This practice is a guided body scan meditation.
I'll invite you to find a position that feels comfortable for your body,
A posture that reflects your intention to be alert and awake for this practice.
You can do this body scan sitting,
Lying down,
Or even standing.
We will be moving our attention slowly and systematically through our bodies.
You're invited simply to notice with openness and curiosity and gentle acceptance of whatever is present for you in each moment.
There's no right or wrong way to experience this practice.
However you find yourself is perfectly valid.
We're not trying to make anything happen or even to relax,
But rather to cultivate awareness of our body as it is right now with kindness and patience.
So allow yourself just to get settled.
Notice if there's anything else you need to feel well supported.
This guidance here is offered as an invitation.
You are always free to adjust,
To shift your posture,
To open your eyes,
To focus on the breath instead of your body,
Or to even return to something that feels more steady and stable if anything becomes uncomfortable.
You can always return to the practice when you feel ready.
So allow your body just to feel supported by the surface beneath you.
Feel the weight of your feet or your body,
The contact points to the floor.
If it feels comfortable,
You might let your eyes close or just soften your gaze downward.
Giving yourself permission just to continue to adjust,
Micro-movements in your muscles,
Tiny shifts in balance,
Just letting your body quietly organize itself without your effort.
Just begin to notice that your breath is here.
It's moving in and out of your body.
No need to change.
Just recognizing this rhythm.
You might sense the breath as sensation at your nostrils or perhaps the back of your throat or through your chest,
Your ribs,
Your belly,
Your back,
Or perhaps simply felt as expansion and release.
There's nothing again here to fix or improve.
Just letting yourself be breathed and just observing this,
Witnessing this breath.
Now gently direct your attention to your feet.
Exploring sensations in your toes and the soles of your feet.
The tops of your feet.
You might notice warmth or coolness,
Tingling,
Pressure,
Or the contact of fabric or air.
It's possible there's no particular sensation here at all.
Simply noticing the absence is also awareness.
You might sense into intricate architecture of your feet,
The small bones,
The connective tissue.
Notice if there's subtle vibration or numbness or pulsing.
Just allow whatever is here to be here.
At any point your mind wanders and it will,
Just take that as part of our practice With kindness,
Acknowledge where your mind has gone and then gently return here to your feet.
Each return we're strengthening our ability to be present.
And just start now to let your awareness shift upward into your ankles.
Noticing the inside of the ankles and the top,
The back,
And the outside.
You might have a sense of the boniness,
The bend,
The angle.
You might sense a difference from left to right side.
Then bringing your awareness to the lower leg and your shins and your calf muscles.
You might notice here a sensation of clothing against your skin.
Or the simple weight and shape of your muscles.
A sense of the density of the bone beneath the skin or the pull of gravity.
Or the quiet work of circulation.
Just a sense here left and right leg.
And bringing your attention back if it wanders.
Moving now your attention,
Your awareness,
Your focus up into the knees.
The left and the right.
You might sense the bend,
The angle of each knee.
There might be a temperature here to acknowledge.
Notice if there's ease or tightness.
There might be some movement.
Or perhaps there may not be much movement.
Or much to notice in particular.
If there is discomfort,
You might experiment with meeting it for a few breaths.
Observe its texture,
Edges,
Whether it stays the same or shift.
Allowing sensation to unfold without bracing.
Take a few more breaths here.
Noticing your knees.
And then into your thighs.
Aware of these strong bones from the knee to the hip.
You might notice the contact they make with the floor,
Your chair.
The front,
The back,
The sides.
Noticing the larger muscle groups here.
Perhaps sensing strength or fatigue or neutrality.
And just feeling the support beneath you receiving the weight of the legs.
Now bringing your attention and resting your attention on the hips.
The pelvis.
And your tailbone.
Notice the points of contact with the surface that's supporting you.
The steadiness of the support.
Perhaps sensing the bowl of the pelvis.
The deep muscles stabilizing you here.
You might feel weight or pressure.
Or even contact with your clothing again.
Bringing some of your awareness now into the lower back.
Notice if there's any held tension here.
You might notice sensations of tightness or discomfort or release.
Or even a neutral presence.
Meeting whatever you find.
Just with this gentle curiosity and compassion.
And if there's a holding here,
You might imagine creating space between the vertebrae with each inhale.
And softening the surrounding muscles with your exhale.
And just having a sense here of your lower back.
However you can sense into this today.
And then bringing your attention towards your mid-back.
But all the way around your body.
Finding your abdomen.
Your base of your ribs.
Here you might feel a sense of your breath moving.
Moving at the belly.
There might be sensations of digestion.
Fullness or emptiness.
There might be sounds.
Internal sounds.
Feeling into the musculature here.
Your strong back.
Your strong and supported core.
Letting your attention start to lift up towards your chest.
Your ribs.
The upper back.
Notice what's here.
Just meeting here with a sense of awareness.
You may sense some vulnerability here.
Or steadiness.
You might feel expansion and release of the rib cage.
Here's the lungs.
Breathing.
Respiration happening.
And here's your heart beating.
And your rhythm.
There may be a sense of this space.
There may be a sense of a temperature.
There may be a feeling.
A sense of the upper back.
The shoulder blades.
You might feel into the width and the length of your back.
The support of your spine.
And then the way your breath is moving in this space.
You might notice how the rib cage subtly expands into your back body.
Just allowing awareness to fill your entire back like a light.
And then feeling the front body.
The chest.
The belly.
Feeling the way the breath moves in through here.
Noticing the gentle rhythm again of your heartbeat.
You might be aware of your sternum and collarbones.
The whole front body breathing.
You might notice emotion here or nothing at all.
Just let this heart space,
This front body be exactly as it is.
Just held in awareness.
Now bringing attention to the tops of your shoulders.
Notice if here there is tension.
Or ease.
Or shifting sensations.
Perhaps even imagining a softening.
With each exhale.
Letting the shoulders just soften.
Or simply sensing their weight.
No forcing.
Just permission.
Gently guiding your attention now into the arms around the shoulder.
The shoulder blades.
The armpits.
Left and right.
Bring attention down your upper arms.
Your elbows.
Down your forearms.
Your wrists.
And into your hands.
Becoming aware of the palms and the backs of your hands and your fingers.
Just notice what's touching.
Contact points.
You might sense into the general temperature of each hand.
Maybe the position or the posture of each hand.
And then starting to specifically feel into your right hand.
All five fingers.
Fingernails.
Fingerprints.
Each long finger.
Thumb.
The palm of your hand.
The webbing between the fingers.
The back of your hand.
And then sense your left hand.
Is there a difference?
A temperature difference?
An awareness difference?
But feel into each finger.
Each fingerprint.
Each fingernail.
The long bones of the fingers.
The joints connecting.
The thumb.
The webbing.
And sense the palm of the hand and the back of the hand.
And then sensing both hands.
Left and right.
Hands that reach and hold and create and comfort.
And now your hands just simply resting.
Now bringing your attention into the wrists.
The left and right wrists.
Connecting the hand to the lower arm.
Sensing the outside edges of the lower arm.
The inside.
Maybe feel the weight of the arms.
Notice how they're resting differently,
The same.
Notice if there's more sensation in one arm versus the other.
Just noticing.
Not needing to judge or need it to be any different.
Then bringing your attention up the arms and into the elbows.
Noticing again the angle here.
In which direction and how that feels.
Feeling this from the inside.
Through the bones and muscles.
Feeling this from the outside through the skin.
The temperature.
Maybe clothing touching or resting.
And then bringing your attention upwards into the upper arms.
Sensing the outside.
And the back.
And the inside towards your body.
And then the top.
A sense of left and right.
And then bringing your attention back to your shoulder tops.
And feeling this completeness of two long arms and hands and fingers.
A sense of your arms.
And shift awareness here now to your neck.
To the front of the neck.
The back.
And the sides.
You might notice from the inside out swallowing,
Breathing,
Temperature.
However you can sense or know this is fine.
You might allow your throat to be soft.
The breath moving freely,
Coming and going in this highway between your heart and your head.
Just connecting with your neck.
We'll bring our attention upward to the chin.
The underside of the jaw.
And the jawline.
All the way to the ears.
And sensing the left and the right ear.
It might take a moment to notice listening.
Hearing my voice.
Hearing your body.
Noticing sounds in your space.
And further,
Further out sounds.
Noticing how these sounds can meet your ear.
Not going and looking for the sound,
Just letting it arrive.
All of the sounds are loud.
Sensing the ears listening.
The act of hearing.
And then moving your attention through the top of the head.
Sensing the scalp and your hair.
The back of your head.
The sides.
Your forehead.
And your eyebrows.
You might have a sense of the space of the eyes.
There may be a sense of rest.
Or maybe some tension.
Feel into the eyelids.
Even the eyelashes.
The bridge of our nose.
The cheekbones.
The skin covering all of the space of the face.
Your lips.
Feeling temperature and noticing the muscle tone around the lips.
Feel the jaw muscles.
And the mouth.
Your teeth.
Your tongue.
Feeling the muscles of your whole face.
Noticing the subtle expression held in your face.
Allowing your skin just to smooth and the muscles to soften.
Just bringing your attention to the entirety of your face.
All of your senses.
The weight of your head.
Awareness of the very top of your head.
And starting to expand your awareness.
Expanding it to include your whole head.
Your neck.
Your shoulders.
Your arms.
Hands.
Your torso.
And hips.
Your legs.
Your feet.
Gather a sense of the entire front body.
And your back body.
The left side of your body.
And the right side of your body.
The skin.
Muscles.
Bones.
Organs.
And the breath moving throughout.
Sensing your body really as a whole.
Alive and resting here.
Rather than moving from part to part,
Just continuing to sense into your body as one integrated field of sensation.
Noticing how everything is interconnected.
Changing moment to moment.
Just resting in this awareness just a little while longer.
Of being a breathing body.
Exactly as you are right now.
Nothing missing.
Nothing needed.
Just this living,
Breathing presence.
As you breathe in just feeling the wholeness and the fullness of yourself.
As you breathe out,
Feeling that connection of whatever is touching down.
Touching the earth.
Touching the ground.
As you stay with your breath and just staying with the sense of your whole body breathing.
Simply resting.
Letting your body breathe you.
Feeling your whole body resting here.
Nothing more you need to do.
Nowhere to go for just a few minutes.
Just keeping and staying with this sense of your integrated,
Interconnected,
Entire body.
All of the systems working together.
Feeling your breath.
Feeling your body.
We'll take just a slow moment here.
Start to move.
You might like to stretch out your fingers or wiggle your toes.
You might find it's nice to stretch a bit more now and reach your arms.
Or even taking a yawn.
Then gently if you're lying down you might walk your feet in.
Stand on your feet.
If you're reclined in any way you might start to stretch and reach.
Taking just a little more time to come back towards your space.
Your eyes opening.
Just looking around.
Experiencing seeing.
Taking in colors.
Maybe even the quality of light.
Staying in this practice for just a few more minutes.
Move our body just a bit more.
And as we close just taking a moment to appreciate the time that you've offered yourself.
You might stack your hands on top of each other over your heart space.
You might give yourself a big hug here.
But taking a moment to acknowledge,
Express your gratitude and your appreciation towards yourself.
Towards the time you've made to strengthen your own capacity to meet the demands of life.
With more steadiness.
And with more connection.
And with more presence.
Taking just a few breaths here with this closing moment of gratitude and appreciation.
As you feel ready let's gently open our eyes and lift up our gaze.
You might take a deeper breath or a stretch or a sigh.
But just bringing this quality of awareness with you into the next moments of your day.
