Hi and welcome to your meditation practice.
Welcome to the practice of interoception,
A practice of remembering and reconnecting with this deep knowing of your body.
This place where there are sensations,
Messages,
There is communication,
That inner wisdom that lets us know in its own language when we are hungry or thirsty or we have a headache,
These embodied messages that don't need decoding from the mind.
The practice of connecting with the whole interior landscape of your body and knowing that the whole interior landscape of your body is sensory,
Just how the whole outer layer of you,
Your skin,
Receives senses,
Messages,
Signals.
So let your eyes gently close and dive into the space of this practice with the intention of feeling your body from inside of the body,
Feeling your body from the inside out.
Take a big intentional breath in through the nose and empty out through the mouth.
And let's start by sensing the heartbeat,
Tuning into the heartbeat.
Notice if you can feel your heart without taking a palm to your chest,
If you can tune into the rhythm of the aliveness of your body,
If you can sense the pulsating life force inside of your chest.
And if it feels challenging,
Know that it's okay to take your palm to the heart space too,
To connect through touch.
Whichever path you find to connect to your heart,
Notice for a moment this abiding presence,
This aliveness,
Underlining all the thoughts and emotions and the content that perhaps is percolating that you begin to notice.
When we tune into this quiet place within ourselves,
We begin to stabilize our relationships to our bodies,
To our breath,
To ourselves.
By being more present and available to ourselves and for ourselves,
We become more present and available for others.
So take a moment here resting in this presence that's always there,
Always waiting to be reconnected with.
And with the next intentional breath in,
Begin to notice the overall weight of your bones and muscles and how you sit with them stacked on top of each other.
And then let your attention shift to areas of tension,
Of discomfort,
Of heaviness,
Density that perhaps you can already perceive.
Let the next intentional breath guide you to exploration of all sensations linked to the act of breathing,
The rhythm of your belly,
Your chest,
The rising and falling.
Notice if there are any parts of you that feel really good,
Really open,
Really connected.
Notice if there is a flow of any nervous energy,
Agitation,
Boredom,
Anxiety,
Nervousness,
Stress.
And then let your attention be guided to the flow of chi,
Of prana,
Of your life force.
Sometimes it's the easiest to start in your palms noticing any warmth,
Any tinglings,
Any movements there.
Maybe letting your attention be guided to other parts of your body.
Notice your heartbeat,
The place where we started and the place where we finish.
And notice how much there truly is happening underneath your skin.
And for a moment can you rest in this awareness of an ongoing flow of life,
An ongoing flow of sensate experience of being you.
And let that turn into a deep knowing of how you are in this very moment.
Take a big breath in through the nose and empty out through the mouth.
Rub your palms together until you create some heat and once they are nice and warm bring them to your eyes,
Covering the eyelids,
Soaking up the energy from your hands into the face.
And whenever you feel ready,
Lower the palms down to your heart space,
Gently bow to that very place of the abiding presence inside of your body,
That place of deepest knowing.
Thank you for sharing your practice with me.
Namaste.
