I invite you to take a moment to notice how you feel at the beginning of this practice.
Noticing your state of mind,
Noticing tension,
Tightness,
Or discomfort in the body.
Noticing your breath.
Begin to allow yourself the permission to settle in.
Taking a deep breath in through the nose and an exaggerated exhale to sigh out the mouth like you're fogging up a mirror.
And again like that.
A deep breath in through the nose,
Filling up the belly,
The lungs,
And exhale to sigh out the mouth like you're fogging up a mirror.
And again.
Deep inhale,
Filling up,
And exhale to release,
To sink deeper into the support beneath you.
Using your exhales to get heavy through the bones.
Feeling the body releasing and relaxing tension and tightness with each exhalation.
Let your senses open.
Bring your attention to the inside of your mouth.
Feel your sense of taste emptying the mouth of any tension or holding and filling it with awareness and sensation.
Decompressing jaw and tongue and throat.
Then let attention flow from the mouth to the ears.
Notice your sense of sound and hearing.
Notice how you can pick up the layers of sound in the near distance and far distance.
Listening not only with your ears but with your whole body.
Let attention flow from the ears to the nose.
Feel the touch of breath inside the nostrils.
Letting aromas and sensations come to you.
Noticing if the air seems more dominant in one nostril or the other.
Then let attention flow from the nose to the eyes.
Give up the physical eyes,
Completely committing them to rest from the world of looking and seeing and taking in external stimulation.
Decompress all the muscles around your eyes and your forehead and your temples.
And allow the eyeballs to fall back heavy into their sockets.
Sinking heavy with gravity as your internal vision becomes more sensitive and expansive.
From eyes to skin and your sense of touch,
Feeling the whole skin of the body sensitive,
Receptive.
Noticing how you can breathe into your own skin.
Every pore of the skin gently expanding and condensing,
One breath at a time.
And notice the touch of air against the skin.
Places of warmth,
Places of coolness.
Places where the body meets the support beneath you.
And where clothes meet the skin.
All five senses wide open.
In Yoga Nidra,
We practice something called Sankalpa,
Which is a Sanskrit word that means intention or deep resolve.
You can think of Sankalpa like planting a seed into not only this meditation,
But also your daily life.
To practice Sankalpa,
We first take a moment to practice gratitude.
Allowing yourself to notice and experience anything you can feel genuinely thankful for.
Maybe it's one simple thing.
Or maybe it's many things.
Practicing feeling gratitude into your body.
Into your tissues,
Into your cells.
Gratitude radiating from your heart center.
Gratitude for special people,
Places,
Animals,
Or experiences in your life.
Allow yourself to feel gratitude in your heart center.
And from that place,
Ask yourself,
What is my deepest,
Most heartfelt desire?
What is my deepest longing?
What is my deepest,
Most heartfelt desire?
And simply notice what bubbles up when you inquire.
What arises within you?
Whatever the answer to those questions happen to be on this day,
That will form the basis of your Sankalpa.
As it becomes clear to you,
Let it blossom into language that makes sense to you.
And repeat it to yourself three times in your mind,
Like a mantra.
Be sure to state your Sankalpa in the present tense as though it's already happening.
Repeating it to yourself.
Then give thanks and let it go.
We are going to circulate your consciousness through the body now.
You can imagine this like a meditative massage,
As you learn to bring awareness into different layers of the body.
Each part of your body has a different control center in your brain.
And as you move your awareness through different parts,
You're not only relaxing them,
But also clearing nerve pathways to the brain,
Stimulating a state of consciousness that is both deeply relaxed as well as highly attuned and alert.
Begin by bringing the attention to the palms of your hands.
Experience the palms of the hands as a mass of sensation and energy.
Noticing feelings of pressure,
Warmth,
Or tingling.
The palms of the hands.
A vibrance,
A pulse,
A buzz.
And now bring your attention to the right hand thumb.
Second finger.
Third finger.
Fourth finger.
Pinky finger.
Feel the spaces between the fingers on the right side.
The tips of the fingers.
Palm of the right hand.
Back of the right hand.
Right wrist.
Forearm.
Elbow.
Upper arm.
Right shoulder.
Armpit.
Right side body.
Right waist.
Hip.
The space just underneath the right knee.
Lower leg.
Right ankle.
Heel.
Sole of the right foot.
Top of the right foot.
Right big toe.
Second toe.
Third toe.
Fourth toe.
And pinky toe.
And feel the spaces between the toes.
And the tips of the toes.
And feel the whole right side of the body at once.
Now shift your attention to the left hand thumb.
Second finger.
Third finger.
Fourth finger.
Pinky finger.
Feel all the spaces between the fingers on the left side.
And the tips of the fingers.
Palm of the left hand.
Back of the left hand.
Left wrist.
Forearm.
Elbow.
Upper arm.
Shoulder.
Left armpit.
Left side body.
Waist.
Hip.
Left knee.
Behind the left knee.
Heel.
Sole of the left foot.
Top of the right foot.
Left big toe.
Second toe.
Third toe.
Fourth toe.
And pinky toe.
Feel the spaces between the toes.
And the tips of the toes.
And feel the whole left side of the body at once.
Bring your awareness to the base of the throat.
The base of the tongue.
The center of the tongue.
The tip of the tongue.
Teeth.
Gums.
Jaws.
The whole mouth full of sensation.
Feel the chin.
Cheeks.
Ears.
And earlobes.
Nose.
And tip of the nose.
Left nostril.
Right nostril.
Left eyeball.
Right eyeball.
Left eyelid.
Right.
Left eyebrow.
Right.
The space between the eyebrows.
The forehead.
The whole face at once.
Back of the skull.
Back.
Base of the throat.
Both shoulders.
And the chest.
The upper back.
Rib cage.
Middle back.
The whole spine.
The whole torso.
Both legs together.
Both arms together.
Head and torso together.
The whole body at once.
Sense the whole body as a field of sensation radiating in every direction.
All these individual sensations mingling and gliding together in harmony.
Feel the touch of the support beneath you.
The solid density of your bones sinking down through layers of muscle and tissue.
And light behind and within your eyes.
Your eyes like a soft glowing fire.
Feeling and sensing the glow of inner fire.
Feel the movement and touch of air around you and within you.
And the natural rhythm of the breath.
Calm and relaxed.
The body breathing itself.
Soft,
Steady inhales.
Soft,
Steady exhales.
Split your attention between both sides of the body.
Sensing the whole right side and sensing the whole left side.
Let your attention gather in the palms of the hands as you breathe.
Letting your attention saturate both hands.
Sensing your body breathing in and out.
And as you're sensing the right palm,
Could you imagine breathing in through the right palm all the way up to the arm towards your heart.
And as you exhale,
Switching sides and imagining breathing down the left arm to the left palm.
Inhaling through the left palm towards the heart center.
Switching sides,
Exhaling down and out through the right palm.
At your own pace,
Inhaling through the right palm to the heart.
Switching sides.
Exhaling at your own rhythm of breath.
Inhaling through the palm to the heart.
Switching sides,
Exhaling.
Inhaling to the heart center.
Switching sides and exhaling gently.
Following the natural rhythm of breath.
Just imagining,
Sensing as you're resting so deeply here,
The gentle breath nurturing and nourishing your heart center.
As you welcome this gentle and natural rhythm of breath,
The nurturing,
Nourishing effect on your heart center.
Allow yourself to start to rest back into your natural presence of peace,
Calm and tranquility.
The natural presence that's already within you.
Resting back into the medicine of presence itself,
All around and within.
Letting the already happening breath nourish your heart center as you float in the medicine of presence.
Sense the entire front side of the body.
The whole front side of the body as a radiance that emanates into the space in front of the body.
Can you move with the sensation out of the body?
Noticing how far out this feeling extends.
Awareness moving an inch or three inches or perhaps a foot or more into the space in front of you.
Can you feel how awareness can saturate the space in front of you?
Touching the walls,
Perhaps even pervading through the walls of this space.
Exchanging thinking for sensing.
And then breathe your way all the way through the back side of the body.
Sense the membrane of skin on the back of the body and the sensation that the whole back side of the body is made of.
Experience directly the back of the body.
Back of the arms,
Back of the legs.
And feel how awareness can move out behind the body,
Saturating the space beyond and beneath the body.
Perhaps there is a throb or a pulse to this body sensation.
Now sense the left side of the body,
Letting attention wander over to the left.
Can you feel yourself as an eminence that moves out to the left side of your body?
Saturating the space to the left side.
Touching the walls,
Perhaps even penetrating the walls.
Now move awareness to the right side of the body,
Letting awareness extend out to the right side,
Beyond the boundary of the skin.
Touching the space,
Touching the walls,
Perhaps even penetrating the walls.
Now assemble all of these directions,
Front,
Back,
Left,
Right.
Awareness open simultaneously to all directions.
The body as a global experience of sensation,
Giving up thinking,
Just feeling.
Can you feel how consciousness can move out in all directions?
Sensing even the environment beyond these walls.
Feel your consciousness pervading in every direction.
Perhaps you can hear the hum of an appliance,
The sound of a bird,
Traffic in the distance,
Or wind through the trees.
Or just the silence and stillness in the air outside.
Feel how consciousness moves through the walls.
It penetrates and wanders into the trees outside,
Into the sky.
Feel yourself reclining deeply into this experience.
Relax into this moment,
This bodily experience.
Let awareness expand,
Nothing you need to do or nothing you need to know to get into this place.
Welcome your sankalpa to be here now.
Letting this intention infuse the presence that you are resting in.
Begin to sense the emotional tone that might be present here and now.
The quality of mind and the quality and frequency of thoughts that may be occurring in the background.
Notice how you feel and allow yourself to linger in this silent space for as long as you like.
When you decide to come out,
Let it happen slowly.
Taking your time to transition back to the waking world.
Taking your time,
Carrying the effects of your meditation practice with you into the rest of your day.
The practice of Yoga Nidra is now complete.
Namaste.
