30-Minute Somatic Healing To Relieve Chronic Pain

Hello and welcome to today's somatic healing practice.

Today we're focusing on relieving chronic pain or just aches and pains that may be impacting your day today.

As always,

We'll go through a body scan,

Then we'll go through a visualization that aims to hopefully give you a little bit of relief from that pain that you might be feeling physically.

You can use this audio also for any emotional pain that you might be going through too.

Grief,

Anxiety,

Stress,

Heartbreak.

But as I said,

This is really aiming to go through physical feelings of pain.

So as always,

You want to be sat somewhere comfortable or laying down.

It really helps if your body is relatively symmetrical,

Just as we go through our body scan.

And we're going to pass down through the body and then come back up again in a bit more of a deeper level.

So as always,

Lengthen your spine,

Soften your shoulders,

Unclench your jaw and if you'd like to,

Close your eyes.

As we move through our body scan,

All you need to do is observe these spaces.

If there's anywhere that you struggle to connect with or feel,

You can bring your hands there.

You could also visualize that space in the body or just repeat the name of that body part in your mind too.

So let's begin just by observing your breathing.

Not changing it too much,

But rather allowing the breath to flow as it is.

This is the same awareness we'll bring to the body as we move through our scan too.

Allowing it to be as it is and just watching the body do what it does.

So let's begin observing the crown of your head.

Your attention towards the crown of your head.

Travel down and start to observe your forehead.

Observing your eyebrows and the space in between your eyebrows.

As always,

It's not meeting these spaces with the urgent need for them to relax right away.

Rather meet them with curiosity,

Just notice what the body is doing in this moment.

Are their muscles contracting?

Are their expressions happening?

Allow it to be as it is.

Start to travel down and observe your eyelids.

Maybe even noticing the eyes themselves.

Notice your cheeks.

Your nostrils,

The top lip,

The top row of teeth,

And the roof of your mouth.

Observing your tongue,

The bottom row of teeth,

And your bottom lip.

Now bringing your attention towards your jaw.

Travelling down through your neck,

Observing sensations around your neck from all sides.

So the back,

Both sides,

And the front.

Observing your shoulders.

From here,

We'll travel down the arms.

You could do one arm at a time or both together.

Starting with the upper arms.

Your elbows.

Forearms.

Your wrists.

Hands and fingers.

And then travel back up through your arms.

We'll observe the heart space,

Or the top third of the torso.

Observing any sensations you feel around your chest.

Space under your arms and across your upper back and shoulder blades.

Travel down toward the solar plexus,

Observing sensations around the upper part of your abdomen.

The sides of your ribcage and the middle portion of your back.

Travel down and start to observe the lower part of the abdomen.

So your belly,

The sides of your waist,

And your lower back.

And travel into the hips,

Observing the hips from all sides as well as underneath.

What do you feel around your hips?

Maybe between the skin of the hips and your clothes,

Or your hips and your chair.

And from here,

We'll travel down your legs,

Once again,

One at a time or both together.

So noticing your thighs from all sides,

The front,

The outside,

The back and the inside.

Observing your knees.

Lower legs,

So shins and calf muscles.

Observing your ankles.

The tops of your feet.

The soles of your feet.

And all ten toes.

And once you're ready,

We're going to come back up through the body.

Observing the body from the inside,

Looking outwards.

Getting as deeply into the sensations within the body as we can.

So travel back up through your legs in your own time.

And we'll drop into the hips,

Or observing the pelvis from the inside out.

So placing your attention deeply within your hips and observe this space around you.

Get curious,

There's no right or wrong here,

But just observing what could be there.

Maybe you feel something in a sensation.

Maybe you see something in a visualisation.

Something anatomical or literal,

Or maybe something more abstract.

Maybe what comes up is more of a thought,

A judgement,

A memory,

An emotion.

Be really curious.

Observing the pelvis from the inside out.

Stay at this level of depth within your body.

Travel upwards to observe your belly from the inside out.

So now placing your attention behind your navel,

Or maybe slightly lower than that.

And observe the belly from the inside out with the same awareness as before.

Allowing anything to be here,

Just witnessing what's here.

Sensation,

Visualisation or otherwise.

Travel back up through your body once again,

Now observing the solar plexus from the inside out.

So placing your attention under your diaphragm or underneath the ribcage,

Right at the top of your abdomen.

If you were sat in that space in your body,

What are you seeing,

What are you feeling,

What are you experiencing here in this moment?

Observing the solar plexus from the inside out.

Travel upwards once again and observe your heart space from the inside out.

So again placing your attention at the core of your chest.

And once again,

If you're sat right there,

What are you seeing,

Feeling or experiencing at the heart space in this moment?

Again it could be a sensation,

A visualisation,

An emotion,

A memory,

A thought.

Curiously observe this space within your body.

Once you're ready,

Travel up through the body once again,

Now meeting your throat or the neck and throat from the inside out.

So placing your attention deep within that central channel of your neck.

And observe this space around you.

And lastly,

Travel up through your body once again towards the centre of your mind.

And observe your head space from the inside out.

If you're sat within your mind,

In the middle of your head,

What's happening there right now?

Now see if you can observe your whole body as one unit from the inside out.

The whole body as one from the inside out.

We'll go into our visualisation.

So once again,

Bringing your attention towards that area in your body you're sensing that feeling of pain or discomfort.

Or again if you're dealing with more of an emotional pain.

Visualise whatever situation you're moving through that's bringing that feeling.

And start to notice where in your body almost lights up in the presence of that emotion.

And then either way,

Observing your body,

Observing this space,

It's almost the house of this pain.

As deeply as you feel it.

And again just meeting the sensation,

Not needing it to change right now.

Start to question or get curious in your mind as to if this sensation were a colour,

What colour would it be?

If this pain you're feeling were a colour,

What colour would it be?

Maybe it's red or purple,

Bright white or green.

Once again there's no right or wrong.

And I'll just go with the first one that comes to mind.

And almost imagine painting that sensation with that colour in that space in your body.

Now again start to get curious if this sensation in your body were a shape,

What shape would it be?

If that pain or emotion you're feeling were a shape,

What shape would it be?

And again this could be something literal,

Something really geometric or something really abstract.

Just allow your curiosity to take the wheel.

The first shape that comes to mind.

Imagine that shape with that colour in place of that sensation or pain you're feeling.

Now get curious one last time.

If that pain,

That sensation or even that emotion had a texture,

What texture would it have?

If that sensation was a texture,

What texture would it have?

Is it rough?

Is it smooth?

Is it kind of jagged?

Cloud like?

If it was a texture or if it had a texture,

What texture would it have?

And then once again,

Visualise that shape with that colour and texture in place of that pain or sensation or emotion in your body.

Now sit with this object and watch it.

Watch it without it needing to be any different to begin with.

But just notice as you're sitting with this object,

This shape with that colour and texture.

Notice if it starts to change.

Be open to maybe the form starting to shrink or dissolve into smaller fragments.

Maybe the colour starts to change.

Or the texture,

Maybe.

Once again,

No right or wrong,

Just allow your imagination to be with this object and allowing it to transform as it is.

You might even start watching that space in your body and arrive at a point where you're questioning whether that shape is still there at all.

Is that pain still there?

Has it dialled down maybe just 10%,

5%,

Even 1%?

And then gradually let go of that visualisation and we're going to finish with another one.

Imagine now from wherever you were in the body,

It's almost like there's a spiral staircase going through the centre of your body all the way up to your mind.

Imagine walking up those stairs.

And when you get to the top,

The centre of the mind is almost like a control room.

Or like a cockpit of a plane.

With buttons and dials and levers all lit up.

You walk over to that desk.

And you see a dial that's connected to that part of your body that you're sensing that pain.

One of those dials you can turn left to right,

Almost like you're turning the volume up or down.

And imagine reaching forwards,

Placing your fingers on that dial and turning it all the way down.

This is not in a moment of kind of resenting this sensation in your body.

Rather allowing yourself to maybe not feel it as much for a moment.

Come back into your body once again,

Observing the whole body from the inside out.

Taking a big inhale and kind of feeling like that inhale fills the whole entire body from the inside out.

As you exhale,

Take with it anything that you're ready to let go of.

Notice in your body if you feel that pain has dialed down,

As I said,

Even 1%.

5%,

10%,

Maybe more than that.

Take a moment before we finish just to feel grateful towards yourself for taking this time.

To choose to find relief from this pain.

It's often easy to just kind of try and soldier through.

But you taking this time to find even a little bit of relief is you saying,

Actually I'm worth living this life with ease or freedom within my body.

I'm going to find that,

Even just a little bit.

If your eyes are still closed,

Maybe rub the palms of your hands together.

Place your hands over your eyes.

Open your eyes to that darkness and warmth behind your hands.

And then gently lower your hands down.

Thank you so much for joining me for today's somatic healing.

I hope that you found a little bit of relief through that.

And I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

Take care.