Hi everyone and welcome to this guided meditation to help you release and relieve heat from the body and the mind.
I invite you to do this practice seated or for some extra heat releasing benefits you could choose to lay on your back.
Make sure that wherever you are you feel comfortable and that you feel that the spine has a sense of evenness to it between the right and the left sides.
As you settle into your comfortable posture,
Again whether seated or lying down,
I invite you to first bring the attention to the face and particularly to the eyes.
I invite you to feel the eyes relaxing in the sockets,
That all the little muscles around the eyes begin to relax.
You might even choose to scrunch up the eyes for a moment so that you can feel then the eyes release and really feel this distinction between the engagement and the relaxation in the eyes.
The eyes are deeply connected to the heat of the body,
The pitta energy of the body.
As we soften the gaze and soften the muscles around the eyes,
We also get to soften the optic nerve which travels into the brain.
Now that you've felt this release within the eyes and the eye sockets,
Begin to take your attention to the skin,
To this outer coating of the body.
And perhaps you notice the temperature of the air on the skin or of the clothing or anything that is touching the skin.
You might be in a place where you feel that the air feels nice and cool,
Or perhaps you're in a state where there's actually some heat around the body,
That there isn't relief specifically from the air around you.
No matter what the external temperature is,
I invite you to draw your attention to right above the skin,
To see if you can feel the teensiest gap of coolness between your skin and the outer air,
Almost like a little fine layer,
The smallest bubble.
Can you feel how in the differential between your skin and the air around you,
There's just the teensiest pocket of cool?
So now that we've created some coolness in the face and relaxing the eyes and on the skin,
Let's move to the breath,
And a feeling of coolness as the air enters the body.
You might even use your exhale to dispel any excess heat that is naturally just wanting to fall away.
So your inhale invites new fresh cool,
And your exhale releases old stale hot.
And we'll take just a few breaths of Shatali Pranayama.
So Shatali is a cooling breath,
Shitta means cool.
And you can do it by creating a little roll of the tongue,
So if you're able to,
You stick the tongue out of the mouth and curl up the tongue so that the shape of the tongue is a little U.
That's not something that works in your body,
No problem,
Just bring the tongue directly behind the bottom teeth and open the mouth.
If you have the tongue curled up,
You can breathe in and out,
Well actually in either case you'll breathe in and out through the mouth slowly and steadily,
Feeling the coolness across the tongue as you inhale and exhale.
There's no rush to this breath,
There's no need to get anywhere,
You will indeed be breathing more slowly than normal.
And there isn't a need to fill fill fill up the lungs or to get a really full breath,
Instead keep the breath light and simple.
And allow that breath to cool you.
And we'll take one more round this way.
When you finish that next breath you simply release the tongue and begin to breathe naturally in and out through the nose once again.
You will welcome attention into the body starting at the crown of the head,
Slowly sifting down the body and noticing where there are and where there might be any pockets of heat or little fires in the body.
Moving through the body to notice where are there heat or fire in the body.
Maybe these fires are of a good size,
Right,
We need some fire in the body to digest our food,
To create thought,
To metabolize.
Even our immune system requires some heat,
Some inflammation to work properly.
So see if these little fires in the body feel controlled or uncontrolled.
Are they the right size or are they overblown or overheated.
There's no judgment here there's simply a noticing of where these fires feel supportive and activating and when they feel like maybe too much.
Now you can imagine a cool stream of water going from the crown of the head all the way down the body all the way out through the bottoms of the feet.
This cool stream of water is helping to create some control over some of those fires to bring them back to a more manageable level or to maybe even douse them out completely.
Needing to release the fires to soften the heat to cool the heat.
You notice as you do this relaxation comes to all of the muscles of the body.
Feel the release and the cooling all throughout the body.
And with the body in full relaxation,
Draw the attention to the heart center,
The heart chakra,
Anahata.
Feel a sense of joy in the heart,
Of sweetness and softness,
Contentment and peace.
You feel the cooling waters of joy and well-being beginning at the heart and then spreading all through the body.
Living being completely in peace.
You can always feel free to stay in meditation as long as you like.
Or if you are complete and are ready to move on with your day,
You can slowly open your eyes to the space around you and draw a deep breath in and a full exhale.
Thank you so much for practicing with me.
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.
