burst.
That's ok.
Notice them without getting caught up in them.
Keep your attention on your breath.
As you sigh out your last breath,
Drop the attention away and allow your breath to fall into a natural pattern for you.
Do not worry if you find your breath is still shallow or quick.
What's important is that you do not try to force a particular way of breathing,
Because it can lead to tension as you go against what your body needs right now.
Now,
Softly bring your awareness to the top of your head and scan down your body,
Notice any points of tension.
Sometimes we have a habit of tightening different parts of our body when we try to suppress emotions,
Or maybe from long days of being in front of screens or doing manual work.
Take this time for yourself,
Imagining each point melting away as you scan down your body.
Sense your face,
Feeling the muscles soften.
Scan through your jaw,
Down into your neck.
Sense your shoulders and travel down your arms,
Through your elbows,
Wrists and fingertips.
Allow your attention to travel to your chest.
Remind yourself to breathe.
Slowly make your way through your upper torso,
Down to your hips.
Sense your muscles soften as you pass them.
Gently pull your awareness into your pelvis,
Feel the spaces between the bones open up.
Sense your legs,
Knees,
Shins and calves.
Gently soften your ankles as you move into your feet and finally into your toes.
Take a moment to appreciate this new state of being.
Placing your attention on your body pulls attention away from your head,
Where all the thinking occurs.
When you find yourself trapped in your thoughts,
Scanning your body like this is a very useful technique to remove yourself from that spiral.
For now,
Let go of all of that and take a moment to just breathe.
Feel as the world around you transforms,
While your eyes remain closed.
Beneath you,
Cool sand caresses your body as you lie on it.
You can feel its texture pressing against you with every breath.
Gentle winds stream by you,
Their low humming fills the night and carries the music of insects and desert animals.
As you sit or lie on that sand,
Know that you are safe here.
Everything exists in its own balance,
You are an observer.
The night is lit by stars like fireflies hanging in the sky,
Flickering in the soft clouds of the Milky Way,
And a moon like a crystal giving the sand a tint of light.
The heavens above you stand like a large painting,
A vast space opening up,
While the earth below you stretches out into a vast sea of sand,
Stretching out into the night.
Allow yourself to feel the coolness of the night as you rest on this large expanse.
Remind yourself to breathe.
If you find it difficult to form any of these images,
That's okay,
It is not so much about the images as it is about the physical sensations that they come with.
The feeling of grains of sand as they're blown against you gently by the wind.
Feel the sand enveloping your feet as you stand up in the desert.
The tiny particles fill the gaps between your toes and massage your skin.
There's a coolness to them just below the surface,
Touching the soles of your feet.
As you walk,
You can feel them shift beneath you.
Dark blue sand dunes fill your vision.
Peaks and valleys lit by the stars and moon stretch to the horizon.
Right where the sand meets the sky,
A thread of light appears across the land.
Slowly,
The darkness merges with the light.
Notice the world transform.
After some time,
The light spreads across the sky like a fire burning away the night.
The night evaporates slowly as the world around you is in complete stillness,
Complete balance.
When the light begins to reach you,
Notice the feeling as if it enters and burns away any tension inside of you,
Any feelings of darkness,
Anything holding you back.
As the day rises,
You too begin to come to the present in your body.
Remind yourself to breathe.
Imagine the pure,
Cool air of the desert filling you up inside.
Each breath dwells deeper into your body until you can picture the air flow into each fingertip.
The sounds of insects,
Of animals,
Of life bustle around you.
The sands shift constantly in the wind.
Allow the wind to cool your body down with the sand.
Feel it move around you,
Almost like it is going through you,
Filling your breath even more.
With each new breath,
Start to bring yourself back from the desert to where you are.
Allow your body to continue breathing as it needs to,
Without pushing,
Without judgment.
Notice the sand replaced by the surface you are on.
The desert air is part of the atmosphere in the area you find yourself in.
The desert insects and animals are replaced with traffic,
Or the sounds of people going about their lives,
Everything in its own unique balance.
Give yourself a few moments to sink in with the present world.
When you are ready,
Gently open your eyes.
Enjoy as you go about the rest of your day with a new sense of ease.
