Beginning by arranging the body so you're sitting comfortably. Taking your time with this, adjusting, and readjusting as you settle.

As this is a longer practice making sure that you're warm enough so you might want to get a blanket, put on an extra pair of socks, get comfortable. It can help to sit nicely upright, not tensing, but so that you encourage wakefulness.

If you'd like to close your eyes, then do that. If not, then just lower your gaze or choose to stay with what you can see around you.

Spending a few moments now just deciding where you'd like your anchor to be. In this practice it's helpful for that anchor to be in the body. Breath, feet, hands, contact with the chair. Maybe trying each one on for size.

And then placing your attention with some precision, getting familiar with your anchor point.

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And in this first part of the practice really all we're doing is getting settled and grounded.

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Noticing if the mind is busy, maybe the mind is already wandering away into planning or daydreaming, as ever, knowing that it's normal for attention to be captured by other things. All we need to do is notice when that's happened and to come back to our anchor point.

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You may even want to just cultivate a sense of arriving, arriving in this moment, arriving in this practice - this time for you. So, arriving, settling, grounding as best you can.

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And expanding your attention now to include the whole body. So feeling into the body, into any areas of tension or relaxation, warmth or coolness, heaviness or lightness.

If you'd like to, you can scan your body from head to toe. Observing sensations, aliveness, areas of dullness or numbness, noticing any sensations with curiosity, some acceptance, this is how my body is right now, this is how it feels.

And you might like to play with your attention a little or move it around - sensing right inside the body, to any vibrations or pulsing, any sense of movement, getting a sense of aliveness, the quiet murmurings in the body.

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And then also moving your attention, expanding it to the outside edges of the body, right up to the skin and the contact with clothing, maybe feeling the air on your skin, if you're under a blanket, the pressure of the blanket.

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The movement of attention from inside the body, the warmth and aliveness, right to the outside edges, the perimeter of the body.

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Letting go of the focus on the body and open your awareness to the sounds around you. So, just receiving sounds, no need to search for them.

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Noticing their raw qualities: textures of the sounds, tone, pitch, volume. Noticing if the mind starts to label sounds or begins to commentate on them.

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You may notice likes and dislikes, notice the mind getting involved and as best you can just come back to observing and being the receiver of sounds.

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On an out-breath, allow sounds to fall into the background and thoughts to take centre stage.

Opening up to thoughts in the mind. And just as with sounds, notice as thoughts come and go, rising and then falling away. If helpful, you can liken thoughts to clouds passing through the sky, maybe moving quickly one after the other, or thoughts looming large and taking up a lot of space.

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As best you can, allow thoughts to pass without engaging with them, or expanding on them, knowing that you can watch and observe thoughts without getting caught up in their content.

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If you find that you've become tangled up in thought or caught up in a compelling story in the mind, then congratulate yourself on this return of awareness, and once again stand back and watch as the thought fades away, making space for another thought. Taking up your position as observer once more and knowing that if you do find yourself very caught up or tangled in thinking, if thoughts are very intense, then you can drop back to your anchor, coming back to sensations in the body, grounding, centering.

Knowing that this is always an option in practice or outside of practice.

You may wish to notice if you feel agitated by a particular thought, recognise any powerful thoughts with curiosity, feeling into any corresponding sensations in the body.

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You can transfer your attention between thinking and your anchor point as often as you need to. And when you are observing thoughts, as best you can noticing them as mental events, always with the possibility of observing without getting caught up in them. We don't have to follow where they lead.

Allowing thoughts to recede into the background, and foregrounding your anchor point. So tuning into the neutral or pleasant sensations in this part of the body and just allowing your focus to rest here for a few moments.

Then externalizing your attention allowing it to extend beyond the body.

Opening your eyes if you've had them closed, wriggling your fingers and toes.

And as we conclude, maybe notice any impulse to jump back into your day, noticing how there can be some force behind that, and instead, deciding to take your time.

Opening to the range of sensations that this moment is offering.

Right here, right now.