Hello there.
I'm Christiane Zurofsky,
Your embodiment coach,
And I'm so glad you're here.
Welcome to this five-step body scan meditation.
It's a simple way to step out of the racing thoughts and come back home to your body,
To yourself.
We'll move from sensation,
To posture,
To breath,
And finally,
To noticing your emotional state.
Bringing you back to presence,
All at a pace that feels supportive and doable right from where you're at.
So,
I invite you to get comfortable,
And let's begin.
Step one.
I invite you to look around the room and notice something you hadn't noticed before.
It can be anything in your sensory awareness,
From the cobweb in the corner that you hadn't noticed until now,
To maybe the leaves rustling the tree outside,
Or the sound of your laundry upstairs.
Second,
I invite you to come to your body.
Let's start with your feet.
Wiggle your toes and connect them to the ground below you.
Notice the pads of your feet,
How they touch the floor,
Or perhaps your socks or your shoe.
We walk on them all day long,
And rarely take time to notice them.
If it's hard to bring awareness to them,
Scrunch them up,
Wiggle them,
Move them,
Until you can feel some sensory awareness.
The whole point is simply to notice.
That's all.
Once you've made connection with your feet,
Feel how they're supported on the ground,
How they're stable,
How they hold you through the day.
Now let's move north.
I'm going to invite you to notice your legs.
You can start with your calves,
Your shins,
Maybe your knee.
Notice if you've had any hard workouts lately,
Or a long walk.
Do you feel any aches and pains,
Or perhaps the absence of pain?
Notice your thighs,
Your quads,
How they make contact with the chair below you.
Notice if the chair is hard or soft.
Are the entire backs of your thighs supported?
Are half of them floating in the air,
And you can feel a temperature change?
Simply notice.
Now let's notice the rest of the parts,
Touching the chair.
Perhaps your back is resting.
Can you feel the hardness or the softness of the chair?
Or is your back floating,
Suspended on its own,
Without resting?
Can you notice the fabric of your clothes?
Can you notice the inside of your arms,
Rested against your ribcage?
Can you notice the inside of your elbows,
The inside of your forearms?
Are they making contact with skin,
With fabric,
Or maybe just air?
Can you feel the absence of fabric,
Or the temperature change of the air around you?
Simply notice.
Perhaps you can feel something more internal,
The blood flow as it circulates,
Maybe your heart rate and the pulse at your wrist.
It doesn't matter what you can or cannot notice,
Just the mere fact that you are noticing.
Pay attention to your hands.
Are they balled up in fists?
Are they holding any tension?
Are they resting on your thighs?
Do they make contact with your body,
With each other?
Or are they just floating,
Hanging loose by your side?
Simply notice.
As we go further north,
Notice your shoulders.
Pay attention to whether there's any tension held there.
Are there any crinkly spots,
Places you wish you could have a massage?
Just notice.
And notice your head,
Your face.
Is your brow furrowed?
Are you clenching your jaw?
What is your natural resting state?
How much tension are you holding onto right now?
That's the first half of the meditation,
Simply noticing.
Now we're going to move back down with a deeper awareness and intention.
I'm going to invite you to breathe in through your nose,
And take a deep breath as you feel your shoulders drop.
Another deep breath through your nose,
And a big release as you feel your shoulders drop some more.
Notice how your breath starts to slow.
Notice how it goes deeper and longer than at the beginning.
Now let's send some breath to the places that need it most.
In through your nose,
And feel some of that air,
That energy,
That breath,
Go to the tight traps in shoulders that sit at our desk all day.
In through your nose.
Feel that breath,
That energy go down the back,
And into all the little knots that we hold in our upper,
Our mid,
Our lower back.
Feel them relax as you send some breath there.
In through your nose.
Send the next one down your arms.
Feel it like slow honey creeping through your veins and out the tips of your fingers,
Taking your stress with it.
In through your nose.
Send another one down your arms as you feel it sweep out the stress in your forearms,
In your wrists,
In your fingers from all that typing and texting we do in a day.
In through your nose.
This time let's send it down through your legs,
Pushing out any kinky,
Stressy,
Yucky parts that we've held on to.
If you've got some muscle soreness or joint pain,
Send your next breath there.
In through your nose.
And feel how it softens and finds a little more space with your breath.
In through your nose.
One more cleansing breath from the top of your leg right out through your toes.
Taking it all with it.
In through your nose.
This time let's go to our head and feel the back of your skull melt,
Like you're in the shower and that hot water is running down the back of your skull.
In through your nose.
Feel how that hot water takes the stress with you and softens the tightness on your scalp and your neck.
Now let's do the same with our face.
In through your nose.
And feel your eyelids really soften.
There's no more crinkling as you hold on to the tension of the day.
In through your nose.
Feel your cheeks get heavy and melt like wax and take the stress with them.
This next one,
Please part your lips and see how that releases some tension in your jaw.
In through your nose.
Nothing clenched,
Nothing holding.
Feel what it's like to not hold in your jaw,
In your neck.
In through your nose.
Send the next one anywhere you like,
In your head or face,
To soften the tension and create more space.
Now we're going to go down the front line.
So many people hold tension in their heart,
In their abdomen.
So take a big breath in.
And a big breath out as your chest softens.
That space around your heart that holds so much stress and fear and pain and sadness softens.
Gets a little more room.
If you have a good imagination,
Imagine that from the top of your head you have this beautiful light beam coming in.
And it's going to filter out with our breath.
I like to make mine golden yellow.
You can add sparkles if you like.
It can be the color of the rainbows or simply white.
Pick a color of light that feels good to you and breathe in through your nose.
Taking it all in through the top of your head and releasing rays of light out from your heart to the world in front of you.
Feel how with each exhale it leaves more space,
More room and softens more tension.
In through your nose.
Feel those rays of light pouring out,
Filling up the room around you.
Send the next one down to our abdomen.
A place of so much anxiety for people.
In through your nose.
Taking those rays of light and send them down through your abdomen and out through your belly button and your core.
With intention we send our breath there.
The muscles soften.
The places we hold on to emotion release.
In through your nose.
Some more rays of light,
Energy,
Breath,
Whatever works for you.
As you soften and create more space.
I'm going to invite you to take one last breath and send it anywhere in your body that could use a little more care.
A little more space.
A little more breath.
In through your nose.
Send it to the crinkly places.
And when you are done,
Bring your awareness to your whole self.
Notice if anything has shifted.
How is your breathing?
Is it slowed?
Has it become deeper?
Notice if some of the tension you had before has now disappeared.
Notice your state.
Is your mood any different?
What can you see changed with just 10 minutes of intentionality and paying attention to your present body?
This is possible every single day.
These 5 steps can be done from your desk,
From your car,
As you walk outside with your dog.
They're simple.
They're a way to come back to the body and give your body what it needs.
Step 1.
Look outside of you and notice your 5 senses.
Pick something you hadn't noticed.
Step 2.
Connect your feet.
Get out.
Get grounded.
Step 3.
Notice the rest of your body,
Your posture,
Your spine.
Step 4.
Notice your breath.
Breathe intentionally,
Deeply,
Sending it to the places that need it.
And the final step.
Notice the shift.
Notice your state.
Notice your emotions.
You get to choose how you go through your day.
This is a quick activity.
We did a long juicy one in about 10 minutes.
With practice,
You can shave this down to a quick minute practice.
It can be done anywhere,
With movement or not.
5 simple steps to pull you out of your head and into your body.
I hope you appreciated this time together and found value in the activity.
Everything we have is already within us.
Your body holds the key.
It's speaking to us all day long.
Are you ready to listen?
Thanks so much for being here.
Enjoy exploring your body intelligence.
Have a beautiful day.
