No time for mediation?

OK…….. STOP RIGHT NOW!

Sit still and watch yourself reading this… place your feet firmly on the floor… now take a deep breath in… hold the breath… now let it out with a sigh.

Now bring your attention to your toes, any tension or stress in your toes let it go. Now move up into you feet, your ankles and shins letting go of any tension…. noticing where you feel and what you are feeling. See the knees loosening relaxing, the thighs, the hips and pelvis, letting go, relaxing. Just watching as you read this, watching what you feel though your body. Up into the abdomen, letting the breath into the belly, watching the breath on the diaphragm, becoming aware of the movement of the ribs, the beat of the heart.…. Relaxing the shoulders lengthening the arms and hands as they loosen, bringing your awareness to any tension in your hands and letting it go….. bringing your awareness into your throat, just watching the feelings in the throat, is it scratchy or tight……. Watching the tongue in the mouth, is it loose or tight against the roof of the mouth? Relaxing the jaw and tongue…… feeling the warmth of awareness behind the eyes, inside the sinuses. Feeling any tension, within the skull and the scalp, and letting it go on the out breath. Feeling super soft like marshmallow throughout the whole of your body, now imagine a lovely warm white light coming from the inner reaches of your body, growing bigger and warmer until it fills every cell and surrounds you like a big bubble of white light.

……… Close your eyes for a minute now and feel the sensation of complete relaxation, melting into nothingness, safe and protected.

You have just spent 3½ minutes meditating!

“I felt myself today to see if I still feel”… sings Johnny Cash. If you haven’t seen the video shot six months prior to his death get and see it. If you are anything like me it will have you on the floor sobbing like a baby. It is sung by a grotesquely gnarled old man witnessed by his wife, charting his life lived in incredible highs and desperate lows, but showing that he has got it at last, understanding what life is about, at the point of death. He saw that he’d missed his life by numbing out and forgetting to feel.

Meditation doesn’t mean sitting crossed legged in silence or chanting mantras; yes that is fantastic for those that can achieve it, but meditation, is really about becoming aware, feeling what it is like to be in the human body. There are millions of ways to become aware, whatever floats your boat, do it. If walking is your thing walk a meditation, just walk with totality, not window shopping, but being aware of the ‘different’ things, the spaces between the branches, the tiny plants poking out through the paving slabs. Sit and breathe, being aware of the breath as it fills the lungs. Sing, dance, paint but whatever you do, do it with awareness. It doesn’t have to be beautiful, but it will be, naturally, because it is the true you and the true you is beautiful.

Enjoy……..

Sarah Yapp BA (Hons) ITEC MCThA
Sarah Yapp Therapies