15 minute body scan meditation.
Settle yourself into a comfortable position.
Take a few moments to bring your awareness to the physical sensations in your body,
Especially to those of touch or pressure,
Where the body makes contact with whatever you're sitting on.
On each out breath,
See if you can allow yourself to sink a little deeper into the surface.
Remind yourself this is the time for being fully aware of your experience.
Sometimes you might feel no sensations at all,
And if that's the case,
Then that's fine.
Bring your awareness first to the sensations in your abdomen,
Becoming aware of the changing patterns in the abdominal wall as the breath moves in and out of your body.
Take a few moments to feel the sensations as you breathe in and breathe out,
As your abdomen rises and falls.
And now gather your attention as if it were a spotlight and bring it down the body,
Into your legs,
Down into your feet,
All the way out to your toes.
Focus on each of the toes,
Bringing a gentle,
Interested attention to them.
Investigate the qualities of the sensations.
You might notice the feeling of contact between them,
Or perhaps a tingling sensation,
Or numbness,
Or maybe even nothing at all.
Whatever you experience is okay,
There's no need to judge.
On an in-breath,
Feel or imagine that the breath could enter the lungs and pass all the way down the body,
Through the legs and out into the toes.
On the out-breath,
Feel or imagine the breath flowing out of the toes,
The feet,
The legs,
The torso and finally out of the nose.
Continue focusing in this way for a few breaths.
You might find it difficult to get the hang of this,
And if so,
Just practice as best you can.
When you're ready,
Let go of the toes and bring your awareness to the sensations in the bottom of your feet.
Bring a gentle awareness to the soles.
Then move your awareness to the instep,
And then the heel of each foot.
And then allow your awareness to expand into the rest of the feet,
Into the top of the feet,
Into the ankles,
Right into the bones.
From time to time,
The mind will inevitably wander away from the breath and the body.
That's entirely normal.
When you notice it,
Gently acknowledge the fact,
Make a mental note of where your thoughts went off to.
And then just gently return your awareness to the part of the body that you intended to focus on.
Now let go of the feet completely and shift your attention to the lower legs.
And now shift your awareness to the knees and the upper legs.
It's possible you might become aware of any intense sensations such as tension or some kind of pain in the body.
If this happens,
See how it is to breathe into these sensations to explore them further.
Use the in-breath to gently bring awareness into the sensations.
Then see how the sensations change,
If at all,
When breathing out of them.
And now let go of the legs and shift the spotlight of attention to the pelvic area.
Focusing your attention on all the organs in this area,
Into the sitting bones and the pelvis.
And then moving that awareness now into the lower back.
And the upper back.
And then let go of the upper back and shift the spotlight of attention to become aware of your abdomen.
Discovering those sensations of the breath moving in and out of the body again.
And then letting go of the abdomen and shifting the spotlight of attention to become aware of your chest area.
And then shifting that spotlight of attention to become aware of the shoulders.
And then gently bringing your awareness down into both hands.
When you focus on your hands you can first attend to the sensations in the very tips of your fingers and thumbs.
Then the whole fingers and thumbs.
And the palms of the hands.
And then the backs of the hands.
And then shifting your attention to focus on the sensations in your wrists.
And shifting that awareness now into the lower arms,
Up to the elbow.
And the upper arms.
And now the shoulders and armpits.
And now moving your awareness to the neck and the throat area.
And shifting that awareness now up into your face,
First starting at the jaw area.
The chin.
The mouth.
And inside the mouth,
Including the tongue.
Now moving your awareness to the lips.
The nose.
The eyes.
The ears.
The eyes.
The forehead.
Before holding your entire head in full awareness.
And now bringing your awareness to the body as a whole.
So expanding down from the head into the neck.
Shoulders,
The arms,
The hands.
The torso,
The back.
The stomach,
Pelvic area.
Down into the legs and finally into the feet.
See if you can hold all of the fluxing sensations in awareness.
Feeling the breath flowing freely in and out of the body.
