Thank you for joining me for today's 10-minute meditation.
If you haven't already,
Allow yourself to find a comfortable seat and slowly bring your eyes to a close,
Allowing your attention to drift inwards,
Focusing on the flow of your natural breath,
Allowing your attention to notice the feeling of the air as it comes in and out,
Perhaps noticing the quality of your breath today.
Is it deep or is it shallow?
Is it fast or is it slow?
And if you notice your attention getting distracted by any thoughts,
See if you can gently notice the thought without judgment and just gently bring your attention back to your breath.
So you can think of meditation as an exercise for your mind.
In the same way we go to the gym and lift weights to strengthen our bodies and muscles,
We come to meditation to strengthen our mind and our ability to focus on what we choose to focus on.
And so you can think of each thought or distraction as an opportunity to strengthen your mind.
So just noticing those distractions without judgment and bringing your attention back to your breath.
You may notice that with this exercise that the quality of your breath may start to change.
You may find that it starts to deepen or slow.
It's just noticing what is the quality of my breath in this moment.
And now I'd like to invite you to expand your attention to your body as we conduct a quick body scan.
So first bringing your attention to the soles of your feet,
Allowing yourself to notice if there's any tension or sensation in the soles of your feet and seeing if you can intentionally allow your feet to relax,
Letting go of any tension.
And then moving up from your feet into your ankles,
Into your calves,
Into your knees,
Into your thighs,
Noticing if there's any tension in your legs and each of those parts,
Seeing if you can allow your legs to fully relax,
Letting go of any tension.
And now moving your attention up into your hips,
Seeing if you can allow yourself to relax,
Sinking deeper into the chair beneath you,
Moving up into your abdomen,
Into your lower back,
To your chest,
To your upper back,
Noticing what sensations or tension might be there and allowing yourself to let go and fully relax.
Now bringing your attention up into your shoulders,
Down through your arms,
Into your wrists,
Into your fingertips,
Allowing your arms to fully relax,
Letting go of any tension.
And now bringing your attention back up through your arms,
Into your neck,
Up into your jaw,
And into the muscles in your face,
Like the ones around your eyes and your forehead,
Seeing if you can notice any places where you're holding tension and allowing those places to fully relax.
And finally bringing your attention to the top of your head.
And now I invite you to scan the body once more at your own pace,
This time from the top of your head back down to the tips of your toes,
Spending extra attention anywhere where you might still be holding tension or sensation and perhaps sending a few extra breaths,
Some extra love to those parts of the body to allow yourself to fully relax.
And once you've completed your body scan,
I invite you to bring your attention to your heart center and together we'll take three heart breaths,
Breathing in from the back of your heart and exhaling from the front of your heart.
And once more,
Breathing in from the back of your heart and exhaling from the front of your heart.
And one last time,
Breathing in from the back of your heart and exhaling from the front of your heart.
And just keeping your attention here at your heart center,
We'll just take a moment to see if we can listen to what our heart has to tell us today.
We spend so much of our time in our heads listening to what our mind has to tell us and perhaps we don't spend enough time listening to our hearts,
The part of us that is connected most to our inner intuition.
And so what does your heart have to tell you today?
What do you need?
And based on what you heard from your heart,
You might feel moved to set an intention for yourself,
Maybe for the rest of today,
For the rest of the week,
Maybe even the rest of the year.
If it feels right,
You may choose to repeat that intention to yourself a few times to help manifest it into being.
And we'll close our time together with one final deep breath,
Breathing in,
Filling up your belly,
Your chest,
And your heart.
And exhaling,
Letting it all go.
Take a moment to show yourself gratitude for taking this time out to be present in this moment with yourself and hope you have a great rest of the day.
Thank you.
