Finding Balance & Expansion Through Breath

Hello and welcome.

The following is a guided meditation by Renee Seals,

A somatic movement educator,

Energy worker,

And astrologer.

This meditation is intended to help support your embodied meditation practice.

If in the recording you are prompted to do something that doesn't feel good for your body,

Please adapt and modify to make it work for you.

Please also note that the content of this meditation sometimes explores deep and subtle states and memories,

And sometimes guided visualizations.

You are encouraged to work with discernment as you practice with them.

If any of the guidance Renee offers feels too activating or uncomfortable,

Please listen to your body's knowing and pause the recording until a later time if you wish to return to it.

These guided meditations range anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes and do not require any supplementary equipment to participate.

We hope you enjoy.

So wherever you are,

Take a moment to center yourself and I typically like to begin by closing my eyes and taking a couple of deep centering breaths.

And in these breaths you can let your belly relax,

Feel your abdominal wall can release,

And your inhale can move down into your lower lungs and spread around into your back.

And it might feel good to sigh out your mouth.

And as you exhale you might think about consciously relaxing any facial expression that you have,

Especially if you're doing this meditation later in the day and you've been kind of interfacing with the world all day and looking at things and listening to things and speaking to people.

So take a minute now and really just let the outer world slip away and allow yourself to come deeply internal and notice the sensations that you're experiencing right now.

And just start by feeling your contact with the earth below you.

The fact of gravity as it holds you to this earth,

You're sensing that relationship,

It's really quite an astounding relationship that the earth pulls us in,

But that there is also kind of a magnetic force that pushes out as well.

So we are supported to both reach down and descend up.

And the earth's atmosphere,

There's a container and a polarity within it that kind of pushes out and deters any foreign objects from coming in.

So we're protected in her embrace.

And chances are very good that if you're listening to this recording that you are in a safe space.

So take a minute and remind yourself of that,

That in this moment we are safe and we are safe and we have what we need and gratitude for that fact.

And the more that those of us who are safe and have what we need can remember that consistently and act in ways that come from a place of safety and satiation,

Then we can reduce grasping and reduce our instincts and reactions towards violence or the kind of stinginess that we can easily get into when there's a feeling of scarcity or fear.

So in the moments where safety is tangible,

Really allowing that to come in and settle,

Let's take an inhale into the heart and chest area.

And as you exhale again,

Just feeling gravity,

Feeling the earth.

And as you inhale again into your heart and your chest area,

Feel your concept of self,

The sensation of self spreading out beyond your body,

Radiating around you in a full orb.

And as you exhale,

Feel a kind of collecting force within you,

From that internal guidance and center,

Your true center.

Inhale,

Expanding,

Feeling how on a sensory level,

Nervous system,

Awareness and aura,

Potentially we can move out beyond the physical containers of our body.

And as you exhale,

Imagining the exhale coalescing into your center and feeling this kind of metaphor,

But also very real sensation of who you are,

What it is that you stand for,

Your true self.

Let's take one more breath like that,

Inhaling out,

Feeling the expansiveness of your being,

And exhaling and feeling yourself,

Feeling the space within you,

And exhaling and feeling your center,

Your connection.

Then if you want to bring your hands to the front of your body and find a place where your ribs come together in the front,

And from that space move just a little bit to the left,

So you're touching kind of the curve of your left ribs,

And just here is where your stomach is,

And so your stomach is kind of an interesting shape.

It's got a little bit,

Almost like a kidney shape,

A curved shape.

It looks a little bit like one of those like old cloth-like water containers.

I don't know what they're called.

But anyway,

Your stomach is on the left-hand side of your body,

And it makes a curved shape.

So now breathing into your stomach,

And a lot of times people say stomach and they mean kind of the general belly area,

But here I mean literally the organ of your stomach,

And as you breathe into your stomach and you allow the space in your body to soften,

Allow the space in your body to soften,

And continuing this kind of expanding inhale and gently condensing exhale,

Breathing into the tissues of the stomach.

Maybe it feels full,

Maybe it feels empty,

Noticing the sensations that are there,

And encouraging relaxation.

Just,

Oh,

Can you let go?

And it's actually kind of easy when you bring your attention to places in terms we don't even realize that we're holding tension,

And the stomach is one of those places particularly,

And because it's ruled by the moon and the moon governs our instinctual emotional responses,

The ways that we have been nurtured and the ways that we seek to nurture ourselves and others makes sense that in our stomach,

You know,

Where we,

Where everything that we eat ends up,

That in this place we have kind of the physical vessel or container for the actual act of nurturing,

Eating,

Being fed,

And that oftentimes this is a place in our bodies which can hold tension and lead to things like aggravation or irritation as well as hardness or non-receptiveness towards feeling or receiving of sustenance.

So let's just take a minute and extend love into this space,

And in that love extend gratitude to all of the people and the beings and the elements that allow us to be fed,

Remembering that our food,

Most of it,

You know,

Is grown and attended to by many,

Many people,

And if you grow your own food,

Then all the amazing organisms and microorganisms and soil and soil itself and air and water and the sun,

And if you're still holding your stomach and it feels good,

Stay there,

Otherwise you can melt your hands,

And then we'll breathe just generally into the chest and belly area,

And again feeling that soft expansion on the inhale and gentle condensing on the exhale.

And I'm aware that there might be some listeners for whom this exercise is not accessible or might not be accessible in this moment,

And so the invitation here is if what I'm about to say isn't right for your body or if it's not right for the place or the time that you're in right now,

That you either in both imagine the movements and feel it in your breath.

So just that simple expanding and condensing that we were doing earlier,

Is a great breathing exercise for this.

The liver is kind of the counterweight to the stomach,

And so if you bring your hands back to your ribs where they come together in the front,

But this time go down to the right,

You can even feel your liver.

So if you just press around the curve of your ribs,

You'll feel that the tissue quality is probably different than the left side.

So on the left side,

It's probably a little bit more than the left side,

So on the left side it's probably a little bit softer,

It's bushier,

And on the right side might feel harder and firmer,

And that's because that's where your liver is,

And it's a big,

Dense organ,

And your liver does so many different things,

I can't possibly say them all,

And we don't even know how many things it does,

But one of the really important things that it does is it makes decisions.

So it kind of decides what is toxic and needs to be done,

And needs to be expelled from the body,

And what is okay to go into the bloodstream,

And so the liver has a really,

Really important directive function to it.

So in the stomach on the left and the liver on the right,

We feel this kind of balance between the left side receptivity and the right side action,

And this is true as well in the more esoteric explanation of the two sides of the body,

That the left side is the yin or the feminine side,

And the right side is the yang or the masculine side.

So we're just going to do a little bit of balancing for the two sides through some simple twists,

And before we get there,

Let's just feel our posture.

So if you're seated or if you're standing,

Then can you feel where your hip joints are,

And just feel that your hip joints are kind of the base of your pelvis,

And all of your pelvis bones rest on top of your hip joints.

And if you're doing this meditation and you're lying down,

You can also feel this.

So just bring your attention to where your hip joints are,

Bring your attention to where your pelvis is.

You can use your hands and your imagination to be directive about the sensation.

And what I want you to feel is how your arms hang on your ribs.

So the liver and the stomach are supporting your ribs from underneath,

And your hip joints are supporting your spine,

Which is a really important support for everything contained in your torso.

So bring your attention to just those relationships,

And then if you're sitting or if you're standing,

Then can you find a way to bring equal balance both to the front and the back bodies?

And one way of doing this is to feel the volume of your organs.

So feel the volume of your liver on the right side that it is this big organ,

And it has mass in the front,

And the back of your lungs has mass in the back body,

And the organ of your stomach has mass in the front,

And your left lung has mass in the back.

And as you inhale,

Can you feel that volume front and back body?

And as you exhale,

Can you feel just the alignment of your own spine in relationship to your hip joints?

Now notice the placement of your arms,

And if your spine is kind of more in a slumped position,

And your shoulders will pour forwards,

And the weight of your arms will encourage kind more of a slump,

But a lot of times we approach uprightness by kind of squeezing our shoulder blades together in the back.

So rather than doing that,

What I'm going to invite you to do is again find that expanding breath in your heart,

That sun area,

And to breathe forwards and backwards,

And to let your breath move evenly into the front and the back body so that you feel your shoulders come over your ribs,

And that your ribs and shoulders come over your hips.

Your spine is long and extending both towards the earth and towards the heavens.

And continuing to sense the stability of our hips and legs,

Let's spread the arms out to the side and on an inhale reach the arms out and up overhead,

And as you reach your arms up feel your spine get longer.

And then as you exhale,

Bring your palms together and just slide them down in front of your chest.

So we're going to do that movement four more times,

And if you're again on your knees,

And if you're again unable or not in a place where this feels like the right thing to do,

Then I just want you to imagine you're expanding breath moving from the lower ribs all the way out and up to the space above your crown,

And then as you exhale the condensing back into your own center.

Okay,

So we'll inhale and reach the arms out and up overhead,

And as the fingers reach up,

The strength of the legs is remembered.

And then as you exhale,

The palms come together and rest in front of your heart.

And three more times as you inhale,

Filling the space in the front and the back body,

Letting the expansion of your lungs lift your arms up.

And as you exhale,

The touch of your hands reminds you of your midline,

So you just come back to center,

Back to stillness.

Twice more,

Inhaling the arms reach out,

Expanding,

Growing.

And as you exhale,

Come in back to center.

Okay,

And one more time,

Inhaling.

And exhaling.

This time let your arms come all the way down and rest.

So we'll move into a twist now,

So for those of us who aren't doing the movements,

What I want you to feel is an internal awareness.

For all of us,

We can remember that our organs are voluminous,

Living,

3D,

Fluid-filled objects.

And so the contents of our organs fill the container of our skeleton and muscular bodies.

And it's through the vitality and wellness of our organs that we stand upright and move through the world.

And organs get forgotten a lot unless they're in distress because they don't,

The nerves that are in the organs aren't the same kind of nerves that are in our muscles and skin.

So we don't have a lot of sensation in the organs again unless there's something wrong with them.

And generally when we feel that it's due to inflammation or pressure,

So contact with the bone.

The organs are,

They're fluid in nature,

So they're not rigid or hard.

And they are enervated,

That means that the nervous system works with them through the parasympathetic part of the nervous system.

And this is often referred to as the rest and digest part of the nervous system.

So our organs get restored and they get support when we rest,

When we're in spaces where we feel safe and where we have our needs met.

And when we're in times when we feel really overstimulated or if it's a crisis,

The function of our organs tends to get super efficient and somewhat shut down.

So we shut down what we don't need in that moment.

And we can consider the brain as an organ,

It's also a part of our nervous system.

But in our culture where we're really overstimulated a lot of the time,

The brain becomes very active and the organs get kind of stagnant and freaked out.

Okay,

So this is a moment just to let your brain relax and to feel the fluid contents of your body.

And when we go into the next kind of movement,

For those of us who are not doing the physical actions,

What I want you to bring your attention to is the front and the back of your body.

Front and the back sides alternating between left and right.

And we're moving our organs around the axis of the central channel.

So around this kind of energetic space of our own center.

And you might think of it as the space right in front of your spine.

Right,

So again,

Let's take an inhale and reach the arms out and up.

So expanding breath.

And then as you exhale,

Move your right lung back and your left lung forward.

So we're going to twist to our right.

And you can take your left hand onto your right knee if you're sitting across the legs like I am.

Or if you're standing up,

You can just keep your arms spread out to the sides.

And if you're lying down and feel the back of your right lung,

The front of your left lung expand.

And the front of your right lung and the back of your left lung condense.

And let's take an inhale and feel the expansion around the central column of the spine.

And as you exhale,

The condensing back into the centered space.

And then we'll inhale and extend the arms out and spiral back to center.

And then as you exhale to the other side,

Twisting to your left.

So the right lung moves forwards and the left lung moves back.

And here there's a condensing on the left lung in the front and then the right lung in the back.

And then expanding of the right side front body and the left side back body.

And just breathe into the space around the spine and exhale back to center.

And then we'll inhale and extend the arms out and up and spiral back to the center.

And then exhale,

Hands glide down and pointing your heart.

So let's do that movement a couple more times,

A little bit more fluid with our breath.

And again,

Just awareness through the body for all of us.

So inhaling the arms out and up,

Expanding breath.

And then exhale,

Left lung forwards,

Right lung back,

Twisting to the right.

And then inhale,

Arms reach out and up,

Spiraling back to the center.

And then exhale,

Twisting to the left,

Right lung forwards,

Left lung back.

Two more times like this.

We'll inhale the arms up to the center.

And exhale to the first side.

You might even twist all the way with your head and your gaze back over your right shoulder.

And then we'll inhale the arms up,

Spiraling to the center.

Exhale to the left.

And then exhale to the right.

Exhale to the left.

Okay,

And then last time,

Inhaling to the center.

Exhaling to the right.

And this time we'll pause for a couple of breaths.

And for those of you in a twist,

Bring your twist all the way into your eyes now.

Whether your eyes are open or closed,

Look into the rightmost corners of your eyes.

And let's take two full breaths here,

Inhaling,

Expanding 360 degrees around the rib basket.

And exhaling,

Condensing back into the center space.

Inhaling into the volume of the torso.

And exhaling into the length of the spine.

And then we'll inhale back to the center.

And exhale to the left.

Again,

Turning your gaze and your head all the way to the left this time.

If you're just lying down,

You can also do the eye movements.

We'll inhale,

Feel the expanding breath.

And exhale,

Feel a condensing breath.

Inhale to expand.

And exhale to condense.

And then inhale the arms out and up.

Coming back to the center as you exhale,

Hands slide down in front of your heart.

Okay,

So then this time turn your palms open towards your body and place your palms against your chest.

And with your fingertips very lightly move the skin below your collar bonds up towards your head.

Just really gently and then breathe into the lift of your chest.

And as you exhale,

Relax the space along the right and the left sides of your spine and feel the weight of your feet.

Again,

Inhaling into your heart space.

Your chest center.

Then exhaling,

Feeling the release of your spine all the way to his ear.

And then letting the hands come down and rest wherever is comfortable.

Checking in again with your face,

Your eyes,

Your nose,

Your mouth,

The skin of your face,

Your ears,

Your brain.

Feel that everything can relax.

Just remember that breath is always a friend.

That we are constantly expanding,

Moving out into the periphery and the edges of our being and condensing and coming back into the sense of who we are.

And so are all others.

And when we expand in relationship to one another,

It's like a Venn diagram.

You know,

Our expansion spaces meet and there's something that's created in that space.

And then what we take back and condense into our sense of self brings about change.