Hi and welcome.
My name's Hayley and I'm grateful that you're here.
Today's meditation is about appreciating and being grateful for your body.
Sending love to your body.
I think it's so easy to take our bodies for granted.
So,
Close your eyes.
And take a big breath in and as you inhale bring your shoulders up to your ears Squeeze and as you exhale drop your shoulders letting go of the weight that you've been carrying already today.
And you can just resume normal breathing.
If it feels good,
You could breathe gently a little bit deeper into your belly,
Whatever feels natural for you.
Your body is continuously working hard to keep you alive.
And to help you to thrive for every single second and even every single nanosecond of your life.
So I invite you to think about how different parts of the body support you.
For example,
Your hands.
How much do you use your hands every day?
Your sense of sight.
Your breath.
All the way down to the cellular level.
We tend to take the body for granted.
Meanwhile,
It carries on performing miracles over and over again,
Every day.
And more often than not the mind takes over and it can be easy to give in to the mind and neglect the body.
So this is all about appreciation.
Gratitude,
Being in your body,
Sending love to your body and saying thank you.
So bring your attention to the breath.
We'll do a bit of grounding to begin with,
So notice your breathing.
Be aware of how it feels to breathe Bring awareness to your chest moving as you inhale and exhale.
Notice how your shoulders move.
And notice whether any other parts of your body are moving,
Perhaps your back.
Your lower back.
Your belly.
Just be with the rhythm.
The rhythm of the breath.
The movement.
And notice how it's feeling to breathe.
Is it pleasurable?
Do you feel good breathing?
Or maybe it's neutral.
But you can appreciate the value of the breath.
Now we're gonna do a body scan.
That is.
.
.
Enveloped in appreciation and gratitude.
So appreciation is all about bringing mindful,
Non-judgmental attention to your body.
And appreciating its function for example appreciating that you can breathe appreciating the function of your lungs And gratitude is more about seeing your body with reverence.
And being thankful.
So sending thanks to your lungs for keeping you alive So as I say each body part.
Bring your awareness to that part,
Noticing any sensations you have there.
And then sending appreciation and gratitude to that part.
So we'll start at the top of the head.
Bringing your attention to the top of your head.
Noticing any sensations appreciating anything in this area of the body moving down to the area behind the eyes your eyes themselves.
Appreciating and being grateful for your sense of sight our eyes do an extraordinary amount of work for us.
Moving down to other features of the face,
The nose,
The cheeks your mouth.
Recognising and being grateful.
For your tongue,
Your teeth,
Your jaw.
You get to taste beautiful food you get to speak.
To share with others,
To sing.
Focusing on your ears the sense of sound.
Appreciating all the tiny bones picking up vibrations.
Translating them into meaningful sounds and you might have gratitude for that.
Being able to hear.
To listen to your loved ones to hear beautiful music.
Moving down to your throat having an awareness of the functions of the throat the larynx.
And continuing to experience gratitude now moving down to your chest the collarbones,
The shoulders and the upper back.
Can you have reverence for?
The bones,
The joints.
Being able to lift up your arms move freely or to move in whatever way your body enables you to move.
Your upper arms elbows,
Lower arms and hands thinking about all those intricate joints,
The knuckles.
And all the different ways that your hands support you.
The sensation of touch.
In your fingers.
And your body,
Your torso,
All the organs in your body performing miracles every day,
Keeping you alive.
This beautiful biological masterpiece now being aware of your pelvis,
Your hips your upper legs knees,
Lower legs.
The feet.
How amazing that you can walk that you can dance,
That you can move I invite you to think about this question.
How can i show gratitude to my body?
In a proactive way.
What does my body need?
That I'm not giving to it.
How can i show up for my body?
And give thanks one more time before bringing yourself back into your external space perhaps another shrug of the shoulders,
Another drop of the shoulders.
And then gently open your eyes.
