Hello and welcome to today's meditation with Sunrise Well.
And we just want to just take a moment here to acknowledge that we're beginning the practice.
Pause and connect.
It can be nice to kind of remind yourself or say to yourself,
I have arrived or I am here.
Sometimes the first time in the day that you actually get to stop and take that pause.
And you can start to notice firstly the gentle movement of the breath coming in and out of your body.
Whether you notice it as it enters your nose,
Your nostrils or maybe you notice it as your belly moves in and out with the inhale and the exhale.
Or maybe it's a combination of both.
Just a gentle awareness of the breath.
So you notice that the breath is just coming in and moving out almost on its own without any force or pressure.
And with every exhale,
There's a sort of softening around the body.
There's a letting go of any tension.
The exhale is a kind of release,
A letting go.
I'm going to move our awareness now to the top of the head.
Just try to bring your full attention,
Your full awareness right to the top of the head and then starting to move down around the sides and the front of the head.
So we're not just imagining this place or these places,
Actually trying to bring your awareness to almost be there in that space,
In that place.
Over the ears,
The jaw,
Forehead,
Eyebrows,
The eyes.
Just noticing any tightness,
Any tension,
Just letting it go.
Across the cheeks,
The nose,
The mouth,
The chin,
Just letting the tongue relax.
You might notice saliva in your mouth.
Just moving your awareness down your neck,
All around your neck.
Down both shoulders.
Again,
Releasing tension down the arms,
All the way down to the hands.
Both sides,
Both hands.
Moving to the palms of the hands and just noticing any temperature,
Warmth,
Sensation across the palms.
Coming to the back body,
The upper back,
Middle back and lower back.
Moving to the front of the body,
The upper chest,
The torso,
Lower ribs,
Abdomen,
Belly,
Letting your belly puff out.
Notice if you're holding your belly in and see if you can just let it relax.
Moving your awareness to your buttocks and groin,
Down the thighs,
Knees,
Calves,
Shins,
All the way down to your feet,
The soles of your feet.
The whole body now.
Try to bring your awareness to your whole body.
There's a point in your body where you may have pain or tightness or an old injury,
Might be something recent,
Might be something from years ago,
Might just be a little discomfort you have right now in this second,
In this moment.
Now if you have a point like this,
Just bring your awareness there.
It might not be in pain right now,
It might be something from the past that you know comes back now and then.
You might not be feeling it right this moment,
But you know it's there,
It bothers you sometimes.
Just one point in the body,
Try to bring your full awareness into that point.
Whether it's a tissue,
A muscle,
A bone,
Something smaller,
Something larger.
And if you don't have a point like this,
That's fine,
You don't have to imagine one.
You can just bring your attention back to your belly and focus on the breath,
Moving in and out there.
So if you do have this point,
Try to resist the urge of fixing it or changing it.
See if you can just sit with this place of tension or pain or injury.
See if you can keep your awareness there without trying to make it different to what it is.
See if you can keep your awareness in that area,
Regardless of the stories or the sensations.
It can be helpful to remember that often an injury or the resulting pain or muscle tension from an injury or from a stressful event or from stress itself is the body's way of protecting itself.
So when the body moves into this defensive mode,
Sometimes the muscles get activated and create patterns that the mind finds hard to let go of.
So if we look at it from a place of the body and the mind trying to protect you,
It can be easier to accept where it is and how it is.
Some people like to even say thank you to the body for trying to look after you,
Trying to protect you.
You might have some words in your mind that you want to say to yourself,
To your body,
To your mind to acknowledge,
To accept this injury or this pain or this tension that's coming up.
You might just want to say thank you for looking after me or I accept you.
But rather than trying to change,
We're accepting.
And then moving away from this area,
We move back to the whole body.
So bringing your awareness from the top of the head all the way down through the body to the feet,
A unified whole body.
Bringing the awareness back to your belly,
Your breath moving in and out,
The air coming in your nostrils,
Coming out again.
And on the next inhale and the next exhale,
We will do an open mouth exhale sigh.
So taking your next inhale in,
Open the mouth exhale sigh.
Form your minds.
Thank you.
