Welcome to this yoga nidra practice.
The intention of this practice is to help you find rest,
To help you find sleep.
Take in a deep breath in through your nose,
Expand your abdomen,
Hold for just a moment,
And exhale.
Now take any movement that you need so that you can get even more comfortable,
Whether that be rotating your shoulders,
Squinting your eyes as they're closed,
Perhaps tensing your fists.
This is your practice.
Then taking in a deep breath,
And as you do,
Just releasing any tension or tightness,
Finalizing any adjustments so you can rest here in peace and restful stillness.
Take in another deep breath,
Allowing your lungs to massage your rib cage from the inside,
And exhale,
Releasing yourself into the bed or the mat beneath you.
As you continue to notice your breath,
Take your awareness to the space between your eyebrows.
Imagine your breath is entering your body through this space and traveling down through the base of your throat,
Through your heart,
To the space just above your navel.
And as you exhale,
Feel the breath leaving the same way you had visualized it coming in.
And continue to take a few breaths this way.
Now let any visualization of the breath go for now.
And take your awareness to your heels.
Feel them on the bed.
If you're lying on your side,
Feel them being completely supported.
And if there's any tension there,
Take in a deep breath and exhale that out,
Letting it go.
Take your awareness to your calves,
To your hamstrings,
To the tip of your tailbone,
And your sacrum.
Take your awareness to the space just above your navel and into the heart space,
Taking a deep breath here,
Opening the mouth and sighing that breath out.
Another breath here at the heart center,
Opening the mouth and releasing the breath.
And with the breath,
Allow any tension to leave and to release.
Take your awareness to the base of your throat,
To the space between your eyebrows,
And to the top of your head.
Look down to the space between the eyebrows,
The base of the throat,
The heart center,
The space above the navel,
To your sacrum,
And to your tailbone.
Release your jaw from any clenching,
Moving your jaw subtly from side to side a few times and then find stillness in your jaw.
Take your awareness to your eyes.
Look from side to side with your eyelids closed,
Up and down.
Take a deep breath and as you exhale,
Find stillness in your eyes and allow them to release and relax into the eye sockets being held in this space.
Allow the muscles of the eyes to rest without having to look anymore today.
And you deserve this time because you are so important.
You deserve this time of healing,
Of letting go,
Because the weight of the world does not belong on your shoulders.
Just as you are,
You are so important.
You are so valuable.
Take in a deep breath here and notice how your body was designed to breathe.
Notice how you were created with an intention,
An intention of life,
An intention of breath.
And with every breath is an expression of life,
Your valuable,
Unique life.
Allow this to sit in.
Allow yourself to settle.
Allow yourself to be.
And for now,
Let all thoughts go.
As they come in now,
Don't follow them.
Don't stop them,
Because we cannot stop the mind from doing what it was designed to do.
Instead,
Let the thoughts come,
And without following them,
Let them pass through,
Let them go.
Take your awareness to your heels,
To your calves,
Your hamstrings,
Your buttocks,
Your sacrum,
Low back,
Mid back,
Upper back,
Back of the neck,
Back of the head,
The top of the head,
The back of the head,
The back of the neck,
The upper back,
Mid back,
The lower back,
The sacrum,
The buttocks,
Your hamstrings,
Your calves,
Your heels,
The bottoms of your feet,
And your toes.
Taking your awareness to the space just above your navel,
Really focus in on this space,
Take in a deep breath.
And as you exhale,
Experience your heartbeat in this area.
Feel your heartbeat.
Now take your awareness to your hearing,
And notice your own breath.
Then take your awareness to sounds a little bit further away,
Seeing yourself as a witness,
As an observer,
Rather than locating a sound,
And then naming the sound.
Just be with the sound,
Letting it come and letting it go,
Letting it arise,
Letting it fall.
Then bounce your awareness from sound to sound,
Letting one sound arise,
Fall away,
Another sound arise and fall away.
Drawing your attention from sound to sound,
Near to far.
Let your awareness of the sounds drift back and fade.
Now welcome yourself into this space,
And be still without taking any other movements for the rest of this practice.
Taking your awareness once again to the space between your eyebrows,
Settling here,
Allow your sankalpa,
Your intention to arise.
Beginning to sense your deepest,
Your most heartfelt desire,
What would bring you to that space of fulfillment.
Perhaps a sankalpa that works well for you is,
I am important.
I am valuable.
I am peaceful.
Let's take a few moments here to really find a sankalpa that works well for you,
Something that you can say that resonates with every cell in your body.
If you have a sankalpa that you're working with,
You can use this time to take a few deep,
Gentle breaths and abide in your sankalpa.
Now return your awareness to the space just above your navel,
Visualize the color yellow,
And as you inhale,
Say your sankalpa in your mind.
And as you exhale,
Say it once again,
Finding more and more passion as you say it.
And then say it a third time as you inhale deeply,
Deep into your solar plexus.
And then with gratitude,
Release your sankalpa.
Now we will move on to a rotation of consciousness.
I will say a part of the body,
And all you have to do is visualize that part without moving that part of the body,
But rather having a felt sense of that part.
Or if you like,
You can visualize that part lighting up with a golden yellow glow.
It may feel as if I'm moving too fast,
But don't worry.
This rotation of consciousness is designed this way.
If you get lost,
If you lose track,
Just return yourself to my voice and to my guidance and know that all is well and you're doing this practice perfectly fine.
Now take your awareness to the space between your eyebrows,
To the base of the throat,
To your heart center,
To the space above the navel,
To the sacrum area below the navel,
To the tip of the tailbone,
To the space below the navel,
The space above the navel,
Your heart center,
The base of the throat,
To the space between your eyebrows.
Now take your awareness to your right hand thumb,
Index finger,
Middle finger,
Ring finger,
Pinky,
Palm of the hand,
Back of the hand,
Wrist,
Forearm,
Elbow,
Upper arm,
Right shoulder,
Armpit,
Right side of the ribs,
Right waist,
Right hip,
Right thigh,
Knee,
Lower leg,
Ankle,
Heel,
Sole of the foot,
Top of the foot,
Right big toe,
Second toe,
Third toe,
Fourth toe,
And your little toe.
Take your awareness to your left hand thumb,
Index finger,
Middle finger,
Ring finger,
Pinky,
Palm of the hand,
Back of the hand,
Wrist,
Forearm,
Elbow,
Upper arm,
Shoulder,
Armpit,
Left side of the ribs,
Left waist,
Left hip,
Left thigh,
Knee,
Lower leg,
Ankle,
Heel,
Sole of the foot,
Top of the foot,
Left big toe,
Second toe,
Third toe,
Fourth toe,
Middle toe,
The heels,
The calves,
Hamstrings,
The buttocks,
Sacrum,
Low back,
Middle back,
Upper back,
Back of the neck,
Back of the head,
Top of the head,
The forehead,
The eyebrows,
Both eyes,
The nose,
The cheeks,
The jaw,
The chin,
The throat,
Heart center,
Upper abdomen,
Navel,
Lower abdomen,
Thighs,
Knees,
Shins,
Top of the feet,
And all 10 toes.
The right side of the body,
The left side of the body,
The right side of the body,
The left side of the body,
The whole body,
Whole body,
Whole body.
Begin to count your breaths,
Starting from 12 down,
Inhaling 12,
Exhaling 12,
Inhaling 11,
And exhaling 11.
And count your breaths at your own natural pace,
At your own natural rhythm.
Keep on counting on your own.
When it's okay if you get lost,
Just start again at 12.
Now,
Let the counting go.
Begin to feel heavy,
As if you're sinking into the bed,
As if you were in water and you were a stone sinking further and further down.
Now feel yourself light and floating,
A cloud,
A feather.
Return to the feeling of heaviness and sinking,
Melting.
Now to the feeling of lightness,
A floating rising up.
Now visualize roughness,
A rough stone,
Jagged roughness.
Now sense smoothness,
Gliding smoothness.
Once again visualize and sense roughness,
Unevenness,
Rough,
Like sandpaper.
And feel the sense of smoothness,
Softness,
Smooth like a marble.
Feel roughness,
Jagged edges,
Jagged surface,
A rough surface,
Like sandpaper.
Then let the feeling of a high mountain peak arise,
High and lofty above everything.
Now have the sense of a valley.
Return to loftiness,
To the feeling that you're high in the sky.
The air is blowing by.
You can feel the wind on your skin,
Sunlight on your face.
Now return to that point in the valley.
You can smell the earthiness.
You can hear running waters.
You can feel the dampness between your toes.
Return to that high mountain peak.
You can see the eagles flying,
The wind blowing,
The clouds around you,
The clouds below you.
And once again return to the valley.
Return to that low,
Earthy point,
A coziness.
Now return to neutral.
Take your awareness to the screen of your mind.
Realize yourself lying in a field,
A field of green,
Green grass.
You turn and look at a blade of grass.
As you look at it,
You're so intently focused on it.
Time seems to blur.
You don't know if your awareness is accelerated or slowed down,
But what you can see is this blade of grass growing,
Growing and becoming a stem.
Then you take your awareness and your visualization inward.
And just as you notice the blade of green grass growing,
You also see within yourself the same growth.
And as you had scanned your body,
You noticed a bundle of energy and you focus on this bundle.
And you begin to see its defined lines.
You can see where the energy enters,
Where it winds around and where it leaves.
And you notice a thread of this energy loose.
And so with your mind and with your awareness,
You pull this thread,
Unlocking and unraveling this bundle,
Allowing this energy to be released and to drift.
You feel this energy leave your body.
Still lying on this green,
Green grass,
You allow the energy to drop down into the earth,
Into the soil.
You see this energy transforming and moving and reaching out.
You also become aware of roots under the grass,
Reaching down,
Reaching for this energy.
And there's a point where this energy that once was within is now below and reaching toward the roots.
You see the roots become alive.
And you see the energy enter the roots,
Entering the very blade of grass that you had seen grow.
And you see the grass has turned into a stem.
And at the end of the stem,
You see a bud of a flower that is about to bloom.
And you're so focused intently on this bud,
Again,
Not knowing where you are in time or space.
And you allow the bud to open and the flower within to bloom.
This is the most beautiful flower you've ever seen.
And you realize you're so connected to this flower.
And the beauty that you see in this flower is also in you.
You visualize a lotus flower at the crown of your own head.
And just as the flower that grew before your eyes,
So does the lotus flower bloom in you.
You recognize that your willingness to let go has also allowed this flower to thrive.
As you inhale,
You experience your being saying,
So.
And as you exhale,
Your natural exhale,
You sense your being saying hum,
So on the inhale,
Hum on the exhale.
I am that.
So hum.
I am that.
And you feel so connected with the blade of grass,
With the flower,
And all that is within you.
Allow your sankalpa to arise in this present moment and say it three times in your mind.
This is hum,
The wealth of the world and the life of this world.
Now allow yourself to lay here,
Drifting on into a restorative and restful sleep.
Every You You You You You You You You You You
