If it's comfortable for you,
Please go ahead and find a seat for this meditation.
As always,
You can do this meditation lying down,
Just whatever is most comfortable for you.
If it's available,
I invite you to gently close down the windows of your eyes,
Or maybe you just have a soft gaze looking down towards the tip of your nose.
Before we start to go into stillness,
Let's take a little bit of movement.
Maybe it feels good to shrug your shoulders a little bit.
Maybe it feels good to flick your hands,
Or shake your arms,
Or take a big stretch reaching through the arms and reaching through the hands.
Maybe you're someone who likes to nod their head from side to side,
Or open and close the jaw.
Before we really start to get into the stillness,
Is there anything you can do right now to get 1% more comfortable?
And then let's start to focus on our breath.
So just take in a couple of nice,
Slow,
Deep breaths here.
On every inhale,
Feel the belly rise,
The ribcage rise,
The chest rise.
And on every exhale,
Feel the chest descend,
The ribcage descend,
And the belly descend.
So you're inviting your breath to be really big and expansive.
And as you breathe here,
Could you start to invite this sense of calm,
Grounding-ness on your inhales?
So on every inhale,
You just invite a little bit more calm,
A little bit more grounding.
And on every exhale,
You just start to invite this sense of softening,
Inhaling this grounded calm,
Exhaling and softening your eyes,
Softening on all the muscles behind the eyes,
Softening the jaw,
Inhaling this sense of calm,
Grounded-ness and softening the shoulders and softening the torso and the thighs,
Inhaling this sense of calm,
Grounded-ness and exhaling and softening any expectations of how you think your body should be looking right now or what your mind should be doing.
And to help us slip into that state of calm,
Grounded-ness,
Let's start to tune into our breath.
So whenever we have a longer exhalation,
That's just the body's way of telling it.
It's time to soften.
It's time to slow down.
We're going to inhale for a count of three,
Hold the breath for a count of four,
And exhale for a count of five.
And that exhale can be out through the nose,
Out through the mouth,
And you can always modify the count to fit your needs.
I just recommend having a longer exhale.
Let's take a regular breath to begin,
So give me a slow,
Deep breath in and a soft,
Deep breath out.
Inhale for one,
Two,
Three,
Hold the breath,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Exhale five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One.
Inhale,
One,
Two,
Three,
Hold,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Exhale,
Five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One.
Inhale,
Hold,
Exhale,
And then take one more round like that on your own.
Inhaling three,
Holding four,
And exhaling five.
And then just let the breath be.
Your breath has been with you since the beginning.
When you first came into this world and took your first cry and your first breath,
The breath has always been there for you.
And in meditation,
We like to call the breath the anchor.
So right now,
Your mind might be focused on my words,
Or you might be ruminating,
Analyzing,
Judging.
Maybe joy is present,
Boredom,
Frustration,
Sleepiness.
The mind loves to think.
So when the thinking occurs,
I just invite you to label it,
Judgment is here,
Boredom is here,
Planning is here.
And then you come back to the breath,
You use that as the anchor to keep you present in this moment.
Since today is all about the beach,
Let's go ahead and go there.
So I want you to start to envision in your mind's eye a beautiful beach house in Cornwall,
England.
You've woken up for the day in your bed.
You've pulled the sheets away from the body,
Feeling cozy and warm.
As you start to open the curtains,
You see a beach.
You see white coming in from the shore,
From the crashes of the beach.
You see all the greenery around you.
And as you peek out the window and really take in the sights of the beach,
You start to head downstairs,
Go through the kitchen,
And open the back doors as a path is there to lead you down to the beach just minutes away.
As you open the door to get towards the beach,
You feel this crisp,
Inviting air,
And it almost ignites this energy within you as you feel called to run almost to the beach.
But you just decide to take a couple of slow steps as you really take in the views around you.
You can hear seagulls flying above.
You can feel the ocean on your face,
And you start to feel this sense of peace,
This sense of calm.
No one's around,
But just you,
Just you and Mother Nature and the beach.
So as you descend down the steps towards the beach,
And the path starts to come to a close,
You've made it.
Your feet is touching the sand.
You can see little pebbles around you as you look towards the ground,
And you can feel the mist of the ocean tickling your skin as the waves crash around you.
As you look towards your right,
You see a perfect chair just for you,
Inviting you to sit down and enjoy this time,
To listen to the waves,
To feel the ocean on your skin,
The sand below your feet,
Nowhere to go and nothing to do.
I'm going to go quiet for a little bit so that you can sit here in the silence and the stillness,
Knowing that there is nothing you need to do but just be.
Remember,
You are not your thoughts.
You are the one who experiences them.
So as you sit here,
Be with your experience just as it is,
And I'll let you know when we're coming back.
As you sit here on the beach,
You know that your time is coming to a close,
So you take a couple of last final deep breaths here,
Really breathing in all the nature and all the beauty that's around you.
And the beach has a message for you.
It's here to remind you to always take time for yourself.
The beach,
The water,
The ocean,
It gives off this cleansing type of energy.
It reminds us that every moment is a new opportunity,
Every day is a new day,
And that it's so important to honor moments of silence and stillness and rest so that we can find that balance within movement,
Stillness,
Action,
Surrender.
As you listen to the waves crashing one final time,
You start to feel yourself getting up from the chair on the beach and making your way back to the beach house.
As you start to walk up the steps,
You take in one final view,
The birds,
The greenery,
The waves,
The sky.
Wherever you're at,
Start to take a couple of slow deep breaths in and slow deep breaths out.
Once again,
Returning to that sense of calm grounding on the inhales and that sense of softening on the exhales.
And using the breath,
We'll count from 10 to 1 to slowly bring us back into the present moment.
Inhaling 1,
Exhaling 1.
Inhaling 2,
Exhaling 2.
Inhaling 3,
Exhaling 3.
Inhaling 4,
Exhaling 4.
Inhaling 5,
Exhaling 5.
And continuing like this until you get to 10.
When you're ready,
Slowly start to add any organic movement into the body.
Maybe it feels good to wiggle your fingers or wiggle your toes.
Maybe take a big morning stretch,
Reaching through the arms,
Reaching through the hands.
And when you're ready,
You can slowly start to open your eyes.
Once again,
This is Jax.
I hope this meditation has brought a little bit more calm and a little bit more grounding to you.
And I hope to see you at a meditation soon.
Peace.
