The Arrival | Yoga Nidra For Deep Rest & Coming Home

This is a practice for the part of you that has been carrying too much.

'The Arrival' is a full 33-minute Yoga Nidra rooted in the Satyananda tradition, guiding you through all eight stages of yogic sleep - from physical settling and Sankalpa, through a complete rotation of consciousness, breath awareness, pairs of opposites, and a visualisation.

This practice has been made for the people who find it hard to rest. Who have been so busy becoming that they've forgotten how to simply be.

You don't have to do this perfectly.
You only have to be willing to arrive.

Lay down.
Close your eyes.
Come home to yourself.

Transcript

Prepare for the practice of Yoga Nidra. Come to lie down on your back to Shavasana, The foundation of everything that follows. Let the body be straight, The legs a little apart, The arms resting away from the sides with the palms facing upward, Open and receiving. And take a moment now to make any final adjustment, A pillow beneath the knees if the lower back needs it, A blanket or two, Your body temperature is likely to drop during practice. Take time to really feel as comfortable as you possibly can. In Yoga Nidra, Your body will rest, Your mind will rest, But the invitation is to stay awake and aware, Not with any effort or force. If your body needs sleep today, Welcome it. And the effects of the practice will still be felt, But if you can stay awake, Present, The witness behind the eyes. This is the awareness. So come now to stillness, Stillness in the body and in the mind. Let the body be heavy. Let the ground, The earth, Receive all that you've been carrying. Set down your load. And know that here there is nothing to arrange, Nothing to do, Nothing to achieve. There is only this, The body, The ground, The breath. Let your eyes close softly now, Gently and willingly. Let the light inside be enough. You don't have to hold anything right now, Not the day, Not the worry, Not any version of yourself expected from the external world. Imagine all the sounds around you are not distraction calling you in. They are the world doing what the world does. Cars and birds and the distant hum of other lives, None of it requires anything of you. Let the sounds move through you like weather. You are not responsible for them, You never were. Draw your awareness inward like a tide turning, Like a traveler finally turning home. Notice that you are here, That beneath everything, All the lists, The stories, The noise, There is something utterly still inside. It has been here all along, Waiting. This stillness, This quiet country inside you, Here you are allowed to rest. Here you are welcomed to arrive. Let Sankalpa rise in your body now, Not a goal, Not something you are trying to fix or become. Something quieter than that, A truth that is already living within you, Waiting only to be remembered. A short luminous sentence beginning with the words I am. Perhaps I am enough or I am at peace with what I am. Or perhaps I am already home. Let it come up without forcing, Don't reach for it, Let it come to you. And when it arrives, Offer it silently to yourself three times with all the tenderness you would give to someone you love who has been away too long and has finally come home. Plant it now in the deep soil of this practice and let it take root. Now we move through the body, Not to fix it, Not to judge it, But to return to it. The body is the house, The body is where home lives. And so many of us have been away from it, Thinking and planning and worrying, While a body waited patiently, Holding everything, Asking for nothing. This is the part of practice where we come back, Piece by piece, Room by room and make whole. Follow my voice like a thread through the dark, There is no right way to feel this, There is only the returning. So bring your full awareness and attention to your right hand and to your right hand thumb. First finger, Second finger, Third finger and little finger. The palm of your right hand, The back of your hand, Your right wrist, Lower arm, Elbow, Elbow, Upper arm and shoulder, The right side of your chest, Waist, Hip, Thigh, Knee, Shin, Ankle, Sole of the right foot, Top of the foot, Your right big toe, Second toe, Third toe, Fourth toe and little toe. Moving your full awareness and attention to your left hand and to your left hand thumb. First finger, Second finger, Third finger and little finger. The palm of your left hand, The back of your hand, Your left wrist, Lower arm, Elbow, Elbow, Upper arm, Shoulder, The left side of your chest, Waist, Hip, Thigh, Knee, Shin, Ankle, Sole of your left foot, Top of your foot, Your left big toe, Second toe, Third toe, Fourth toe and little toe. Moving your attention now to the back of your body, Your right heel and your left heel, Right calf, Left calf, The spaces behind both your knees, Your right glutes and your left glute and your back, The whole of your back, Lower, Middle, Upper. Run your attention up and down the whole of your spine, Right shoulder blade, Left shoulder blade, Your neck, Feel the tension release from your neck, Your head, Heavy and held here by the ground. The crown of your head, Forehead softening, Your right eyebrow and your left eyebrow, The space between your eyebrows, Right temple, Left temple, Right ear, Left ear, Right cheek, Left cheek, Your nose, The bridge of your nose to the very tip of your nose. Top lip, Bottom lip, Both your lips together, Your teeth and your tongue lying softly in your mouth, Your whole mouth, Your jaw releasing and letting go, Your throat, Right collarbone, Left collarbone and the space, The little valley between your collarbones, The right side of your chest, The left side of your chest, Your whole chest, Your right arm and your left arm, Both your arms together, Your right leg and your left leg, Both your legs together, Your legs and your arms, Your chest and your head, Your whole body together in your awareness, Your whole body, Your whole body held in one field of sensation. Let the breath move now, Trust it. It has been breathing you your entire life, Your constant companion. Notice the inhale, How it arrives without being summoned, A gift offered freely at every single moment of your life. And then notice the exhale, How it releases without being asked, How the body knows always when it is time to let go. Follow the breath now as if following a path through a quiet wood, Following the breath gently, Trusting it knows where it leads. Now bring your awareness to the natural pause at the top of the inhale, That small luminous gap between receiving and releasing and rest there, Even for just a heartbeat. This is the threshold where you are neither arriving nor departing, You are simply here. And now the pause at the end of the exhale, The place where you release even the breath itself, Where for one suspended moment there is nothing left to hold. In the silence between the breaths is the silence at the center of everything, The silence of home. I'm going to invite you into a different kind of awareness, A felt sense. Feel heaviness, Let the body become dense and still, As though the bones themselves are made of something ancient and unhurried, Heavy. Now feel lightness, As though the body could float, As though the breath alone could lift you, The feeling of waking on a morning where everything is possible. Light. Now feel warmth, Imagine sunlight on the skin, Not the fierce heat of the sun. Warmth spreading across the chest, Pooling in the palms. Feel warmth. Now feel coolness, The air on the back of the hand. A breeze moving through an open window. Cool. Move now between these two opposite states of awareness. Warmth and cool. Cool and warm. Rumi called the human being a guest house and wrote that every feeling, Every visitor that arrives at the door, Every joy and sorrow should be welcomed in. Welcome and entertain them all, He said. And knowing this, Knowing that it all belongs, That none of it makes you less worthy of return, You can now choose to rest in the wholeness, In the fullness of this house that was always, Always yours. There is a part of you that has never been lost, Even in the seasons when you could not feel it, Those long stretches of noise and distance and forgetting. There is a part of you that stayed, That kept the light on, That always knew the way back. Visualize yourself standing at the edge of a wide, Quiet field. It is late afternoon and the light is turning everything it touches into gold. The grass is lean and sway as if breathing. A low hill rolls away in the distance. Somewhere out of sight, You can hear water moving. You are barefoot. The ground beneath you is warm, Warm and welcoming. You have been walking for a long time, Carrying what you were told you should carry, Being who you were told you should be. Looking for something in other people, In achievements, In the next thing and the next that was never out there to find. Here, At the edge of this field, You can stop. Look out at the field. You only need to stand at the edge and know that this belongs to you. Let your gaze soften on the horizon. Let the warmth of the late light fall on your face. Feel the last of the light on your skin. Let the field be wide. Notice what arises. A colour, A feeling, A memory perhaps, Or perhaps simply a sense of recognition, Of finally, After everything, Having arrived. And now, Bring back your sankelpa, The seed you planted at the beginning of the journey. Knowing it has been held in the rich soil of this practice, Watered by your breath, Warmed by your willingness to arrive. You are closer to it now than when you first planted it. Feel it differently in your body, Not as something you're reaching for, But as something you are standing in. And offer it to yourself again, Silently, Three times, Starting with the words, I am. And now gently, As gently as the morning, Begin to deepen your breath. Let the inhale grow a little fuller and let the exhale be a little longer. Become aware of the sounds around you, Aware as the world gently welcomes you back. Take all the benefits of this practice with you, The quiet, The knowing, The sense of arrival. Let a sound come if it wants to come, A sigh, A hum, Whatever the body needs to make its way back to your world. And begin to give a little movement in your body, Maybe wiggling your fingers and toes, Maybe taking a stretch, Maybe circling your wrists, Anything at all that gives you a sense of movement, Of moving energy in your body once again. Take all the time that you need. And rolling to one side if that feels right, Drawing the knees in and rest here for a breath or two. And when you open your eyes, Let them open slowly, Let the light come in gradually. And carry this quiet with you into the conversations waiting for you, Into the body that needs feeding, Nourishing, Resting and tending. The stillness you found here was not created in this practice, It was only remembered. There is a line by T. S. Eliot that has always felt to me like a secret about this practice. We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. It was all leading you here, Not to a destination outside, To this, This breath, This body, This moment of finally recognizing the one you were looking for was the one who was looking. Welcome back and welcome home. And may the peace which passes all understanding keep your heart and mind in the knowledge and presence of love. Thank you so much for taking your time to practice with me today.

Reviews

Excellent practice thank you Kate 😊 🙏