So,
Making sure that you are inviting in coziness in some lovely ways.
Getting a blanket,
Covers,
Your cushions.
You may even have an eye mask if you're particularly organised.
And if the lights are on,
Maybe dimming the lights,
Whatever feels a really lovely way to come into practice.
So often in Yoga Nidra,
We're instructed to lie in a particular way and,
Hey,
You can lie whichever way that you want.
So,
Sometimes it can be on our back,
Sometimes it can actually be on our sides or even our front.
So with that invitation,
If you need to make any adjustments,
Please do.
There's an invitation in Yoga Nidra to invite stillness in.
Stillness and awareness.
And sometimes what can happen is the need to move arises,
You know.
You can watch that a little bit,
See if it melts away or sometimes we actually do need to move the body and so that's fine too.
Just inviting all of you,
Just as you are,
Your perfect,
Wonderful,
Lovely self into relaxation.
So the first few moments,
It's like we're arriving.
It's like all of the doing starts to fall away and our habitual ways of holding ourselves can unwind a little bit.
So exploring that,
We can use the awareness as a really lovely way,
You know,
Where the mind goes,
The energy goes.
So just sweeping the awareness over the body in a really lovely,
Welcoming,
Inviting,
Comforting and safe way.
Inviting yourself to arrive.
Let's spend a few moments exploring how the body is in relationship to the floor,
The mat,
You might be on a bed,
The sofa,
The chair,
However it is that you're so arranged,
Just exploring those liminal spaces,
The body against the floor.
It's like almost,
Is there any space in between that?
Where does the body end and where does the floor begin or the mattress or the duvet or the chest,
Being curious,
Mapping the areas of pressure and touch.
And then inviting the breath to flow very softly and gently down the body,
All the way down the body,
Out through the toes on the exhale.
If you wish,
You can imagine or actually use Ujjayi breath,
Breathing with sound,
To enhance that soothing.
You can imagine it in your mind.
And just on every exhale,
That wonderful welcoming of the body,
The heaviness,
Soft heaviness.
It's the quality of the breath,
The quality of the awareness and the breath flowing together.
It can create such change.
It's like the way that we hold ourselves day in,
Day out,
When we lie down and relax for yoga nidra,
It's like we take off that coat or that set of clothes,
So to speak.
Just simple focus on every exhale.
You can start to relax that little bit more,
All the way up,
All the way more relaxed,
Going deeper and deeper,
Softer and heavier.
Just enjoying that lovely sense of letting go.
So bringing the awareness to the whole body on the inhale and on the inhale,
Where does it feel that you're breathing in from?
For some of us it could be the nostrils and yet for others,
Surely it's the navel or is it the toes?
On the inhale,
We welcome in energy,
That sense of the energy flowing on the breath.
With every breath in,
We connect with life.
And at this time of year,
Walking outside,
That wonderful change of all of the leaves on all of the trees.
Here in Glasgow,
I'd say we're about halfway there.
Plenty of beautiful yellow,
Acid yellow,
Lime leaves and wonderfully auburn and carrot coloured maple leaves.
Some of the oaks are still green and the wonderful big floppy hand-like leaves of the horse chestnuts,
They're almost bare.
Brown,
Wrinkled and dry,
All the way around the trunks of the trees.
And yet when we experience the breath,
We experience our connection with earth,
With all the trees,
With all the green plants.
And that wonderful and very precious gifting of exchange between us.
So on the inhale,
We draw in wonderfully nourishing oxygen rich air.
And as we breathe out,
We gift back to the plants,
Carbon dioxide.
In these times of being on screen for work,
For this class,
For connecting with family and friends,
We can feel quite disconnected.
And yet through the breath itself,
We are most intimately connected with nature.
And some of us may wish to welcome in and imagine something truly lovely and precious on the inhale as if it's the elixir of something incredible,
Which of course it is.
Some of us with visual might like to imagine something almost jewel like,
Glittering,
Clear,
Light filled,
Beautiful.
And on the exhale,
Offering ourselves with complete humility to this incredible earth,
Which we have the fortune to live.
So inviting in a sense of preciousness,
Of gifting,
Of being intimately connected.
In late summer,
We used the poem of Mary Oliver,
Wild Geese,
Quite a lot.
And I'm minded by the closing lines of that poem.
The earth calling to you,
Harsh and exciting like the wild geese,
Over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
And so with that,
Let's start to bring ourselves towards the end of this practice,
Very simple practice of yoga nidra.
And as we start to deepen the breath so that perhaps we can hear the breath.
And as we deepen the breath,
It's like we draw that little bit much,
Little bit more energy in so it can get right to the tips of the toes and the fingers that can start to then move very curiously or with curiosity.
And if you're lying on your back,
You may wish to take a really big stretch and then hug your knees.
And if you're lying in any other way,
Just coming up to a more alert and awake and aware experience.
And this practice of yoga nidra inspired by the start of autumn here in Glasgow in Scotland is now over.
This practice of yoga nidra is now complete.
So letting go of your practice just now.
Thank you very much for joining me.
