Choosing a comfortable seat,
You can be sitting on the floor in a cushion with your legs crossed or you can be sitting on a chair with your feet firmly on the ground,
Your back nice and straight,
Your hands can be on your knees or in your lap.
And you can just drop your chin slightly and your eyes down.
And if you like,
You can close your eyes.
So we first feel gratitude for ourselves for being here today,
That we really,
Really have and are doing ourselves a great favor.
We're making ourselves a great offering by practicing,
Not just understanding the psychology of mindfulness,
But actually practicing it.
That is where the power is.
Let's take in three beautiful deep breaths,
Breathing in through the nose and out through the nose,
Breathing in and release.
And release what doesn't serve you today.
There's a purifying breath,
Breathing in,
Filling those lungs and slowly release out the nostrils.
Last one,
Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.
And just sigh the breath out slowly and release what doesn't serve you today,
Any anxieties,
Obstacles,
Feelings of guilt,
Just let it go.
That's great.
Returning now just to a normal breath.
And we can think about something during lockdown that we're not happy about.
Maybe it was a reaction rather than a response.
We don't feel so good about it.
And maybe we feel a little bit guilty that we're carrying it around.
So first we can feel an intelligent regret like,
Well,
That was a mistake.
The next is refusal.
So making a commitment to try and not do it again.
And if it's very hard and you know you might fail,
Well,
Set like a time limit.
Say I'll try my best for today.
Not to repeat whatever happened.
And sometimes that's like standing in front of a tidal wave and shouting stop.
But at least we can try.
The third one is refuge.
Thinking that I can understand the psychology of this and it can work.
Believing that it can work is quite uplifting and empowering.
And the last one is remedy or antidote.
Can I fix that issue?
Can I solve that problem?
Can I make that phone call?
Or if I can't,
Maybe I can just do something really sweet today and dedicate the goodness of that to letting go or healing of this issue.
So we're going now into another creative exercise,
It's a visualization.
You can just imagine that there is a very warm healing liquid being poured over you like water.
And you're just sitting,
It might be under a waterfall or someone may be pouring this endless beautiful liquid over you like nectar almost.
And we start from the top of our head and just feel it slowly moving down our body from the head over the face,
Down your face,
Down your neck.
And just imagine that as it's slowly moving over you,
Just this constant flow,
Moving all the way down your shoulders,
Down your chest,
Your abdomen,
Your back,
Down to the pelvis and pelvic region,
Your legs,
Your feet.
Just covering your entire body.
And it just is this incredible light sort of nectar that removes any obstacles that you're going through at the moment.
Just feel that whatever stains or things you can't let go,
That this is just washing you clean of that and it dissolves into the ground underneath you.
Perhaps you have a health issue that's going on and this incredible constantly flowing stream pouring over you but gently,
Nothing torrential or overwhelming,
Just a gentle trickle that covers your entire being and slowly melts whatever's going on and it dissolves out of you.
Maybe it's a sickness or something,
A health issue that's just leaving you.
We can really imagine that this is happening.
It moves through your body as well,
Not just the outside of you but the inside of you too.
Through your brain,
Through your body,
Your organs,
Revitalizing every part of you,
Making you feel fresh like a spring clean.
Removing insecurities and obstacles,
Constantly flowing.
Just feel like you are like a river.
You're just part of this constant flow that's just taking every single aspect that's icky and mucky and just washing you clean of that.
Removing out of you,
Moving through you.
Removing the feelings of guilt and past regrets,
Washing you clean of the story,
Releasing you from its hold.
Removing over you and through you this blissful nectar light liquid.
We can imagine that it removes habits that we can't let go of,
Limiting fixed mindsets,
Just breaking apart like iceberg melting,
Moving out of you,
Through you.
Feel yourself starting to fill up from the base of this warm light liquid.
It now starts moving up from the base,
Moving up from your legs,
Up to your head,
Just filling your entire body with healing warm nectar.
There's no pain and suffering that can stand in the light of this feeling.
Just let it move through you,
Fill you.
Your skin starts to glow and you really begin to feel that everything is melted away,
Everything is washed away,
It has left you,
It has disappeared in the ground underneath you.
You feel a sense of freedom,
A sense of lightness.
By practicing a visualization technique like this,
We send a message to the body and the body believes that message and the body opens up any tight constrictions and knots and feelings of dis-ease,
Moves into a place of healing because we're communicating so beautifully to the rest of our body that we are now free and it responds accordingly.
You feel fine.
You you living go of the visualization dissolving it But just keep that feeling of freedom today It's a form of self compassion is to be able to let go and make space for yourself dropping your chin down to your chest and it's taken a lovely deep inhalation through the nose and out through the mouth breathing in and sigh the breath out let it go observing now do you feel any difference to when you logged on lifting your chin and opening your eyes
