Mindfulness of breathing meditation.
I'd like you to get into your chosen posture of comfort.
If you're sitting,
Make sure your feet are firmly on the ground and your spine is nice and tall but not stiff.
If you're lying,
Make sure your legs are uncrossed and your arms are gently resting by your sides.
Begin by just noticing that you're breathing.
See if you can feel the sensations in your body as you breathe in and breathe out.
We're not trying to breathe in any particular way,
We don't need to control our breath,
Just noticing the breath as it moves quite naturally in our body.
Can you notice your ribcage expanding and contracting?
Gently place your awareness on your ribcage.
Can you feel the movement here?
We're trying to feel the sensations,
We're not trying to visualize it.
We want to feel the sensations in our body.
Let's take our awareness down the body a little bit to the place just beneath our ribs,
The soft area between our abdomen and our ribcage.
Can you feel any movement here?
The rising and falling as you breathe?
Perhaps thoughts have come into your mind and taken your mind off track,
But don't worry,
This is absolutely natural.
Just notice it's happened and come back to what we're doing.
And we're just going to move down into the abdomen.
Notice how this area moves,
Rising and falling as we breathe in and breathe out.
Notice the rhythm of the breath.
Notice how the rhythm changes from time to time,
Even breath to breath.
Now let's take our awareness to the back.
The back also moves with our breath.
It's very subtle,
But it does move.
Can you feel it?
Can you feel it in the lower back?
Now we're just going to move to the middle of the back.
Can you feel anything here?
Moving to the upper back to where your shoulder blades are.
Very subtle movements as you breathe in and breathe out.
And now to the tops of the shoulders.
Can you notice how they move?
Very slightly with each breath.
And now I want you to take your awareness to the very tip of the nose,
Where the breath first enters our body.
Can you notice the air brushing past the top of our lips?
Can you notice as you breathe in,
The air is slightly cool?
And as you breathe out,
It's slightly warmer.
Maybe you're breathing through your mouth.
Can you notice the breath brushing past your lips and tongue?
Now let's take our awareness to the throat.
Can you feel the air moving through your throat?
Maybe you'd like to swallow to open your throat.
And now I want you to see if you can hold all of these sensations together in your awareness,
The whole body breathing.
And we're going to gradually bring this meditation to a close.
So I just want you to begin to notice the sounds around you.
Become aware of the room that you're in and start to notice how you feel.
And when you're ready,
You can open your eyes if they were closed and maybe take a moment or two to listen to the rest of the music and give yourself a little bit of gratitude for taking this time and space for yourself.
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