An Invitation… | A Blog About Mindfulness

How are you? Have you had an opportunity in this possibly hectic, possibly stressful day to just let yourself be? If not, I invite you to find a quiet space where you can be undisturbed for the next 10-20 minutes… Mindfulness

Sitting or lying down, settle into a comfortable position. Take a few, slow deep breaths, gently filling and releasing the air from your lungs. With each exhalation, invite your body to give itself over to gravity. Whatever your worries or responsibilities, it’s okay to put these down for a while. Just let them be. Then, when you are ready, bring your awareness to your skin. Take your time and sense along the surface of it. Can you feel the contact of the air on your face? Register the ambient temperature of the room? Feel the touch of your clothing on your skin? Travel your awareness over the continuous surface of your skin, sensing its integrity and wholeness.

Notice what happens when you shift your attention from the outside of your skin to its inner surface? Can you let yourself explore how the container that is your skin comes into contact with the contained—the slippery, watery, voluminous quality of your insides? Again, take your time. When you are ready, allow yourself to consider that your body is made up of billions of microscopically small cells, many of them spherical in shape and all fluid-filled. Each one pressing on and being pressed on by the surrounding cells. Notice how all of the billions of cells in your body are gently expanding and contracting. Your whole body is breathing.

With your imagination and perception, choose one of the billions. Sense the volume within the very fine membrane enclosing it. Let yourself enter into the dark, silent world of this single cell. Rest in its fullness and rhythm and just let yourself be rocked by the gentle lapping of fluids within and across the skin that holds this cell. Allow yourself to be held in the utter simplicity of it. There is a quality of presence here that you have known from the moment of your conception. Spend as much time here as you like. No need to rush.

Soon it will be time to return to the daily business of your life. No matter what tasks or responsibilities are waiting for you, you can know that this inner simplicity of being goes with you. Wherever you go, there you are.

Written by Elena Walker, MA, LPCC