This is a meditation to help you to broaden your view,
Expand your experience.
So while you don't need a really formal or particular kind of seating posture to do this meditation,
It is nice to settle yourself and put down everything else.
Give yourself a little bit of space and time to do this meditation.
Let's start with a sigh,
A big breath in through the nostrils and then release out a really long exhale through the mouth.
If that felt good you can do another couple.
Start to notice how you're feeling right now.
If you're feeling good that will be pretty obvious to you.
You'll be able to say things like yeah I feel pretty good right now,
I feel happy,
I feel relaxed.
Maybe you have neutral feelings,
Sometimes that can look a little bit like boredom or nothing in particular going on.
And sometimes we feel a range of emotions that are more difficult to feel,
More difficult to experience,
Perhaps stressed or worried or anxious.
All of these feelings,
Whether they're good or neutral or difficult,
They're all part of our experience as a human being and they come and they go and we all feel them.
Whatever you're feeling right now,
Can you bring your attention to it in a non-judgmental way?
So what I mean by that is just purely being a witness,
Standing back,
Recognizing the feelings and that's it.
Don't try and change them,
Don't try and analyze them,
Just witness.
In mindfulness meditation witnessing also implies wisdom.
What this means is that we know the nature of what we're witnessing.
So if we're witnessing emotions or moods,
The wisdom part of that witnessing is knowing that what we're looking at is temporary.
That doesn't negate the experience of it that you're having right now but simply that it will not endure.
Okay good.
Now we're going to take our attention to some other things on purpose.
The first place to put your attention now is on your right foot.
Just notice some of the sensations,
Whatever it is that you can feel in your right foot,
That same impartial witnessing.
You know maybe you can just feel your sock or a shoe or if your feet don't have any coverings on them maybe you can feel the temperature of the air or the surface that they're sitting on.
Maybe you don't feel anything in particular at all,
That's okay no matter what it is just keep having a look at it,
Watch it for a little while.
What can you feel in the right foot?
Let's try now scrunching up the toes on the right foot and then letting them go.
Now move your attention to the feeling of the hair on your head.
What does that feel like to you right now?
Just noticing the presence of the hair on your head.
Let's move our attention again.
This time listening to the sounds around you in the room you're in or maybe the house you're in or if you're outside the environment around you.
What can you hear?
Let's witness one more thing.
If your eyes are closed and it's okay for you,
Open the eyes,
Take a look around you and in particular witness light and shadows.
The light might be coming from the sun or from a particular light in the room that you're in.
Do you notice how with the light there comes shadows?
And you can look around,
You can gaze at different places and different areas noticing light and noticing shadows.
We're just going to finish off this meditation with a minute of quiet calm breathing.
So now you could turn that attention to noticing that you're breathing in and you're breathing out.
This time as well as witnessing we're also going to bring a bit of assistance to the breath.
Firstly by making sure that we're breathing in and out through the nostrils.
If you can keeping the mouth closed and noticing that the breath is coming in through the nostrils and coming back out again.
When you breathe in,
Relax the belly,
Let that abdominal area be soft.
If you want to you could try even just slowing down the inhale a little and maybe even the exhale.
Wonderful,
So if you would like to stay with your breathing for a little bit longer,
Stay with your breathing,
Maybe just another minute or so.
Otherwise say well done to yourself,
Put the meditation down and then go and do whatever you want.
Go and find something to do on purpose,
Put your attention there.
