Day 12: Pay Attention

So here we are at meditation number 12. Find your seat, find your posture, elongate your spine, place your hands, and close your eyes. And then move through your process, readjust anything in the lower half that isn't quite right. Sometimes moving a foot or shifting a little forward on the sitting bones is what you need. Make sure your knees feel okay and the thigh bones can descend without discomfort in your back or the hip socket.

And then that intentional grounding, like settling your base into the mat or the cushion or the floor, aligning the pelvis so that you're not struggling in your lower back or removing the curve from your lower back, and then that subtle lifting and elongating all the way up. Be aware of the shoulder girdle, especially if you have a habit of rounding your shoulders forward. You want to just gently draw them back. Don't over exaggerate that. Just gently shoulders in alignment with ears.

And then, of course, that relaxation process. Ask yourself, where are you gripping? Where are you holding or using muscles you don't really need to use right now? And relax. And it's also a mental relaxation.

You've carved out this time, you're committed, you're here. Give in to the 21 minutes of being still and present and meditating. I'm here to support you so you have that framework for your time on the cushion. Do your inner check-in. Always changing.

It's always different. Some days we come to the mat, it's easy, kind of clear and positive, and other days there's a whole lot of internal stuff. Just let yourself be and pay attention to what's happening. And then eventually, of course, observing breath. Not only just that it's there, but what is it like today?

Is your breath smooth? Does your breath feel sticky? Sit like. You're drawing your attention more and more and more towards subtlety. And over time and across the span of our meditations, increasing your ability to be focused.

Mentally focused on whatever the object of the meditation is. So right now it's your breath. And on the breath. Once you find you're able to some degree to kind of focus on your breathing, it doesn't mean you're perfectly focused, but you are feeling present with your breath in general, and you're going to overlay the mantra again. Ham sah.

That I am. Ham sah. So at least begin with ham on the inhale and sah on the exhale. Use that at least in the beginning to establish your meditation. Breath remains natural, but you start to hear that inner sound, ham sah.

I find it helpful to remember this is a mantra that's been chanted for thousands of years, many, many, many practitioners. So you're not alone in this mantra and it's linking you through history. Ham sah. Where there is that kind of reverent feeling tone, it's said to make any mantra more potent, more effective. Now, you hear.