Welcome.
Thank you for joining me today for this mindful practice.
So,
To reduce anxiety,
Please make yourself comfortable lying down on your bed,
Or on the floor,
Or wherever you can be comfortable.
Maybe putting a pillow of some sort under your knees.
Allow your eyes to close,
And your body to just melt into the floor or the bed.
Take a few moments to scan your awareness through the sensations of your body,
And wherever possible,
Soften and release obvious areas of physical tension.
This can be done with great effect at the end of a long day,
Although it can be done at any other time.
Allow your attention to gently come into the body,
To the flowing of your breath.
Now,
Experience the sense of your body as a whole,
Simply lying here,
Extended and breathing.
When you feel ready,
Picture in your mind's eye the image of a lake.
Perhaps a lake that you know well,
And that you go to from time to time.
Or one that you've seen in a photograph.
Just see if you can bring that image into vivid focus in your mind's eye.
Notice how it's an extended body of water held within the earth's surface.
And perhaps fed by a spring or a stream.
If you watch and observe the lake carefully,
You'll notice that it's always changing.
And yet,
It's also always itself.
It changes as the sun moves across the sky.
The light is reflected off the water in different ways.
It changes depending on the weather.
Sometimes,
On very calm days,
The surface might be like glass and reflect virtually everything with great precision that comes by.
Clouds.
Birds.
The trees that might surround the lake.
The sun as it makes its journey across the sky.
And for that matter,
The moon and the stars at night.
So there are times when the lake is extremely reflective and contains,
In a certain way,
Everything that comes by or over it.
In different periods of time,
The surface might be choppy.
And sometimes quite pronounced in the waves.
In which times,
The light might sparkle off the waves in different ways.
Of course,
The lake changes through the seasons.
In the winter,
Depending on its location,
It might actually be frozen over.
Through day and night.
And through the seasons.
And through the years.
The lake is constantly changing.
But always is its own essential nature.
And now,
See if you can invite the lake to exist within your own body.
Lying here,
So that your body becomes the lake itself.
You can imagine feeling held and embraced as you lie here aware of the many ways in which your own mind is like the surface of the lake.
Sometimes highly reflective.
Sometimes choppy.
Getting in touch with the sense of the entirety of the lake.
The full body of water.
Not only in the surface,
But also down below.
As you lie here,
Experience the fullness of your own being so that even at times when your mind is choppy and upset,
Or reactive,
Or dealing with difficult things,
You can drop down beneath the surface of your own mind's waves and find a stillness and a calmness that's always here,
And always available to you with each moment,
With each breath,
And certainly when you come to lie down in this way.
Lying here under the canopy of your vast awareness.
Experiencing the moment-to-moment changes in your body,
And sensations,
Thoughts,
Feelings,
Impulses,
Sounds,
And all the while,
Lake-like,
Just simply lying here watching the play of the weather of your mind and body.
Allowing your awareness to hold it all,
Moment by moment,
Breath by breath,
In your own fullness,
In your own completeness,
Moment by moment.
Thank you for your kind awareness.
