Find Your Inner Alignment

This guided meditation invites you to notice the bones of your spine. By noticing we can begin to see what is and what could be more spacious and aligned. When we find more alignment in our body, we can find more alignment in our life path and purpose. Blessings on your journey dear one.

Transcript

Good morning.

I wanted to invite you into a meditation to bring awareness to your spine,

To bring your sitz bones.

Those are the bones at the base of your glutes.

There's two of them on either side of your coccyx,

Which is like your tailbone.

Some people sit tucked back onto their coccyx or their sacrum.

I invite you for this meditation to find a pillow that's high enough and you might need to to bring your sitz bones elevated,

Your hips are above your knees,

So that your sacrum can be in a position that supports your spine.

And so once you find that and keep playing with it until it feels comfortable,

Like a position that feels like you could sit for a while,

Bring your awareness to the very base of your spine,

The very very bottom.

There's this teeny tiny little bone called your coccyx or your tailbone and it literally does wag like a tail.

It can it can get stuck to the left or the right or tucked under like a sad puppy or tucked out like a very happy puppy.

And see if you can just bring awareness into that bone.

Maybe you can bring movement,

Just micro is so tiny,

Movements into that bone,

Seeing just if it's free or if it's stuck.

And if this is your first time even thinking of that bone or you have no idea what bone I'm talking about or where it is in your body,

Then just imagine or pretend that you had a tail.

Where would that tail be?

Pretend and imagine that you could super subtly wag your tail.

And that will begin to build a relationship with your tailbone between your thought process or your nervous system,

Your sensory system,

And your bone,

And your body.

Planting a seed.

And then up from there is a sacrum.

It's a big bone.

There's about five fused bones there that form one big almost like diamond-shaped bone that has all these holes,

Plexuses,

That allow for nerves and blood vessels and your sciatic nerve runs through there.

All these nerves that run through the sacrum.

So just imagine where that is in space.

Is it tilting back or tilting forward or upright?

No need to judge,

Just notice.

And maybe you go to the extreme range of motion or what is the range that that bone can make?

Can it tilt forward anteriorly?

Can it tilt to the side or back to the other side?

Can it do a rotation?

Just kind of notice where that bone is in space and what is the range that you can invite that bone to make?

You can even bring your hand to the back.

It's almost like the back of your butt.

It's the very,

Yeah,

That very kind of big bone that you feel there.

Out from there are your hip bones or your ilium.

I'm sorry,

Iliac crests.

And then coming back to the center,

Up from the sacrum is your L5,

Your lumbar spine,

Your lumbar vertebrae.

And your lumbar vertebrae are big,

They're flexible,

They allow you to bend.

And so each of these five vertebrae have more range of movement than the next 12,

Which are your thoracic.

And your lumbar vertebrae,

Everybody has a different posture in a different position that is perfect,

You know,

Is perfect,

There's nothing to be changed.

But some skeletons that we view,

And in many skeletons,

There is this alignment that is,

That enables the spine to be upright,

In a stacked position.

And that upright aligned position begins down at the sacrum,

Begins actually even at the coccyx with that ability to be flexible and move,

And not stuck in a position.

Because if your coccyx is tucked forward,

Then that will affect the entire rest,

That will affect where your sacrum sits,

Which will affect all the rest of your spine,

Since that sacrum and coccyx are literally the base.

So then coming back up to your lumbar,

Explore in that lower back,

Those lower vertebrae,

The lower five,

Like what is my range of motion?

How far can I lean forward,

Tilt to the left,

Tilt to the right,

Lean backwards,

Kind of what is my capacity here?

There,

You might find that there is quite a bit of movement there,

Quite a bit of possibility.

Now,

In that movement,

Slowly bring it to a stable place,

A settle,

The center.

What is your center?

What feels an alignment for you?

What feels stacked in an efficient,

Comfortable way?

So maybe you spiral to that center,

Testing the too far one way,

Too far to the back,

Slowly getting closer and more subtle movements till you find,

What is my center?

Bringing breath deep into those vertebrae as you find that settled space.

Maybe the breath naturally goes deeper.

And then up from those five vertebrae,

Your middle back,

Your middle spine is your thoracic.

You have 12 thoracic vertebrae.

And these have movement still,

They enable extension and flexion and some side and side bend.

But there's just less movement here you might find.

Like in your lower vertebrae,

You can really,

Maybe depending on your flexibility and the rest of your body,

Potentially bend all the way forward.

Whereas here in your thoracic,

It's much more micro.

I mean,

It's much worse,

Not even,

Yeah,

It's more subtle.

So exploring the range of movement,

Isolating the movement from the thoracic lumbar.

In other words,

How far,

If I just focus on my middle back and just imagine what my vertebrae stacked might look like,

Excuse me,

What might it feel like to explore the range of motion just from here,

Everything else static,

Everything else settled,

Center.

And I'm finding in my body,

It's much less movement,

But there's still some in all directions.

And as you spiral around,

Notice what might there be,

Are there stuck areas?

Are there areas where you're like,

Oh,

My movement is so fluid until I get to here and then it gets awkward or stuck or sticky.

And so as you find those spaces,

Breathe more breath into there.

Maybe even pause in that stuck place.

And continue the rotation,

Spiraling.

In other words,

Having that rotation get more and more subtle.

And exploring where is my center here?

Where feels settled?

Here,

In my thoracic vertebrae,

And then going up to your cervical vertebrae.

So this is your neck.

And by the way,

Back to the thoracic for a moment.

So while the lumbar,

In some postures,

The lumbar will have a lordotic curve.

So that means it will be like,

How do I describe this?

So it'll be like,

If I were to put it extreme,

My pelvis would be tilted forward.

There's a curve in the back that bends forward.

And then when you get to the thoracic,

It has a natural kyphotic curve,

Which is kind of like more of a hunched position.

And it won't feel hunched when you're in alignment or in an alignment that's good for you.

It'll feel upright,

But there is a natural kind of slightly hunched position in that vertebrae,

The way that they line up.

And then the final,

The cervical,

Come back to that light lordotic curve.

And you might feel that.

You might feel what I mean by touching your vertebrae,

Starting at the bottom,

All the way up,

You might feel like a natural curve.

And so as you come back up to your cervical vertebrae,

Your neck,

There's seven cervical vertebrae there.

Noticing there's so much more range of motion in your cervical vertebrae than your thoracic vertebrae,

Perhaps.

Some cervical vertebraes are fused.

Some have been operated on in order to bring the spine into an erect alignment.

But if you didn't have an operation to fuse your cervical vertebrae,

Then you can bring motion if that feels safe.

When you're going back and looking up,

Protect your cervical vertebrae by keeping your musculature engaged.

You don't want to just like,

Like on the sides,

You can kind of relax into that position.

Going to the front,

You can kind of release and relax.

But when you're in the back,

You want to kind of stay supporting with your muscles and engaged.

Just noticing again if there's any stuck areas.

Maybe going both ways,

Spiraling your neck,

Pausing in those areas of stuckness,

Stickiness,

Stagnancy,

Awkward,

If it feels awkward all of a sudden,

Taking a deeper breath into that position.

And then spiraling into a center where it feels like your cranium is lifted,

Where it feels like your vertebrae is aligned in a way that the nerves that are running through the center of each vertebrae are able to have the maximum amount of breathing room and space.

Because,

You know,

So basically it's these vertebraes have holes in each of them.

And when they're stacked,

You know,

Imagine two pipes over each other.

When they're not in alignment,

You can see there's so much less room for those cords.

But if you bring them into alignment,

The cords can flow and offer nutrients and nerve signals and sensation,

Less impinged nerves,

Less pain.

So finding that lifted,

Almost like your cranium is floating atop your spine,

Imagine you could spiral into that erect position that feels juicy,

Life-giving.

And then from this position,

Finding your breath,

Noticing how deep your breath is now,

Noticing what this position brings to the rest of your body,

Noticing if your body is naturally kind of fine-tuning,

Having these micro-movements.

Allow it to do so.

No need to be stagnant or strict or rigid.

Allowing your body and ribcage and bone structure to move with your breath.

Noticing your thoughts,

The quality,

Pace of your thoughts.

Perhaps there's a different level of settledness with your spine in this position,

An ability to focus that is different.

This is a nice way to set yourself up for meditation and take as long of a quiet meditation as you need and just focusing on your breath.

And when you're complete,

Maybe pause the recording to take as long as you need.

And when you feel complete,

You can slowly begin to open your eyes and notice where you are in space.

Notice your visual perception in this posture,

In this position.

Keeping your cranium and your spine in that same alignment,

Noticing what your peripheral vision can see above you naturally without forcing to the sides of you,

Noticing where you are proprioceptively in space.

Proprioceptively means,

Like,

Where am I in space?

And then maybe even,

You know,

Noticing you can turn and look around.

So this will give you a visual imprint of what it feels like for your spine to be in alignment that feels good for you and your body today.

And it might shift and it might change and you might notice that your visual perception you can see more above,

You can see more period.

Could be.

Could be you don't notice anything.

That's totally fine.

And then begin to wake up your body,

Wiggling your fingers and toes.

And with ease and gentleness and slowness,

Come back to the rest of your day.

Blessings.

Have a beautiful,

Beautiful day.