3.
Body Scan Begin by finding a comfortable posture and by bringing your awareness to the breath.
Take a few moments just to allow yourself to arrive and allow the breath to draw you gently into internal awareness.
Allow the gaze to soften,
The eyes to close.
As you breathe,
Notice the body.
Remember it.
Discover yourself in this moment as a physical being with weight,
Temperature,
Texture,
Colour and energy.
Take 5 breaths here.
Feel certain parts of your body calling for attention.
An itch,
A scratch,
A shift of body weight.
Attend to the body's needs until it is quietly resting at peace.
Now we are going to bring the attention at the start of this practice to the toes and the feet.
What do you sense?
What do you feel?
What is present?
What do your feet want you to know about how they are feeling in this moment?
Our feet have taken us on many journeys and they have brought you here to your practice.
In these moments we attend to the feet with our full awareness,
Something which we rarely do.
Take 5 breaths here as you gather information.
On the next breath allow your awareness to move up into the legs.
How do they feel?
Are they comfortable?
Going slowly check in with the calves,
The shins,
The knees,
The thighs,
The muscles,
The bones,
The ligaments.
Be specific,
Feel for temperature,
Movement,
Weight.
Can you notice where you are holding on?
Can you notice the pulsation of blood moving through the muscles,
Through the arteries and veins?
Really experience the subtle physical sensations to be found within your legs in this moment.
Take 5 breaths here.
Next,
We are going to bring the awareness to the central core of the body,
The abdomen and the chest.
Check in,
Listen,
Feel,
Be in your body and notice any sensations,
Images,
Feelings and thoughts that arise as you do so.
The abdomen containing many of the organs,
The lungs,
The heart,
The liver,
The kidneys,
The intestines.
How do you experience your core in this moment?
So many complex processes taking place all beyond our conscious awareness.
But just bringing our focus gently into the awareness of this aspect of the body.
The powerhouse of the body.
Take 5 breaths here as you gather information.
Next,
We are going to bring the attention to the arms and the hands.
Let your awareness travel down through the upper limbs,
Down into every finger and thumb.
Take your time.
Feel all the sensations that are already present.
Simply notice whatever is there,
Whether it feels pleasant or challenging,
Take an inventory.
Bring a neutral mindset as you collect information produced in the physical centers of the arms,
Hands,
Fingers,
Thumbs.
Try not to add any judgement or commentary.
The aim is a neutral witnessing.
Follow and breathe.
Listen.
And take 5 breaths here.
And finally,
On our journey through the body,
We are going to visit the awareness of our consciousness to the head.
The head containing the eyes,
The ears,
The nose,
The mouth,
The teeth,
The brain,
The skull,
The scalp.
Just breathing here in full awareness of the head and all it contains.
The intricacies,
The complexities of the physical organs there,
The processes going on within this space.
And just breathing into the experience of all of that.
Bringing the curiosity to lead you from one aspect to another as you collect data that describes your experience of this moment.
And we take 5 breaths here.
And in a few breaths time,
We are going to set an intention to breathe into the fullness of the body all at once.
Moving moved from body part to body part,
We now connect the fullness of the body as one.
The unity of our physical experience,
Our physical shape,
The physical body.
And so on the next breaths,
Breathe deeply into the whole of the body at once.
Experience the unity,
The full physicality that is your body,
Attended to by the awareness.
And so we take 5 deep breaths here.
Finally,
We begin our return back to wakefulness.
Perhaps by wiggling the toes,
The fingers,
Feeling the weight of our body pressing down into the seat or onto the floor if you are lying down.
And in your very own time,
Just allowing the eyes to open.
This was number 3,
Body scan.
Thank yourself for finding time for this practice and don't forget to record your reflections in your mindfulness journal.
