Welcome to this Yoga Nidra practice.
This is part three of my wintering series by Rachel Brambridge.
The previous meditations or not,
You are welcome here today.
This practice stands alone,
Can be used at any time.
This practice wishes for you to find your deepest expression of comfort and rest.
May you find a relief for body and mind,
So that you can be generously released into deep rest.
Many enjoy this practice laying down in a supported position.
You may be in your bed,
Sprawled out on your couch or wrapped up in blankets on the floor.
And if laying down isn't comfortable for you,
Find comfort that works.
Whether you're seated,
Standing,
Laying on your side,
This is your practice,
Your body,
Your experience.
Indulge in this opportunity to find your comfort.
Claim feeling comfortable and rested.
Allow that inner guard to lower as you create the space that helps you to feel completely supported.
Physically,
Mentally and emotionally.
If you find it difficult to offer yourself this,
Think of how you would offer and support a loved one to experience deeply healing rest.
You are the loved one.
As everything begins to slow down,
Notice yourself,
Your body,
Your thoughts,
Your breath,
Any last movements you are making.
Can you slow down your awareness?
Notice at a slower pace,
Sometimes we feel the concept of time as a fast-paced repetition,
Races through our bodies.
Our encounters are of time feeling static,
Put on pause or tied to a moment in suspense.
We can feel at odds with time,
Resistant,
Off sync with its momentum.
And sometimes we feel ourselves at one with time,
Effortlessly floating alongside it,
Feeling its rhythm and pace as though it were part of us.
Although as humans we measure time with clocks,
Calendar,
Occasions and seasons,
There is this notion that time is linear.
I recently read this quote,
Which I welcomed as an alternative perspective and a pause to slow down.
Itself is neither linear nor circular.
It does not flow but allows others to do so.
So the cycles we observe nothing to do with time,
Except that time will enable them to exist.
We intricately entwined with time,
Yet it can be necessary to break from its daily life,
Our attachment to experience time in this life.
Rushing through life is like rushing a good thing,
Thus feeling unfused.
We as humans are unfolding in our own unique ways.
Can we see time as just the conduit to which we exist in?
It's not the architect of our experiences,
Yet more of the caretaker of what we create with this life.
If there is a purpose to your practice today,
Welcome it in.
Whatever reason brought you here,
Whether you are aware of it,
Welcome it.
Lease any attachment to a desired outcome.
Consider the rest you receive here a gift of love.
Ask nothing from you,
Only the courage to receive it.
Can you be open to receiving love?
As awareness slows and narrows into the form of you,
Around you to blur into the background.
A protective golden light circles your body.
This light feels uninvasive.
It simply allows you to surrender and find inner safety as you rest.
Locate your heart and tenderly ask it to open and receive.
Can you feel into a sense of deep appreciation?
What does deep appreciation feel like?
How do you experience deep appreciation?
What does it feel like to converse with your heart?
Can you feel yourself receiving and sending information from self?
Listen and feel for your response.
If you wish to use an intention or sankalpa for your practice,
Please do so now.
If you do not have one of your own,
Then you may wish to repeat this sentence silently as a guide for today.
I am love and open to receive.
Sensation the whole body,
The whole form of who you are.
From the skeletal architecture,
Scan your awareness through your body.
From the toes,
Knees,
The whole pelvis,
Sacrum,
Lower back,
Middle back,
Rib cage,
Sternum,
Shoulder blade,
Collarbone,
Shoulders,
The long arm bone,
Elbows,
Wrists and fingers,
Spine of the neck,
Jaw bone and cheek bone,
Bones of the ears,
Eye socket,
Forehead and skull,
Top of the skull,
Back and sides of the skull,
The whole body,
The whole body of bone.
Feel the density,
Structure and support given from the scaffolding of the body.
Allow the body of bones to rest and surrender now.
Awareness to the layers of tissues within the body.
Imagine these microscopic groups of cells as we dive into the inner world of the body.
Epithelial tissues are the groups of cells that cover the outer surfaces of the body.
They act as linings and passageways and form certain glands.
Allow this awareness to spread throughout the whole body as you sink and rest into your skin.
Bring awareness to connective tissues,
Binding cells and organs together,
Means of intelligence and communication.
Feed into these tissues,
Gathering and sending intelligence throughout the body for optimal health.
Bring your sense into muscular tissues.
This stimulation allows free and precise movement,
Feeling the muscular system that builds strength and capacity throughout the body.
Every movement is born from the activation of these tissues.
Allow them to rest.
Lastly,
We feel into the nerve tissues.
These tissues generate and disperse those electrical waves we feel up the spinal column,
Those sparks of insight and body awakening.
Feel these tissues come alive.
Feeling all of these tissues now,
Deepening your bodily experience.
Consciously move through the bodily organs.
We will locate the small.
Soften and relax around this area for ease of digestion and maximum absorption of nutrients,
Releasing of everything that is not needed.
Hide your awareness to the top of the abdomen.
Find the stomach.
Softening around this area,
Allowing for safe housing for all the nourishment into our body.
This now moves to the upper left.
The master of energy supply and creation.
Nurture this area by reminding it that you are grateful for the energy you receive.
Awareness now moves to the upper right of the abdomen.
A storekeeper for the body to aid and support larger organs and their work.
Send gratitude to this mighty age.
Lowering your awareness now to the lower back ribs.
Nestled up inside are the kidneys.
Powerhouses given the important role cleansing our blood.
Providing us with rich and luscious blood to flood and nourish our body.
Send warmth and gratitude into this area.
Now locate the noble and hardworking liver.
Upper right of the abdomen.
Large in size and anointed with several vital roles.
With so much resting in its hands,
Imagine protecting your liver by sending love from your hands into it.
Feel your awareness move to the greatness of the lungs.
Like two wings of a butterfly.
Expanding and contracting.
The clarification of air,
Oxygenating our bodies.
Our lungs provide us with life giving breath.
Appreciation for receiving life with each breath.
The heart sits just to the left,
Nestled between the lungs through the body.
In constant use,
This electrical system sending pulses to adapt and stabilize.
Send steady love and gratitude to the heart.
Softening around its wall.
Lastly,
We bring our awareness to the brain.
The control center of it all.
It forms the core of the central nervous system.
Creating,
Sending,
Processing nerve impulses.
Our thoughts,
Emotions and physical sensations.
A huge intelligence that for now will dim the light.
To rest back.
Softening the skin around your head.
The muscles,
Front and back of the skull.
Focus sensation deep within the center of the brain.
Finally resting your awareness here.
The whole body is filled with sensation.
Body as one.
All that is remaining is the faint electrical impulses from the center of your awareness space.
From the center of the brain.
Experience darkness.
Full and complete darkness.
How do you experience,
Sense and experience brightness?
Bright light filling all space from the center of the brain.
And from the center of the heart.
Feel and experience hardness.
What does hardness of the heart feel like?
How softness from the center of the heart.
Welcome and feel softness.
Release.
And from the center of the pelvis.
Feel into the energy of stuckness.
Something is blocked.
How does it feel to be stuck?
From the center of the pelvis.
Welcome the feeling of release.
Freedom.
Associations and sensations releasing.
Journey your way back to the center of the brain.
As we now go as you drift off into a dream space.
Imagine yourself walking.
That symbolic imagery of you striding forward.
Notice the pace at which you are walking.
Feel your feet meeting with the ground.
What does the ground look like?
Your gaze begins to rise.
What can you see around you?
Allow the landscape to emerge.
However it does,
Allow yourself to see 360 degrees all around you.
As far as the eyes can see.
What colors and shapes can you see?
Is it spacious?
Do you hear noise?
Or is it silent?
Are you alone?
Or accompanied?
Filtered?
Unattached?
Allow visions and sensations to come and go.
As you just keep stay true to your pace.
Your body.
Everything around you just unfolding as you pass it by.
Begin to notice that as you stay true to your body and your movement.
The goings on around you simply exist alongside you.
You could stop and interact with what you see and scent.
Or you can acknowledge it.
And yet keep moving on.
You are capable of doing both.
Something so beautiful catches your eye.
And you slow your pace to be more present with your focus.
Everything slows down.
And yet there is no complete stop.
Just a slowing down.
You take in the beauty of what is in front of you.
What is it that brings beauty into your life?
As you welcome and indulge in this beauty.
Your pace steadily lifts.
As you walk alongside you.
Beauty awakens.
As far as the eyes can see.
All that appears is beauty.
In every and every moment.
It's as if your focus was adjusted.
The lens of your eyes recalibrated.
And the inputs into your brain refreshed.
Information feels alive.
Nourishing.
And full of potential.
The beauty that surrounds you is infiltrating your whole being.
As if roots through your body down into your feet.
Connecting into the earth.
A reconnection of what binds us with all life.
Allow the beauty of you to merge with the beauty of the surroundings.
All beauty coming together as one.
Capsulated a golden light.
Infusing it all with this golden shimmering.
Feel the absorption of this golden light.
Receive.
If you use a sankalpa or intention.
The practice of yoga nidra is now.
Slowly become familiar with the golden light surrounding your body.
Give gratitude for your protection today.
As it releases and absorbs into you.
To be used again.
Welcome a broad and full breath in.
Release it fully in exhale.
If you wish to rest here a little longer.
As always.
Slowly feel for the desire to move.
Starting with small.
Remembering that you set the pace by listening to your body.
There is no rush.
As you honour your pace for moving on with the rest of your day.
I will close this practice with gratitude and deep appreciation for you.
Thank you.
And I hope you have enjoyed this wintering series of meditative practices.
