Hello and welcome to your meditation practice.
Today we will be using the five senses of the body as a pathway to full embodied awareness,
Open-hearted listening,
And relaxation.
So as you're ready find your way to a comfortable seated position here.
You could be seated in a chair with feet on the floor or maybe on the ground,
Hips lifted up by a block or a cushion.
You could even choose to be laying on your back.
That's whatever is intuitive to your body and your practice today.
As you begin to settle into some stillness,
Just begin to feel into the edges of your body.
Start to notice the connection between your body and your clothes,
The connection of your body against the seat or the floor,
Right away starting to connect to this very moment here.
For our practice today,
We will be inhaling through our nose and then exhaling through an open mouth with just a gentle part of the lips.
Inhaling fully in through the nose,
Letting the exhale sweep between the lips.
Inhaling through the nose,
Exhaling through open lips.
Exhaling on this way,
Making sure that it still feels natural in the body.
No need to force or press or manipulate any certain breathing pattern.
Just continue to breathe deeply and naturally here.
Feel yourself sitting up nice and tall,
Lifted through the spine as your sitting bones root deeper into your seat.
Starting to feel the muscles around your face and your jaw soften and relax.
Starting to breathe deep in through the nose,
Out through open lips.
Connecting even through the soles of the feet and the palms of your hands,
Feeling them soften and release with every exhale.
Letting any lingering tension or stress leave the body with an exhale.
Let's guide your awareness here to your sense of touch.
To bring your awareness again to the sensations on your skin.
The feeling of the air against your face,
Your clothes against your skin,
Opening up to this awareness of touch throughout the body.
Coming now to your sense of sight.
Whether your eyes are closed or open.
Just noticing what is in front of your eyes.
Maybe it's the vast darkness of the backs of your eyelids.
Maybe there are some scattered items in front of your meditation space.
Whatever it is,
Resist the urge to search out for something to see.
Open up,
Receive and become aware of this innate sense of sight.
Becoming aware of your sense of smell.
Letting any lingering tension or stress leave the body with an exhale.
Becoming aware of your sense of taste.
Maybe noticing some of the automatic responses in the physical body that we can create just by bringing simple awareness to our sense of taste.
Coming now to your sense of hearing.
And again just allowing yourself to receive here,
Resisting the urge to interfere,
Resisting the urge to search out sounds.
And instead notice that just by stepping back a bit,
Getting out of the way,
That we're able to open up and receive so much more.
We'll come lastly here to your third eye center.
The space right in between your eyebrows,
The seat of our sixth sense,
If you will.
This is our sense of intuition,
Our sense of open,
Undivided awareness and connection to that innate love and light that exists all throughout the universe.
Just guiding your awareness up to your third eye point and just resting in this beautiful,
Open-hearted awareness for a moment.
And as you're ready,
You can begin to draw your awareness back down into your physical body.
Feel your seat,
Feel the floor,
Become aware of your surroundings,
Become aware of the room around your body.
You can start to bring gentle wiggles and shakes out into the edges of the body.
Taking a few moments here to stretch and open back up in whatever way feels intuitive to you here.
May we honor this practice and be able to carry off into our day some of this open-hearted,
Compassionate,
Divine and loving awareness.
I thank you so,
So,
So much for your meditation practice today.
Namaste.
