Good evening.
Welcome to your evening meditation.
This meditation will prepare you for sleep.
To begin,
Lie down in your bed.
We all know that early to rest,
Early to rise makes a man healthy,
Wealthy and wise.
So the earlier you can go to sleep,
Perhaps before 11 o'clock at latest,
The better the quality of sleep,
The more nourished your organs and the flow of energy through your body and the more vital you'll feel upon rising in the morning.
For now,
As you lay down in bed,
Perhaps you can pull the covers up over you all the way to beneath your chin.
If you'd like,
You can support under your knees with two extra pillows.
And I recommend to put a weight of some sort,
Be it a pillow or a book over your navel on top of the blanket.
This will communicate directly to your nervous system,
Letting your body know that it's time to relax.
Once you have arranged the physical body in between your sheets,
Allow your arms to spread out away from the body with space underneath your armpits.
Flip your hands over so the palms face upwards,
Loosen any grip in your fingers.
And as the eyelids slowly become heavy,
Begin to notice the rise and fall of your belly.
As you inhale,
The navel rises and the abdomen inflates.
And as you exhale,
There's a release that echoes throughout the entire physical body.
Make sure that your jaw is relaxed,
That there's space between your back teeth.
Allow the tongue to rest down at the back of the lower teeth.
Perhaps you can think of something nice that happened today and a smile begins to form behind your eyes,
Relaxing the muscles of your face.
And as you come into this state of body awareness,
We'll begin a body scan from the toes upwards towards the nose.
Your job is to follow me.
Repeat after me the part of the body that I say mentally in your head and allow your awareness to hop from body part to body part.
Simply follow along for the ride and we'll see where we go.
We begin with the right hand.
Right hand,
Palm of the hand,
Back of the hand,
Right fingers,
Thumb,
First,
Second,
Third,
Fourth.
Down to the wrist,
Right forearm,
Back of the arm,
Right elbow,
Shoulder,
Armpit,
Across the chest,
The collarbones and down the right side of the body,
Right breast,
Chest,
Waist,
Side of the waist,
Rib cage,
Hip.
Bring your awareness to your right thigh,
The inner side of the right groin,
Front of the thigh,
Back of the thigh,
Right knee,
Back of the knee,
Right lower leg,
Down the shin and calf,
Right ankle,
Heel,
Sole of the right foot,
Top of the right foot,
Right toes,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
Up the body to the left hand,
Thumb,
First finger,
Second finger,
Third,
Fourth finger,
Right palm of the hand,
Back of the hand,
Right wrist,
Forearm,
Back of the left arm,
Left elbow,
Shoulder,
Armpit,
Side of the body,
Right chest,
Left hip,
Left thigh to the inner groin and down the front and back of left thigh,
Front of the knee,
Back of the knee,
Down lower left leg,
Shin and calf,
Left ankle,
Heel,
Sole of left foot,
Top of left foot,
Left toes,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
Sweep your awareness up the body now,
Up the back of the body,
Up the back of the legs towards the buttocks,
The buttocks up to the sacrum,
The lowest of the vertebrae along the spine.
Travel up the spine,
Aware of the lower back,
Middle back behind the rib cage,
Upper back,
Back of the shoulders,
The nape of the neck where it climbs away from the bed and pillow and curves,
To the back of the head,
Back of the head over the top,
Top of the head,
Down over the ears and jaw to the chin,
Up over lips,
Teeth,
Tongue,
Nose,
The eyes,
The eye sockets,
The muscles behind the eyes,
The eyebrows,
The forehead,
All the way down the cheeks,
The jawbone,
The front of the neck,
Back to the collarbones,
To the sternum,
The chest bone,
Sweeping down the front of the body,
The belly relaxed,
Awareness coming to the front of the hips,
The reproductive organs,
The genitals and then down the front of the legs,
Inner thigh,
Front of thigh,
Knees,
Shins,
Tops of feet,
Back to both toes.
And now experience awareness through the entire body.
Feel the entire body at once.
Become aware of each part we've named the whole front of the body,
The whole back of the body.
Experience it together.
I invite you now to scan once again.
This time on your own.
I'll guide you through the body parts and you in your mind's eye and in your kinesthetic awareness move through the intricacies of each part on your own.
Begin with the right hand as you travel up towards right shoulder.
From the right armpit,
Move down to right waist and then all the way down right leg.
When you arrive at the right toes,
Bring your awareness up to left hand and travel from left hand to left shoulder.
Now from left armpit,
Dive down towards left hip,
All the way down left leg toward the toes.
So you and as you arrive at the left toes,
Bring the awareness up the back side of the body from heels to head.
As you reach the top of the head,
Crawl with your mind's eye over the forehead and down the entire front of the body to the toes.
As you fall into this in between state,
Between waking and sleeping,
Know that it's okay to drift off.
Imagine my hand on your chest.
I'm there holding you.
You're safe to depart into the world of dreams.
