Day seven.
Welcome your body and your breath to your meditation practice.
Please find a comfortable seat and sit with your eyes softly closed,
Adjusting your spine,
Sliding the shoulders back,
Your head back,
And feeling that vertical channel from the base of your spine through the crown of your head elongate in both directions.
Connect to your breath,
Feel that cooling breath at the tip of your nose as you inhale and allowing a warming breath as you exhale.
Just allowing your awareness to rest on your breath until you feel the mind settle.
You feel yourself land more fully in this present moment.
Our intention for today is courage.
We'll keep our awareness at our belly at the navel center and allow a little bit of a deeper diaphragmatic breath to come in.
You can place one hand on your belly if you'd like and as the breath expands into the front of your body create a little resistance so that the back of your body also then stretches.
You feel more evenly expanding front to back and as you exhale keeping even more tone in your belly as you press a little bit more breath out.
Empty the bottom of your lungs and then once again inhale hold a little bit of tension meaning a little more engagement in your belly as you inhale.
So you're supporting yourself in a three-dimensional way filling your foundation then rising up and as you exhale emptying very slow deliberate and even.
And so we're gonna do a little more of a fiery breath in the beginning of our practice and then let go of all resistance.
Again the hand can stay on your belly if you'd like.
We've done Kapalabhati so we'll do that again as you inhale through your nose the belly expands and as you exhale we'll empty more forcefully pressing the breath out.
Inhale expand and exhale through your nose push the breath out.
Now inhale expand through your nose and see if through your mouth you can exhale making an SH sound.
Inhale exhale.
We're gonna speed it up inhale through the nose and we'll focus on the exhale.
Inhale lift your heart a little bit as you fill your breath into your lungs and exhale keep going.
You can even lift your head a little as you inhale and exhale to lower your chin and push out the breath.
Inhale exhale.
Inhale exhale.
Inhale exhale.
Keep going.
On this last exhalation push a little bit more breath out.
Now take a nice big beautiful inhalation.
You can let your chin drop in a little towards your chest and just hold here your breath if it's okay for you.
You might feel a little lightheaded just hold.
Try to relax.
You might be feeling the beating of your heart or in your belly a little bit.
It's a nice breath to let out any excess heat in the body.
Even though we might be creating a little heat now lift your chin and exhale.
You can take that breath through your mouth if you needed.
Take a natural breath.
You can let your arms release.
Hands can rest on your thighs or on a pillow and just really allow yourself to let go of any physical tension,
Any resistance,
Even mentally.
And in these moments in between we're gonna do another round of breath but in these moments giving yourself an opportunity just to get very still.
It takes courage to let go and to really notice where we hold resistance.
Our meditation practice gives us an opportunity to release our boundaries around resistance and we can use our breath to help dilute it.
So as we create a little bit more opening and a little bit more space inside we can hold a little more light,
A little more energy,
Power,
Confidence.
We're gonna do that breath one more time so it's an inhale through your nose and you can almost like you're rolling a little to the front of the sitting bones and lifting the heart as you inhale through the nose and as you exhale chin can drop in as you push out the breath really draw navel to spine.
Okay let's do that again inhaling,
Exhale,
Inhale,
Exhale,
Inhale,
Exhale.
We're gonna speed it up.
Inhale fully,
Hold here and now this time we're gonna exhale completely.
Through the mouth and try to hold on the end of the exhalation hold.
Relax.
This is where resistance is gonna arise a lot faster.
Your body has the oxygen it needs.
See if you can let go just a little bit more.
You might even swallow if you need to or push a little more breath out.
Very good.
Inhale fully,
Just hold it here it's like you're squeezing in that breath into your body and then softly exhale it out.
Land into your body allowing your awareness to ground downward,
Growing your energetic roots to the earth,
Feeling the support of the earth allowing you to not only ground further down but to relax and expand a little more upward,
Feeling the connection that you have to the universe,
The support that's always there pouring in a little bit of energy as needed through the crown filling your body sitting in that sweet space within yourself.
You sit in silence here you can use this idea of what courage means to you.
Courage to try something new,
To be someone new for yourself,
To think differently,
Let go of the blocks and the old loops that are wired in that keep you held down.
You can use mantra.
You can use the affirmation as the word that supports you.
You can use the Sanskrit Om Reem Shreem if that works for you,
That vibrational seed mantra that just brings in the energy,
The creative energy,
The goddess energy,
Divine feminine energy.
It helps you to continue to grow.
In Reem Shreem we sit in that space deep in the space of our solar plexus.
You you you you You can bring one hand to your belly and one hand to your heart and feel the rise from your belly into your heart on your inhalation,
Heart to belly as you exhale.
You And courage really comes from that root word core which is in the heart always.
Knowing that when we come from this place in our heart we carry that strength to support not only ourself but all those that we love.
You can stretch your arms to the sky doing your hands together and as they come to your heart remembering that your meditation practice is always for the benefit of all beings.
Namaste.
