Feel Your Expansiveness

(waves) Let's find a simple pranayama practice together. Be comfortable, sit up on something, or maybe in a chair. Snuggle in. Big deliberate inhale. Exhale.

Happen soft in the belly. Let's do that again, inhale. And exhale. So, as you soften the belly, let yourself land. Sit bones wide, pelvic floor easy, eyes might close, or softly focus.

Allow the back of the heart to feel spacious. Elbows heavy. Adjust your hands for optimal generosity in the heart, and find the alignment of the skull, so your neck tension is not necessary. Yes. Now let your awareness come to the bowl of your pelvis, and as your awareness comes to the bowl of your pelvis, begin to fill the bowl up with your awareness, perhaps letting the breath help you do this, so it may be perhaps have a sense of being able to breathe into the bowl of the pelvis.

Be aware the front of the bowl. Near the pubis. Be aware the back of the bowl, so a sense of being able to touch the sacrum with your attention. Be aware the sides of the bowl. The bottom of the bowl.

And now really let this bowl feel full, and only once the bowl of your pelvis really feels full of you, only once you really have this, then perhaps move your awareness to the middle of the torso, so about maybe just below the navel up to just below the breast bone. Start to let this area fill, and so the breath is the grossest most obvious layer of the prana, and yet it really helps us, so you might be aware of the front of this middle torso, let the breath help you. You might become aware of the back. Yes. The sides.

And like really let this whole area feel full, not moving on until this occurs. So you've got your lower bowl filled, your mid section of your torso full, and now, as you bring your awareness to the upper torso, so from the breast bone up through above the collar bones, as you become aware of this upper torso region. Again, the breath may be helpful, or it may be distracting. Become aware of the front of the chest, around the heart and the ribs. Become aware of the back of this upper torso, behind the shoulder blades.

Become aware of the sides. And really become aware all the way up to the upper realms of the collar bones, and know, while we've divided the torso up into three sections for ease of access, can you more accurately now feel the torso united, can you feel the torso of yourself full? And now, if and as you feel ready, include the limbs. Can you just with your awareness let the limbs, the legs and the arms also feel this full and inhabited? Let the skull also feel this shiny.

Eyes are still soft or closed, and now really be aware. Be aware of where you feel your edge of yourself, so as you're breathing here, while what you can eventually think of as your skin might seem like the boundary, it's probable that there might be a sense of being able to breathe a little bit beyond what you might perceive as your skin. Just like soft in the jaw, soft in the low belly, just play with the possibility of letting yourself feel expanded. And just allow your imagination to open, like just start to feel how as you inhale and exhale, there might, there might, might might, be a sense of you being able to widen and grow beyond the usual, conventional boundaries in which we hold ourselves, so if you happen to be practicing in a room, you might start to feel yourself fill up the whole room. If the room feels too small, let your imagination see the next container.

It might be your whole neighborhood. Or your town. Or your valley. Just like let your imagination find the next container for you, so, like just gently, and, if we've gotten too big, like go to where it still feels safe. Yes.

Soften some of the specificness of your imagination, soften some of the specific visuals, and just for a handful more of minutes, like let yourself rest and be in this expanded state. You might use your breath to help you stay there, or you might even relax the deliberate project of the breath. Widen the upper palate, tender in the jaw. This next request can be somewhat difficult. The request is allow yourself to continue to feel expanded.

Can you simultaneously become aware of the specific breath in your own lungs? Now, sometimes that can feel shocking, and it can draw you back too quick, and so if you've suddenly snapped back, like just maintain an awareness of the breath in the lungs, while you invite back in the expanded quality. Yes. So that you start to feel both immense and wide and vast, as well as specific, unique, and important. Beautiful, so gently relaxing the project.

Soften the belly, kinden the eyes, resting in the results. Thank you for sitting in this together. Namaste.