Welcome to this short practice for anyone who has ever felt stuck in their own thinking and who is ready to experience what it feels like to step out of the head and into the flow.
We will begin with a grounding breath practice and a body scan to help settle the nervous system.
Then I will guide you into a brief somatic inquiry and we'll close with a two-part art prompt,
A hand.
Artistic skill is not required to benefit from this practice.
Let us begin.
First,
Find a comfortable seat with your feet flat on the floor or your legs crossed,
Whatever feels most supportive for your body right now.
Let your hands rest softly in your lap.
You may close your eyes if that feels comfortable or gaze softly to a place in front of you.
Begin simply by noticing your breath.
Notice the natural rhythm of the inhale and the exhale.
Notice where the breath is moving in your body.
Is it staying high near the collarbones or can you feel it moving down into the heart space or belly?
Begin now to breathe a little more deeply if you are not already.
Notice the gentle expansion on the inhale,
Taking a brief pause and then exhale and another brief pause.
Continue for a few rounds of breath.
As you return your breath to natural,
Now bring your awareness to your body.
Begin by noticing the soles of your feet and notice where your feet make contact with the floor beneath you.
Move your awareness up through your ankles.
Notice your calves and shins,
Your knees.
Notice the top of your legs.
Just notice any sensation here,
Tension or ease,
Warmth or coolness.
Notice if there is any gripping in the legs and soften.
Bring your awareness now to the sits bones and hips.
Notice where your body makes contact with the chair or cushion beneath you.
Move your awareness up into your belly.
Notice if there's any sense of tightness or gripping and again soften.
Bring your awareness up the spine now and into your heart space.
Notice the rise and fall of your breath here and now move your awareness up to your neck and your shoulders.
Notice if you are carrying any tension here,
A familiar holding or a weight.
See if you can soften the shoulders just slightly.
Move your awareness down through the arms and into the hands.
Notice if there's a feeling of energy or warmth in the hands.
Move your awareness back up through the arms,
The shoulders,
Up through the neck to the back of your head.
Notice your jaw,
Your nose,
Your eyes,
The space between your eyebrows.
Notice your forehead.
Notice if you are holding tension in the eyes and forehead and soften.
Finally move your awareness to the crown of your head.
Notice any sensation there.
Take a full breath in now noticing the whole body from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head and as you exhale imagine releasing tension.
Take one more deep breath in and on the exhale allow your body,
Your mind and the breath to settle into stillness.
Now allow your breath to return to its natural rhythm and I invite you to notice something and to notice this without judgment.
What does it feel like in your body when you are in your head?
When the thinking mind is running the show,
Planning,
Judging,
Second-guessing,
Insisting on how things should be.
Just notice.
You may feel this as a familiar tightening somewhere or a held breath,
Perhaps a sense of density or pressure,
Perhaps in the head,
The jaw or the chest.
Now let that observation soften.
Take a slow breath in and as you exhale and let the breath come back to natural now notice the opposite.
Bring to mind a moment,
Even a brief one,
When you were in the flow or feeling a sense of ease or expansion,
When making or moving or simply being felt effortless.
If you have difficulty bringing this kind of moment to mind just imagine what it could feel like.
Notice how this feels or would feel in your body.
Where do you feel it?
Perhaps there's a softening in the chest or a sense of spaciousness,
Maybe a warmth or a sense of quiet aliveness.
Just notice.
Both of these states live within you.
The in-your-head state and the in-the-flow-and-ease state.
Both are available to you.
What your creative practice can do,
What art-based mindfulness is specifically designed to do,
Is help you find your way from one to the other.
Take one more deep breath in and on the exhale let yourself arrive a little more fully in this moment.
As you're ready bring some gentle movement back into your fingers and toes and you can flutter the eyes open.
Today's art prompt has two parts.
Use a piece of paper and whatever media feels most accessible right now.
Divide your paper into two halves and on the first half create an image of being in your head.
Create the sensation of overthinking,
Of creative block,
Of the voice that has an opinion about everything.
Let the marks,
The colors,
And the pressure of your hand carry that feeling.
Then on the second half create an image of ease and flow,
Of expansiveness,
The feeling of making when the thinking mind has stepped back and something freer has taken over.
Let the image come without planning it.
When you're done spend a few quiet moments minutes with the second image.
Look at it without judgment and then ask it gently as if asking a friend what would bring you here more often?
What does this state of ease need in order to arrive?
Then write down whatever comes to mind.
Don't filter it just write using stream of consciousness.
I highly recommend that you write with your non-dominant hand.
Let yourself be surprised by what your art knows.
As we close today's practice I thank you for being here with me.
The goodness in me honors the goodness in you.
