Good morning everyone and welcome to day 20 of the mindful mornings challenge here on Insight Timer.
My name is Sarah Clark.
I will be your guide this morning as we take a comfortable seat together and explore the power of starting our days mindfully.
I used to be the type of person that would wake up and right after a loud alarm clock would ring,
I would pick up my phone,
Check my messages,
My email,
Maybe even the news.
And this brought me into a very stressful fight-flight state versus the rest and digest state that I now recommend to all.
When we wake up and disconnect from ourself,
It can cause a lot of dis-ease in the body.
And as I just mentioned,
We really want to call in rest and digest first thing so that we feel alive,
Vibrant and balanced throughout our day and our nervous system will thank us.
So if you are that type of person,
Which is normal,
Who goes to their phone first,
I really would challenge you to go inwards first,
First thing in the morning,
Wake up,
Sit up,
Find your breath and breathe.
Check in with how you're feeling versus what you need to do.
Your feeling will be your guide throughout your day.
Feelings will fluctuate,
But the more we can tune into them,
Especially early on during the day,
The more efficiently we can care for ourselves with compassion and empathy throughout our day.
So I invite you to sit with me as we call into this day how we'd like to feel.
Find your comfortable seat,
Whether you're sitting upright in bed or in another comfy place in your home.
Once you found that comfy place,
I invite you to close your eyes.
And as you close your eyes,
First and foremost,
Thank yourself for saying yes to mornings of mindfulness.
And once you said thank you,
Bring your awareness to your nostrils.
And see if you can begin to feel how the breath enters and leaves the nostrils.
Notice if you can feel it.
As you're tuning into the breath flowing in and out of the nostrils,
See if you can notice the temperature,
If there's any shift from when you first inhale versus when you exhale.
Dropping the mind immediately into the focus on breathing will also drop you into the present moment.
And this moment right now is all that we have.
And it's also the only opportunity where we can call in how we want to feel.
So keep focusing on your breath,
Leaving the nostrils only to enter back in.
Invite the very backs of your eyes to soften.
Relax the jaw and relax the tongue.
See if you can feel the teeth gently parting as the tongue rests heavily in the base of the mouth.
Already the body is finding ease.
Let your shoulders fall a little heavier away from your ears.
And relax your belly.
Notice how the body is expanding as you breathe in.
See if you can feel it as you breathe in,
Expanding.
And see if you can feel it relaxing and surrendering as you breathe out.
Breathing in,
You're expanding,
You're calling in new energy,
New life force.
Breathing out,
You're releasing what the body no longer needs,
Only for you to breathe in again.
Keep going.
As you're with your breath,
Notice what could soften and relax a little bit more in your body.
Just feeling into the body and noticing what could relax.
Now imagine that you have control over how you show up today.
Imagine that you have the capacity to choose how you want to feel.
And so with this,
The question for you is,
How do you want to feel today?
How do you want to feel?
Trust the first word that comes into your mind.
How do I want to feel?
And then I invite you to feel this feeling as if it is already yours.
And if it's tricky to connect to this energy,
Recall a time in your life where you were feeling this way.
And then connect to that feeling.
Take breaths as if you are calling it in to reside in every cell of your being.
And if it helps,
Recall a time when you were feeling this way.
And if it helps,
Silently say this word to yourself three times,
Connecting it to your inhale and exhale.
If you'd like,
I invite you to turn the very edges of the mouth up ever so slightly as if your higher self is smiling down on the energy that you have just called in to support your day.
Whenever you feel thrown off today,
If that even happens,
Come back to this meditation and remember how you want to feel.
You've already called it in.
You just have to reconnect to it.
And this is the practice.
Remember that every breath is an opportunity to begin again.
If you'd like,
You can place your hands on your heart,
Maybe one hand on heart,
One hand on belly.
And I invite you to just gently bow to yourself.
Gently bow for making you the priority this morning,
For making sure that you start the day the best way you can.
Big congratulations for completing day 20.
Day 21 is up next.
May you have a mindful morning.
Thank you for practicing with me.
