Hello and welcome to Joanna Furtado Therapy,
Restoring Nervous System Balance.
In today's practice,
I will be guiding you through both a felt sense exercise,
A very relaxing one that is,
And an imaginary meditation.
Both are designed to invite your nervous system to return to states of balance,
Equilibrium,
And parasympathetic rest and digest.
This will help to move you away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life,
From living perhaps in the future,
To returning to the spaciousness of this very moment.
Let's begin by finding a comfortable place and a comfortable position.
Most prefer to do this exercise while lying down on your back,
But you might also like to do it in a seated position.
Let's begin by taking a few long breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Let these long,
Relaxing inhalations and exhalations invite you to release what no longer serves you and invite you to come into this moment,
In through the nose and out through the mouth.
In this exercise,
We begin with what is called skin sweeping.
Of course,
The skin is the largest organ in the body or on the body,
And it's intricately linked to our nervous system.
So,
As we move the skin with our hands in a sweeping motion down along our body,
It will signal to our nervous system that it is time to rest.
We will begin by taking the hands and placing them upon the top of the head.
Just let them sit there for a moment as it grounds you again into this very moment in time.
With heavy and slow hands,
I would like to invite you to start to move them along your body down in a downward flow.
Perhaps you're going down along the side of your head,
Sweeping down slowly along your cheeks,
Along your neck and the vagus nerve,
And then coming down perhaps along the front or the side of your body,
Sweeping down along your heart and your belly.
You can come out to your hips at the side and continue the sweep down along the front of your legs.
You can sit forward to do this,
Or you can simply imagine that your hands are sweeping down along your legs and all the way out to your toes.
Let's come back to the top of your head,
And if you went over the side of your head,
Perhaps this time come over the front of your face,
Or you can travel along the back.
So we will slowly be dragging those hands ever so slowly with weight and heaviness as we sweep down along the face,
Under the jaw and over the throat,
And maybe this time we come out to the side of the body,
If we went down the chest and the belly,
Let's come out under the armpits and just travel down along the side of your torso,
Slowly with weighted hands all the way to your hips.
And then let's imagine that our hands continue to run along our legs,
Perhaps one hand on the inside of the thigh and one hand on the outside.
If you're in a seated position,
You can run your hands all the way along each leg until you go to your ankles and your toes.
And just pause here and notice that that motion and that movement and that touch has really brought your energy system down.
Touch,
Of course,
Is our very first form of comfort.
Before conscious awareness,
We are held as babies and we are comforted that way.
And so this practice is really connecting to some younger parts and really restoring that natural innate sense of peace within our embodied self.
So coming back one more time to the top of our head and taking a different route this time,
Perhaps running your hands along the back of your head.
Even if you're lying down,
You can just gently do this along the back of your neck,
Slowly and heavy.
You could go along each arm and shoulder by running a cross from the right hand to the left shoulder and the left hand to the right shoulder and just running down or coming over to your heart and down to your belly and then out to the hips and perhaps running along the back of the legs this time if you're in a seated position or simply imagining that your hands are running along the back of your legs,
Sweeping away any stress,
Any tension,
Helping you to release and let go of what no longer serves you.
And at the end,
I invite you to pause and just notice how you feel.
Notice how it's different than when you began.
And then I'd like us to go through the same exercise,
But this time we're going to imagine that our higher self,
Our evolved self,
Is actually in front of us and there's nothing that we need to do but this evolved self,
This loving,
Comforting energy will sweep along our being and help us to just let go of what isn't serving us today and again,
Restore that natural state of harmony.
So envision that loving self beginning at the top of our head and gently,
But with weighted and slow hands,
Caressing down along the side of our body,
Our ears,
The side of our throat,
The shoulders,
The arms,
All the way down to the hands,
And then along the side of the legs,
All the way down to the feet.
Just feel that ease of relaxation.
And then the higher self will begin again at the top of the head and this time flow along the front of our body,
Moving their hands gently along our face,
Helping us to release tension there,
Along the front of our throat,
And down the center of our chest,
Along our heart,
Our belly,
And then out to the hips,
And down along the front of the legs,
Over the knees,
The calves,
And along the front of the feet,
All the way to the toes.
Let yourself feel how relaxed and at ease you are,
That the trillions of cells in your body are smiling,
For they have been attended to.
And we'll sweep down one more time,
Inviting that higher self to begin at the top of the head,
And perhaps running down along the back of the body,
Just ever so slightly,
And going along the side of the torso,
Along perhaps the side of the hips,
And then down under the back of our legs,
Along our hamstrings,
The back of the knees,
The calves,
The Achilles,
And the bottom of our feet,
All the way to our toes.
And just let yourself relax here,
And feel how good that feels.
Just imagine sweeping away any energy that no longer serves us,
And just sit for a moment,
Or stay in that lying down position,
And see if you can just feel a loving,
Healing energy from your higher self to you.
It's almost like that higher self is emanating a loving glow.
Just let yourself receive that into your heart,
And into all the cells of your being.
And just know that you have taken this time to restore your nervous system into a place of balance,
Harmony,
And equilibrium.
Thank you for listening to Joanna Furtado Therapy.
