Welcome to this guided practice.
A space for you to dissolve worries and anxiety.
So nestle your body into a space that will hold and nurture you in the minutes ahead.
And let the body be heavy on the surface you lie on.
And as you settle,
Take in a long breath and breathe it out slowly with intention.
Take in another breath and direct it to the chest.
Feeling expansion from collarbone to collarbone.
Take the next breath to the heart space.
Arising and falling as the next breath you take to the belly.
Then we can merge these three spaces.
Chest,
The heart space in the belly with the next luscious inhale.
And tender exhale.
And so we welcome ourselves to this time.
This one and only now.
A coordinate on your map.
The real here and now.
Take the time to notice the now that you are in.
The day of the week.
The room you've chosen to practice in today.
Close down the eyes.
And notice the whispers of shadow and light of this season that you can see from behind closed lips.
And then fully surrender to your inner world.
Your closed eye world.
Take a slow scan of your body.
As if passing a torch from the top of your head.
Moving it slowly down.
Noticing any areas that are making themselves known.
There may be places of comfort and ease.
Places of constriction.
Or even an absence of feeling.
Breathe into these places now.
Loosening and letting go.
Return back again to this present moment.
And now.
Followed by another now and another breath.
Turning into breath.
Be aware of the inhale.
The pause between.
Before the exhale arrives.
The pause before the next inhalation.
And as you breathe the moments knit together and turn into the fabric of time.
We all have our unique timeline of what went before.
All we have is right now.
We have no notion of the future and what it might contain.
Anywhere our mind takes us is an illusion.
A thought.
And we can invite in a tender compassion to where our thoughts might wander to.
Whilst knowing that they are right now.
Only a story.
We might write stories based on our worries.
Our fears.
Perhaps spun from a trajectory of lived experience.
Or the stories we hear from other people.
The wildernesses and fantasies of our imagination.
It is truly remarkable to notice the storytellers we are,
Our human nature.
Writing scripts for ourselves,
Bricolage together from things that may well never come to pass.
Notice the arc of your thoughts.
Notice the wider arc of thoughts that have been with you today and over recent days and weeks.
Notice them as a witness.
Without attaching meaning or judgment to them.
You might imagine them as having form or shape.
They may have a colour,
A texture.
Imagine them now.
As object or artefact.
And know that these thoughts have no power over you.
Imagine them like pebbles in your cupped hand.
Picture yourself with these pebbles walking along the edge of a river.
Take yourself there.
Visualise the landscape,
The grasses,
The season,
The weather.
Picture the current of the water as you walk by its side.
The direction of flow.
Notice any animals as part of this landscape.
Up ahead is an old wooden bridge and you walk towards it.
As you reach it you begin to cross to the middle of the bridge.
You gaze at the water beneath.
And from your hand you take the form or forms that you have carried.
The pebbles,
The symbolism of the things that have been weighing heavy for you.
And with sacred intention you cast them into the water below.
They are released from you.
To be reformed,
Carried on the water and away to the estuary,
To the sea.
Back to the atmosphere,
A dissolution.
You have let them go.
Feel into that now.
The lightness of it.
Trace your steps back now off the bridge to the river path.
And you notice that it has become summer.
And it is the perfect summer day for you.
The temperature.
The breaking of the light.
And feel the warmth of the sun on your face,
The abundance of green,
The sounds of a high summer day.
And with sun on your face,
The scenery begins to dissolve.
And from here imagine now you are transcending into pure timelessness,
A place beyond time.
A vibrant white light is surrounding you from above,
From beneath and from either side.
It holds you and washes away any residual tensions or contraction.
And from here the light returns you back to where you began.
To the now.
Returned.
Let each breath now be a return in itself.
Let each inhale and exhale take you further towards a perfect rotation from the now we began with.
To the now we arrive at.
Place the hand now onto your heart.
Know that you are safe.
And know that you are loved.
Bring yourself back to the surface that holds you,
Your body,
Lying here in time and space.
And in your own time,
Open your eyes and welcome yourself to the end of this practice.
There is no need to move.
You can simply be stepping back into your world when you're ready.
And go gently into your day.
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