Living in Alignment: 15 Minute Guided Meditation

[bell rings] If it feels supportive for you, you can start with a few longer, slower, deeper breaths, just to help the body and the mind settle together.

Slowing down the nervous system.

Helping the body to arrive.

And then as you're ready, just letting go of any control over the breath and allowing the body to breathe completely naturally.

Noticing what it feels like to let go of control.

The heart keeps beating.

The body keeps breathing.

So just setting down the need to fix, manage, control.

There's nowhere to go, nothing to do, and there's no one that you have to be right now.

So just allowing your mind to settle into that rhythm of the breath.

Letting the mind rest in the body the same way the body rests on the cushion.

And staying with that rhythm of the breath and softening.

So relaxing the muscles of the face, the eyes, the muscles of the brain and the thinking mind.

Similarly, the jaw, the mouth.

And scanning down through the shoulders, the shoulder blades, noticing what's happening there.

And then allowing the arms and the hands to relax.

And then softening the chest, the stomach, the lower belly, breathing into the emotional body.

Just inviting in a sense of ease, softness.

And scanning down through the legs, feeling the contact with your seat.

Relaxing the upper legs, the lower legs, all the way down through the feet.

And just allowing the energy of the body to just settle down.

And bringing the awareness to the whole body.

So we say awareness can be global, kind of wide awareness on the body, with the attention on the breath, wherever that's predominant for you.

Starting to lean into this quality of awareness.

Just allowing the thinking mind to just do whatever kind of nonsense it wants to do.