Welcome to this practice of yoga nidra,
A practice of rest,
Deep conscious rest.
The relaxed mind,
The mind resting on the very edge of sleep,
Is the most creative state a human being can enter.
It is the doorway,
The place where the stories you live by are written and quietly rewritten.
This practice has been created to offer you a place of deep rest to rewrite your own stories.
Imagine the world you meet each day is not separate from you,
But a reflection,
Your outer life echoing your inner state.
Meaning nothing outside us has to change first,
We change first,
And the exterior world rearranges itself to match.
So this is not only rest,
This is a place where becoming begins.
And all you have to do is lie down,
Listen.
And allow.
So find your way down to lie on your back.
And let the body arrive however it needs to.
Let the legs fall a little apart,
The arms rest a little from the sides,
The palms turning open and upward as if to receive.
Let this be the last effort you make.
The effort of letting go of effort.
From here,
You don't have to try.
You only have to be willing.
Let the eyes close gently or soften the gaze toward the dark behind the lids.
Begin to notice the weight of the body.
The way the body is held by the floor.
The floor held by the earth,
The earth holding you effortlessly as it always has.
And as it always will.
Take a slow breath in through the nose.
And a long,
Soft sigh out through the mouth.
And again,
Breathing in whatever you need.
Breathing out whatever you're ready to put down.
One more time,
Letting the exhale run longer than the inhale.
Letting that long out breath tell the nervous system that it is safe to rest now.
Then allow the breath to return to its own rhythm.
You don't need to manage it.
You don't need to deepen it.
Let it breathe you.
And notice there is a part of you that breathes without any effort at all.
A wiser,
Quieter intelligence that has been running beneath your thinking every moment of your life.
Imagine,
If you like,
That the body is a house at the close of the day.
All day its windows have stood open.
The eyes.
The skin.
Beers.
Letting the world pour in.
Light and sound and weather.
And the needs of everyone else.
But evening has come now.
And one by one.
The windows can be drawn closed.
First the eyes,
Let the curtains fall softly across them.
Until there is only a warm,
Restful darkness.
There is nothing out there now that you need watch for.
Than the skin.
The outer walls.
Let them stop minding the press of the floor,
The edges of things.
The walls can soften.
You are safe inside.
And the ears,
The last window.
Left open to the street.
Let the sounds keep coming if they wish.
You no longer have to follow them.
Let each one drift past and away,
Like footsteps fading down a lane.
Amen.
Gently.
Let even that window ease closed.
The house is quiet now.
All its busy daytime life.
Has turned inward.
Gathering.
Room by room.
Toward a single warm room at its very centre.
Where one small lamp is lit.
And the truest part of you.
Sits waiting.
At home.
At last.
In a moment,
I'll invite you to set an intention.
A result.
Sancalpa.
In this tradition,
We plant it like a seed.
In the soft receptive soil of the resting mind,
The layer beneath the busy planning self,
Where lasting change can actually take root.
So much of what we live is shaped not by what is happening,
But by what we believe about what is happening.
As the author and diarist,
Anne Nin,
Reminds us,
We don't see things as they are.
We see things.
As we are.
And the mind has an old habit,
A negative bias.
A protective lean toward problem and threat and lack.
This is not a flaw.
This is what protected our ancestors.
Gave us fight or flight.
But it is only one way of seeing.
You are not required to obey it.
A belief is not a fact.
A belief is simply a decision you have practiced so many times.
It began to feel like the truth.
And if a belief is a decision.
Then it can be decided again.
So your intention here is not a wish.
It is not I hope.
It is not one day,
Maybe.
Your intention is a vision.
And a true vision is not a fantasy of the future.
It is more like a memory of something already real.
Drawn from the part of you that is already whole.
So choose your Sandcalper now.
Let it be short.
Positive.
In the present tense.
As though it is already so.
I am.
Make your choice and plant it now.
Repeating it silently to yourself three times.
Let the intention go now.
You don't have to hold it.
Know that you're deeper mine.
Has received it.
Now we'll move the awareness through the body,
Part by part.
There is nothing to do but hear each word and let a soft,
Easy attention land where I name.
Anna as we go.
Notice each part of you that you turn your mind towards begins to soften.
This is the whole practice.
What you bring your gentle attention to releases.
We are not forcing anything to relax.
We are simply allowing.
Bring your awareness now to your right hand.
And your right hand thumb.
First finger.
Second finger.
Third finger and little finger.
The palm of your right hand.
The back of your hand.
The wrist.
The forearm.
The elbow.
The upper arm.
The shoulder.
The armpit.
The right side of the waist.
The right hip.
The thigh.
The knee.
The cough.
The ankle.
The heel.
The sole of the right foot.
Top of the foot.
Big Toe.
Second toe.
Virtu.
Fourth toe and little toe.
Now move your attention and your awareness 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.
The wrist.
The forum.
The elbow.
The upper arm.
The shoulder.
The armpit.
The left side of the waist.
Left hip.
Thigh.
Me.
And calm.
The ankle.
The heel.
The sole of the left foot.
At the top of the foot.
The Big Tote.
Second time.
Third toe.
Fourth,
Toe,
And little toe.
Now move your awareness to the back of your body.
The whole spine resting heavy.
The right shoulder blade.
The Left Shoulder Blade.
The whole of the back.
Releasing.
Into the floor.
The back of the head.
The crown of the head.
Moving your awareness to the front of the body.
The Foreign.
The right eyebrow.
The left eyebrow.
And the space between your eyebrows.
Right eye.
Left eye.
Rite Temple.
Left temple.
Right ear.
Left ear.
The nose.
The right cheat.
The Left Cheek.
The lips.
The teeth and the tongue.
The chin.
The throat.
Right collarbone.
Left collarbone.
The right side of the chest.
The left side of the chest.
The whole chest.
The upper abdomen.
The navel.
The lower belly.
The whole of your right leg.
The whole of your left leg.
The whole of your right arm and the whole of your left arm.
Your legs,
Your arms.
Your chest,
Your head.
The whole body.
Resting.
Heavy.
Released.
And held.
Feel how little you had to do for all of that to soften.
You only had to stop holding on.
This is how it all works,
Not by force,
By allowing.
Bring your attention now to the breath at the belly.
The gentle rise on the inhale,
The slow fall on the exhale.
Begin to count the breath backward from 18.
Breathing in.
18.
Breathing House.
18.
Breathing in.
17.
Breathing out.
17.
And so on.
All the way down.
Counting backwards.
If you lose count,
Simply begin again,
Without judgement.
The returning is the practice.
And here notice something.
You wanted the breath to slow.
And it's slow.
Not because you forced it.
But because you stopped interfering with it.
This is the quiet law beneath so much of life.
Desire met with non-resistance becomes outcome.
The wanting was never the problem.
The clenching around the wanting was.
So let even the count go now.
Let the breath breathe itself again.
And let yourself want what you want with open hands.
Now we work with sensation and feeling.
Calling up opposites,
Then letting them dissolve.
First,
Feel into heaviness.
The body heavy.
Sinking,
Every muscle giving its weight to the earth.
And now,
Lightness.
The body,
Light,
Almost floating,
As though you could lift on the next breath.
Now hold both at once.
Heavy and light together.
And let them dissolve.
Now feel into tension.
A subtle gathering.
Are holding the body of someone braced against the world.
And now release,
A complete letting go,
The body of someone who knows they are safe,
Carried and held.
Hold both,
Tension and release.
And then let them dissolve.
And now two states of mind.
First,
The contracted mind.
The mind of not enough,
Of lack,
Of problems,
Of fear.
And now the expanded mind.
The mind of enough.
Of possibility,
Of trust.
The mind that knows the next chapter is already being written by something wiser than worry.
Now feel that you are the awareness in which both of these arise,
The one watching the weather of the mind.
Never the weather itself.
This is who you are.
Beyond the ever-changing weather.
Not the anxious thought.
Not the heavy story.
But the clear.
QuietSky.
Beyond it all.
Now I'm going to name a stream of images,
One after another.
Don't hold any of them.
Don't try to picture them perfectly.
Let each one flash and go.
Like reflections passing on water.
This loosens the grip of the busy watching mind.
And lets you drop deeper than thought.
Just let them come.
Imagine a candle flame.
A wide night sky.
Are still late.
At dawn.
A single drop of water.
An open door.
A field of golden wheat.
A white feather.
A mountain at sunrise.
A flowing river.
A seed cracking open in the dark soil.
A bird flying from a branch.
A full moon.
A long empty beach.
A road disappearing over a hill.
Aflame again.
Avast!
OpenSky.
And now,
Darkness.
Soft,
Warm,
Welcoming darkness.
Let the last image dissolve.
And let yourself fall.
Gently into that soft,
Welcoming darkness.
Here.
Let everything go.
There is nobody now to scan.
No breath to follow.
No image to hold.
Let even the sense of effort dissolve.
And notice what remains.
You are still here.
Before any thought arrives,
Beneath every name.
Every role.
Every story you have ever told about yourself,
There is a simple knowing.
I am.
This is the creative power itself.
The ground from which every world is imagined.
The infinite reservoir beneath the noise.
The part of you that was never broken.
Never lacking.
Never afraid.
You don't have to do anything to reach it or earn it.
Or improve it.
You only have to rest as it.
This is the deepest rest there is.
Resting as what you are.
Rest here.
Impure.
Awareness.
Still resting in that open awareness.
Let an image begin to rise.
Not anything from the outside.
But stepped into from within.
It is you.
The you that you are becoming.
The version of you on the other side of the thing you're working toward.
The one for whom it is already done.
Not hoping for it.
Not waiting for it,
But assuming the feeling already fulfilled.
Now.
As though it is already so.
Not an image.
Of feeling.
Step inside this.
Feel the ease in the shoulders.
The steady unhurried breath,
The quiet certainty in the chest.
A new set of decisions,
Of choices,
Worn so naturally that the old fears have nowhere left to live.
And fill in the scene with your senses.
What you see around you.
Now that it is done.
What do you hear?
What does the air feel like?
Let that feeling swell.
Relief.
Ease,
Quiet joy,
And above all,
Gratitude.
The gratitude of someone.
Who already has it.
Stay here.
Live in the end.
Let the feeling of fulfillment soak all the way down into the soft receptive deep that we have opened in this practice.
Remember Rumi's words,
What you seek is seeking you.
Now.
Allow it.
Gently call your sankalpa back to mind.
The same words you planted at the beginning,
Repeat them silently three times with feeling,
As though it is already so,
Because the deeper mind,
Soft and open as it is now,
Will receive.
Let it rest in you,
A seed planted in fertile ground,
And trust that it grows.
It's time now,
Slowly and in your own time,
To begin the journey back.
Bring your attention to your breath.
And counting upward now.
From one.
To five.
Breathing in,
One.
Breathing out,
Two.
Breathing in too.
Breathing out too.
Bring yourself up to five.
Become aware of the body lying here,
Its weight,
Its warmth,
The points of contact with the floor.
Become aware of the room around you.
The space,
The temperature of the air.
Any sounds near and far.
Know that the calm you have touched here is not somewhere you visit,
It is somewhere you are.
You carry it out with you.
Begin to deepen the breath.
Let a little movement return to the body.
The fingers,
The toes,
A gentle stretch,
However the body wants to move.
And then when you are ready,
Roll onto one side and rest there for a moment.
Cows.
And easy.
And then gently press yourself up to a comfortable seat.
Let the eyes stay closed a moment longer and take a moment to notice how you feel.
How the body feels.
How the mind feels.
And how different this is from the start of practice.
Be grateful to yourself for having taken this time to rest,
To reconnect.
To remember who you really are.
And who you are becoming.
To rewrite your story.
Remember the words of William Blake,
What is now proved was once only imagined.
So let your imagination shine,
Shine bright,
Shine bold,
Shine in love.
This practice of Yoga Nidra is now complete.
Thank you so much for taking your time to practice with me today.
Thank you.
