Prepare for the practice of Yoga Nidra.
Begin by finding your way down onto your back.
Let the floor take the full weight of you.
There is nothing to hold now.
Nothing to carry.
Arrange yourself so that you will not need to move for a while.
A blanket over the body if you'd like warmth.
Something soft beneath the head.
Let the legs fall open.
The arms rest a little away from the sides,
Palms turned upward or upward.
Resting quietly.
However they wish to be.
Allow the eyes to close.
And take a breath here.
Drawing the air all the way down.
And then allow it to leave your body slowly.
Without effort.
Again,
Breathing in fullness.
And then releasing.
One more time.
Breathing in.
And letting go.
Allowing everything.
To be as it is.
And now let the breath.
Return to its own rhythm.
Feel a hold of your body.
Present in this room.
A single,
Complete form.
Resting.
You have arrived somewhere you don't need to become anything.
For this time.
There is nowhere to get to.
Nothing to do.
And no one to be for anyone else.
Just this.
Just you.
Just.
As you are.
Begin to notice the sounds around you.
Be aware of them without engagement.
Just notice them and let them be.
Notice instead how the world has been asking things of you all day.
The phone that wanted answering.
The situation that wanted you to be a particular way in it.
All day you have been turned outward.
A range toward other people.
Listening for what was needed outside.
That outward turning is not a fault.
It is how we live together.
But it means that most of your attention has been spent on the surface of things.
On the version of you.
That faces the world.
Let that version rest now.
Allow it to rest.
Let the whole outer life recede.
Like a tide going out.
And notice what is left when it goes.
Something remains.
Something that was never the performance,
Never the face turned toward the world.
This is what we came here for.
In this practice,
We turn toward the idea of individuation,
The slow becoming of who you already deeply are.
Not the self you perform.
Not the self assembled to please.
The South.
Beneath it all.
Swami Vivekananda put it this way.
You have to grow from the inside out.
None can teach you.
None can make you spiritual.
There is no other teacher but your own soul.
Nothing is being given to you here.
Nothing is being added to you.
Whatever unfolds in this practice comes from you.
And was always yours.
So let a quiet intention now form.
Not a wish for something distant,
But a simple truth spoken to yourself as though it is already so.
Perhaps I am becoming who I am.
Or I am allowed to be whole.
Or something in your own words that rises up to meet you.
Starting with the words,
I am.
And plant it gently,
Like a seed pressed into dark soil,
Saying it three times,
Silently,
With feeling.
Amen.
Let it go.
Trusting the sea to do its own work.
In the dark.
Will now move awareness through the body.
Simply let your attention alight on each place as you hear it named,
The way that light moves across a landscape.
Bring your awareness to your right hand.
And to your right hand thumb.
First finger.
Second finger.
Third finger and little finger.
The palm of the right hand.
The back of the hand.
The wrist.
The lower arm.
The elbow.
The upper arm.
The right shoulder.
The right armpit.
Side of the waist.
The right tip.
Thigh.
Lower leg.
Ankle.
The heel.
Soul of the Right Foot.
Top of the foot.
The right big toe.
SECOND HOME Third tone.
Fourth toe and little toe.
And now the left hand.
The left thumb.
First finger.
Second finger.
Third finger.
And Littlefinger.
The palm.
The back of the hand.
The left wrist.
Lower arm.
Elbow.
Upper arm.
The Left Shoulder.
Ampe.
The left side of the waist.
Left hip.
Thigh.
Love and Light.
Ankle.
The soul of the left foot.
Top of the foot.
The left big toe.
Second toe.
Third toe.
Fourth toe and little toe.
Now the whole of the back of the body.
The back of the head.
Resting.
The shoulder blades.
The length of the spine.
The whole back.
Heavy and released.
The crown of the head.
The Far End.
Right eyebrow,
Left eyebrow,
And the space between your eyebrows.
Right eye.
Left eye.
Right cheek.
Left cheek.
Right ear.
Left ear.
The nose.
The lips,
Upper and lower.
The teeth and the tongue.
The jaw.
The chin.
The throat.
The chest.
The belly.
Rising and falling.
The whole of the front of the body.
The whole of your right leg.
The whole of your left leg.
The whole right arm.
The whole left arm.
The whole chest.
The whole head.
The whole body.
The whole body.
The whole body.
Complete.
And hope.
1B.
Resting on the Earth.
Bring your awareness back to your breath.
And notice it without changing a thing.
Feel the breath in the belly.
The gentle swell as you breathe in.
The soft fall as you breathe out.
Now begin to count the breaths.
Back Whip.
From 27th.
27,
Breathing in.
27,
Breathing out.
26 in.
26 hours.
Continue on your own,
Silently.
Counting each breath down toward one.
If you lose the count.
Simply begin again.
The counting is only a threat to follow inward.
Now let the counting dissolve.
Let it go entirely.
As your body rests here.
Feel it begin to become heavy.
Heavy as wet sand.
The limbs feel too heavy to lift.
Sinking onto the earth.
The Earth rising to meet them.
Heaviness in the arms,
The legs,
The head.
And then let that go.
Begin to feel the body growing light.
As light as breath.
The limbs weightless as if floating a little above the ground.
The Whole Body Brand.
Barely tethered.
Lightness through the chest.
What the hell?
And let that go.
Feel both.
Heaviness and lightness at once.
Held together in the same body.
Now feel coldness.
Like a cold morning air on bare skin.
Coolness moving through the body.
The hands and feet cool.
The breath cool as it enters.
And let that go.
Now,
Warmth.
Sun on the skin.
Warmth spreading through the belly and the chest.
Into the hands.
Down through the legs.
The body glowing,
Comfortable,
Warm right through.
And let that go.
Feel both.
Cold and warmth together.
Present.
At the same time.
What might it feel like now?
To be hidden.
Unseen.
The part of you no one has met.
Whatever you have kept back.
Kept quiet.
Kept for yourself.
Feel the weight of being unwitnessed.
And let that go.
Now feel what it is to be seen.
Fully seen.
Looked at and not turned away from.
Acknowledged exactly as you are.
Unallowed to stay.
Feel what that is like.
In the body.
And let that go.
Hold both of these at the same time.
Hidden.
Unseen.
The self you keep.
And the self you show.
Both of them yours.
Both of them true.
Existing together in one person.
Me the one.
Has to be given up for the other.
Rest here.
In this wholeness.
Let images come and go now.
Don't hold any of them.
Let each arrive and let it pass,
Like weather moving across the sky.
Imagine a closed door.
A key in the palm of your hand.
An open door.
A seed in dark soil,
A green shoot breaking the surface.
A mask.
A face beneath the mask.
Your own face.
A locked box.
The lid lifting.
Light spilling out.
A child standing at a window.
A river running toward the sea,
The sea receiving it.
A single tree in an open field,
Its roots spreading beneath the ground,
Wider than its branches.
A candle burning in a dark room.
A room full of candles.
A path through a forest.
The forest thinning.
OpenSky ahead.
A mirror.
Your own reflection.
The reflection meeting your eyes.
And then let all the images dissolve.
Rest.
Here.
Resting in the darkness behind your eyes.
A wide,
Quiet top.
Like the inside of the Earth.
Like the night sky.
Between the Stars.
Individuation is an old idea.
It names the slow work of a whole life.
The becoming of the person you were always meant to be.
Not made by anyone else.
Not borrowed.
Yours.
Somewhere inside you.
There is a self that was here before the world told you who to be.
Before the rolls.
Before the expectations you learn to wear like clothing.
That's self.
Has never lacked.
It has only been waiting.
Let an image come if one wishes to.
Perhaps a figure.
Perhaps a feeling.
A sense of the one you are underneath it all.
Notice that this cell.
Has never needed to earn its place.
It simply is.
Consider gently the parts of yourself that you may have set aside along the way.
The qualities that didn't fit the life you were given.
The pieces you were told were too much.
Or not in now.
They were not lost.
They were only put away.
Individuation is the quiet gathering back of all of it.
The bright and the shadow.
The strong.
And the tender.
The parts you are proud of,
And the parts you have hidden.
Wholeness means letting all of it belong.
Feel for a moment what it might be to hold every part of yourself.
With the same steady kindness.
Nothing exiles.
Nothing turned away at the door.
You are a whole person,
Slowly remembering yourself.
You simply are.
By simply being.
Rest here now.
Nothing to do.
Nothing to become.
Simply.
Gently now,
Into this spacious,
Unguarded place.
Bring back the intention you planted at the beginning.
The same words.
Spoken to yourself with quiet certainty.
I am becoming who I am.
I am allowed to be whole.
Or something in your own words.
Starting.
With I.
Repeat them to yourself three times silently,
Feeling them land in a self that is ready to receive.
The seed is planted.
Trust it.
To grow.
Begin slowly to let awareness return to the outer world.
No Harry.
Become aware again of the breath moving in the body.
The gentle rise and fall.
Become aware of the body itself lying here.
Its weight,
Its warmth,
The points where it meets the ground,
Aware of the room around you,
The space,
The air,
Any sounds near or far.
And notice that the outer life is returning to you now.
The day,
The people,
The things that will want your attention.
Let them come back.
You can meet them from a different place than the one you left them in.
One more grounded,
Centred and anchored in yourself.
Let a little movement return,
A soft flexing of the fingers and toes.
Perhaps a gentle stretch through the arms,
The legs,
Wherever the body asks for it.
And then roll onto one side and rest there a moment,
Curled and easy,
The practice still settling within.
And then when you are ready,
Only when you are ready,
Press yourself slowly up to a seated position,
Letting the hair come up last.
Take a breath here,
Upright,
Carrying with you the quiet knowledge that the self you are becoming is the self you always were.
Just take a moment to reflect on this,
Often attributed to Rumi.
Yesterday I was clever,
So I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise,
So I am changing myself.
Remember,
It all starts with you.
This practice of Yoga Nidra is now complete.
Thank you for taking your time to practice with me today.
Thank you.
