Transcription
Let's begin by taking a moment to allow your body to settle in a comfortable position. You can close your eyes or look downward just to limit visual distractions. See if you can soften around any areas of physical tightness or tension. Maybe that means dropping your shoulders, wiggling your fingers, loosening your jaw, softening the muscles around the eyes, and relaxing the belly.
Noticing where your body touches the ground or the chair. What does it feel like to have your body on the ground, the weight of gravity pulling you down to whatever you're touching? We're simply grounding our energy throughout our body, bringing awareness to simply what it feels like to be living in this body right now ... feeling the points of contact, just noticing any energies within the body and inviting a sense of ease and relaxation.
And so today's primary practice will be mindfulness of breathing, simply bringing awareness to what it feels like physically to be breathing, without judging anything to be good or bad, right or wrong, simply being curious about what it feels like to be inhaling, exhaling, and to have that pause in between the exhale and the inhale.
So with a soft belly and an open mind I invite you to inhale through the nose, and exhale through the mouth, noticing the pause in between the exhale, and then noticing the beginning of next inhale, and exhale, just relaxing the body.
Inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.
Breathing with a sense of ease, following its natural rhythm, noticing the air as it moves through the nostrils ... feeling the air as it goes out through the mouth ... noticing what it feels like to have the air moved through the nostrils ... and the mouth.
You might notice the belly rising and falling with each inhale and each exhale, breathing with a sense of ease and curiosity ... sensing into each breath ... feeling the movements, the temperatures ... staying with the sensations in each moment, the sense of kindness and ease ... breathing in and out, feeling it without judging anything to be good or bad, right or wrong.
Staying with this for as long as you'd like.
Integrated Practice:
Write for 2 full minutes on each prompt below. Once you’ve finished, take a minute to reread what you wrote and reflect.
Journaling Prompts:
1. What I want from this 28-day challenge is…
2. Some obstacles to me practicing every day could be…
I want to keep up my meditation routine. Without guided meditations i always stop doing it. I feel how good is for me, but eventually I always stop doing it. So for the 28 days, all I want to achieve is carry on with my practices daily. I think my biggest obstacles is my bad habits, like bing watching Netflix, or procrastinating other ways out of fear that I can not do something or rather I can not do well enough, etc. I have ways to stop these bad habits, but after couple of months I often go back to them
What I hope to get out of this 28-day challenge is … to feel confident and Some obstacles for me that I practice every day might be … Mayor Humdinger
I want to get better at learning how to be present, listen to my inner-self and better regulation of emotions. I want to learn how to cope with difficult emotions and not react to challenging situations especially in relationships.
Who knew that breathing could be so fun?
Is there anyway to turn off the running water sound >?
What I want from this 28-day challenge is to practice my meditation and learn how to use the calmness and mindfulness I get from it during moments where stress and any other strong emotion pop up. Also when it is time for me to make certain decisions right at that moment.
Some obstacles to me practicing everyday could be maybe getting discouraged from not getting it right, could be the business of our daily lives, other distractions around my environment.
The aim of this challenge is to re ignite my passion and pick up my practice again.. Ive fallen off the wagon big time! . Obstacle….my procrastinator streak!
I want to be more attentive and reduce the number of times I blank out and lose focus. I’d also like to learn more about the nature of my mind and consciousness, perhaps assisting with my understanding of both concepts in others. As well as learn how my body interacts with my mind and how I function as an embodied being.
Some obstacles include how much work I have to do. For example, if I feel like I have too much on my plate, I struggle to fit in extra things on my to-do list and just want to focus on my main task for work. I also struggle to stick at tasks when I feel burnt out, as by that point, I struggle to do anything.
I hope to gain an appreciation of the present regardless of circumtances
Thank you, that was so calming and peaceful
I want bad thoughts of the past to stop bringing me down and consuming my daily life. I want to learn how to control these different types of emotions.
I have been studying mindfulness for several years and attempting to develop a regular discipline of mindfulness, but I have done this in fits and starts. I am hoping that this course will help me develop a consisitent practice. I was looking for an onlie group to practice with as I do not drive, and I can find no group in my area. Now with the Pandemicgoing on, an online group such as this is perfect.
I have also been teaching some mindfulness groups in the prison where I work– i am a psychologist and the men where I work seem to appreciate the groups. I hope to improve my skills to help them better.
The biggist obsticle to my mindfulness practice is the many distractions and other things to do. My hope is that this challenge will help me to make my mindfulness practice a priority.
Thank you for this opportunity,
Joseph
hope you are doing well Joseph, keep going
What I want out of this 28 challenge is to learn to breath and stay calm when things around me are changing. Also to be able to adapt and learn my own strengths, and what makes me peaceful.
absolutely!
What I wanna get from this class is to learn how to just let my stress go away. Some obstacles for me practicing every day is my other work I have a lot of it.
Its interesting when I was are in the relaxed state of mind and body that I felt focussed just in the now. The sounds / feelings, being aware of cool air when inhaling ,warm air when exhaling, tingling of fingers . Heaviness of body. Just being in the moment. Thank You.
What I want for this 28 days is to learn how to be mindful in allowing myself to acknowledge my thoughts and bad memories. Also to stop these from ruining my day.
what i want from this 28 day challenge is to know how to not end up in bad situations.Some obstacles to me practicing every day could be home school.
NICE