Mindful Meditation by Maa Uma-Parvathi Natha

This is one of my favorite meditations. It combines stillness, awareness, curiosity, breath and sound to help us feel calm, grounded and mindful of our present moment. You can practice it on your own by reading it first and incorporating elements that resonate during your practice, or voice record yourself reading the steps and playing it back to guide yourself with your own voice. You can also practice this with a friend, or ask someone who makes you feel safe, good and nurtured in their presence to voice record it for you so you can play it back while practicing this meditation.

• Sit tall, head neck and trunk in a long line

• Allow eyes to softly close

• Let go of everything that happened before this moment

• Feel the points of contact of the body to the ground, to the seat

• Feel points of contact of your body to the space around you as you deliberately press your sitting bones to the ground and lift the head up

• If you only move in one direction it goes to collapse

• Soften the forehead and especially between the eyebrows and around the eyes and the mouth, cheeks, cheekbones and jawbones.

• Relax the mouth. Roots of the teeth, gums and the tongue. Deliberately soften the tongue. Imagine you are tasting something wonderful. - - Soften the throat and belly.

• Energetically merge the front body into the back body and feel that the back body spreads open wide.

• Put the gentlest of a smile on your face. This releases the palate.

• Place your hands comfortably on your lap / legs – allow elbows to be bent so that the shoulders release.

• Scan your body and note where there is any tension, blockages, and for right now simply note – don’t try to change with your will or mind – just hold it in your awareness. Notice how it changes on its own in your awareness as you give attention.

• Allow your body to rest – allows mind to settle on its own.

• Giving attention to your body, your parts is the greatest act of love.

• Notice how you shift from being the doer into being-ness – by receiving the breath. Sometimes having a moment of confusion of even knowing how to breath is good sign

• Receive the breath and let the breath breathe you

• As a suggestion if and when you become distracted (if able to rest awareness – do that)

• If your mind is discursive, begin mantra - any (ex: I’m that I am - “Sah Ham”)

• Resting the body, mind, resting in pure awareness – become aware of awareness within

• If you are aware that you are no longer aware, go back to the body / breath first – resting and settling the body, then to the mantra.

• Closing with a kind of pranayama (breathing). Exhale all the air out

• As you inhale repeat to yourself 'So' or 'Sah'

• Exhale 'Ham'

• You could also do when breath flows naturally

• Natural inhale – 'So'

• Natural exhale – 'Ham'

• If able to rest, go with the natural breath and be more fluid a while in silence

• And now conclude the pranayama, the mantra, whatever you are doing and simply rest.

• Rest in the particular silence that is being expressed through your meditation.

• In a moment you will open your eyes. First feel whatever you feel – it has a feel – the feeling tone, notice that.

• When you open your eyes notice what changes – in a way everything changes.

• By noticing what changes we slowly begin to notice what doesn’t change.

• The One who is in the unchanging notices the changing.

• Notice – what happened to the bhava – the mood – did it change? No right or wrong, just awareness of movement.

Namaste