And just listen to the bell fade away.
And start to listen to the noise in the room around you.
Maybe it's silence,
Maybe it's just the flow of air.
Start to use your ears to wake up.
And then moving your attention outside the room and listening off in the distance.
Listening in a global way so nothing stands out more than anything else.
You don't have to focus on one thing.
Things come and go.
Just like sounds,
Your breath comes in and then it goes out.
So not trying to control your breath,
Just letting the body breathe itself.
Noticing the movement of your chest and your stomach rises and falls.
Noticing the air traveling down through your sinuses and your throat and then back up again.
And feeling if there's a temperature differential with the air as it comes in and then leaves.
It's a little cooler on the way in and a little warmer on the way out.
Gently letting go of the attention on the breath and moving it through the body.
Noticing any places of tension or clench or tightness that you can let go of.
Relaxing the face.
Allowing the shoulders to fall back and down.
Letting the hands rest in your lap or wherever they're sitting.
Lending your stomach.
Letting go of any clench or tension in your legs.
As your body relaxes and comes online,
Comes into the present moment,
Just notice what the physical sensations are.
There might be tingling,
Warmth,
Coolness.
What does it feel like from the inside out?
And every time that you find your mind drifting away into thought,
Planning for the future,
Remembering the past,
Worrying,
Getting excited off in your mind,
Just guide your mind back to what it feels like inside of this body right here in this present moment.
Come back and re-relax the body.
And see if there's any part of your experience that feels a little more present than a few minutes ago.
Maybe there's a freshness.
Maybe there's a little bit more ease.
If you find any of that,
See if you can savor it.
See if you can just relax into it.
We spend so much of our days running to the next thing on the to-do list.
Looking ahead,
Planning,
Worrying.
We often miss what's right here in front of us.
And again,
Every time the mind drifts away and you wake up from that trance of thinking,
Just come back,
Feel the body,
See if there's any tension that you can let go of.
And it might be helpful to focus on a few parts of the body that tend to get tight,
Especially when we're thinking a lot.
We're looking at a screen all day,
Trying to solve problems,
Manage things.
Noticing the stomach.
You can use your breath to relax the stomach.
So on each in-breath,
Allow it to be received by a softening stomach.
And then also the muscles around the eyes and the mouth.
You often don't notice how we're tightening up and tensing there throughout the day.
So relax the muscles that surround the eyes and the forehead,
The brow.
Just notice what physical sensations appear.
What does it feel like to relax?
What about around your mouth?
You might imagine the shape of a smile on your face can help relax.
What does it feel like to relax your throat and your neck,
Particularly the back of the neck?
What kind of relief can you find?
And again,
If you find the mind often thought,
Just guide yourself back to this present moment,
To the feelings in your body,
The movement of your breath and sound.
You want a relaxed body but a posture that still allows us to be alert in the mind.
And again,
Still listening in a global way,
Not focusing on one sound or another.
Just letting all sound be there and come and go.
Continuing to relax the body,
So letting go in the hands.
Really letting go from the inside out.
What does that feel like?
See if you can notice that the more you let go,
The more you can feel.
And what about down through your legs into the feet?
You just relax the lower half of your body.
And what does it feel like where your feet are touching the floor?
Can you feel the stability and the sturdiness of the floor and the ground underneath you?
What about your seat in the chair?
Can you feel those connection points and the support below the chair?
It's almost like the chair and the floor are an extension of your body.
They're fully supported.
Invite you to try to rest right in the center of your experience.
Feeling all those sensations in the body.
There's an itch on the skin,
There's some tightness,
Some tingling.
Just like sound,
It comes and goes.
The breath comes in and then it goes out.
There's sound in every direction.
You don't have to do anything.
You don't have to be anywhere else.
You can just be.
You can just be anywhere.
And if anything comes up that feels wrong or off or it's taking you out of your experience,
See if you can take a step back in your mind and just see it from a wider perspective.
It's just part of your experience,
The sound that's distracting.
Or maybe some part of you that's judging how the meditation is going.
Just part of the experience.
It's allowed to be here.
Check it out yourself.
And when you find yourself thinking,
Just let go of those thoughts and relax back into this moment.
Re-relax the body.
Just keep coming back.
And with the sound of the bell,
You can open your eyes and you're ready to.
.
.
Hmm.
