Welcome to this short befriending meditation.
Beginning now by bringing your awareness to a sense of where your body is making contact with the floor or whatever's supporting you.
Bringing your attention into these contact points your body makes with the floor,
Maybe under the soles of the feet.
Perhaps feeling where the back body is pressing into the floor if you're laid down.
And if you're seated,
Bringing your awareness to where your sit bones,
Where your seat is connected with what's beneath you,
With what you're sat upon.
Feeling the weight of the body going down.
Into the support of the chair or cushion or floor.
Cultivating a sense of stability as you bring your awareness to these points where your body meets whatever's supporting you right now.
And then noticing what you can feel in your hands.
Perhaps a sense of warmth or coolness.
Maybe sensing the tingles of aliveness in the fingertips,
In the palms.
Back to the hands.
Sensing perhaps where the hands are making contact with whatever they're resting on.
Or feeling where the hands are touching each other.
I'm inviting you to bring your awareness to your breath as it travels in and out of the body.
Just feeling the breath as it moves the belly,
As the belly expands.
And softens back with each breath in and out.
Maybe feeling the breath moving in the chest,
In the ribcage.
Maybe a sense of your lungs expanding and contracting.
Perhaps you can feel your breath most clearly and in a most supportive way at the nostrils.
Maybe feeling the passage of air as it comes in and out of your nostrils.
Inviting you to rest your awareness on the moving breath in the body.
You could use these sensations of breathing as an anchor for your awareness.
A way of bringing you back to the present moment again and again to re-ground yourself,
To re-center yourself here and now.
You could also use the sensations of the hands or contact with the floor or whatever's supporting you or the feeling of seat,
Pressing into what you're sat on as anchor places for your attention.
As we move into this next part of the practice,
Just remembering that we can come back to these anchor places at any point should we need to re-center ourselves,
Re-steady ourselves,
Especially if things get intense or overwhelming.
I'm going to invite you to gently repeat some phrases of well-wishing for someone you care about and for yourself.
And we don't have to feel anything special when we repeat these phrases.
They're a simple inclining of the mind to befriending ourselves and those we care about.
So not judging if difficult emotions arise or it feels awkward in some way.
Just gently repeating with this gentle wish for care and well-being for yourself and others as best you can.
So firstly,
Inviting you to bring to mind someone you care for deeply.
This doesn't have to be a person,
It could be a pet,
A creature in your life.
But someone that it feels easy to feel a sense of friendship towards.
Maybe even a sense of love towards.
And with a sense of this person or animal in your heart and mind,
Inviting you to gently offer them these phrases in your head.
May you be safe and protected.
May you be peaceful.
May you live with ease dropping these phrases like you're dropping pebbles down a deep well.
Listening for any echo as the pebble hits the water,
As these phrases land in your body,
Just noticing any sensations that arise in the body as you say these phrases.
No need to judge what arises,
There's no right way to feel.
And repeating the phrases again with this person or creature you care about in your heart and mind.
May you be safe and protected.
May you be peaceful.
May you live with ease.
Gently noticing any sensations coming up in the body.
And then moving to sense and anchor place.
Maybe reconnecting with your breath as it moves in and out of your body.
And now inviting you to offer the same sense of friendship.
Even just a little bit of it as you did to that person or creature you care about to yourself.
May I be safe and protected.
May I be peaceful.
May I live with ease.
May I be safe and protected.
May I be peaceful.
May I live with ease.
Dropping into the body.
Noticing what's here now.
Without needing to judge it.
Letting go of any judgments that arise.
And simply listening to what's here in the body right now,
Just as it is.
Remembering this is for you.
May I be safe and protected.
May I be peaceful.
May I live with ease.
Sensing the whole body.
Sat here now or laid here now.
Allowing any sensations in the body to be felt and known.
To be as they are.
Reconnecting,
Regathering your awareness to the breath or another anchor place.
As we bring this practice to a close and you can take these phrases with you out into your day,
Maybe pausing,
Repeating them.
At any point that feels appropriate to gently cultivate this sense of care and befriending towards yourself and others in the midst of your life.
