Let's begin.
For this practice,
It's best to be sitting upright and relaxed with a straight spine.
If you're needing to lie down today,
Just making sure that your spine is straight and can remain alert yet relaxed.
Start by deepening the inhale and slowing the rate of the exhale.
Follow your breath with your awareness all the way down to your pelvis.
Continue breathing deeply and fully all the way down to the pelvis on the inhale.
Now,
Allow your breathing to return to a normal rate.
And we'll do a short body scan to really arrive into this moment in the body.
So start by scanning down the forehead,
The eyebrows and the eyes,
Softening the jaw,
Feeling the sensations inside the mouth,
Noticing the front of the neck,
The chest,
Feeling the shoulder cap on the left side and then on the right side,
Noticing the top of the abdomen,
Continuing down to the lower abdomen,
Down to the pelvis,
And then notice your left hip and your right hip.
Continue to travel down the front of the thighs,
Both kneecaps,
Covering the front of the shins to the top of the feet.
Feeling the toes and then the soles of the feet.
Traveling back up now through the back body,
Covering both calves,
Backs of the knees,
The back of the thighs,
Noticing how they touch the surface that you're sitting on.
Try and feel into the tailbone,
The coccyx.
Scan your way up,
Passing the sacrum,
Feeling up the lumbar spine,
The curve at the lower back.
Making your way up through the thoracic spine,
Between the shoulder blades,
To the cervical spine,
Traveling up through the back of the neck to the skull,
Checking in at the back of the skull and making your way up,
Back to reach the forehead where we began.
And now just let your whole body rest in your awareness,
Head to toe,
Front to back,
Left side and right side.
Now take this moment to notice where in your body your attention is.
Is it at a single point?
Or is the attention more diffuse,
Covering a larger part of the body or maybe the whole body?
Bringing your attention to the whole front of the body from head to toe,
And then seeing if you can allow your attention to penetrate through the front of the body all the way to the back body and move from the back body to the front body.
Just play with this for a little while,
Transitioning from the back to the front.
From front body to back body.
And challenging yourself to really push through that center line so your attention stays through the body the whole time,
Starting at the front,
Passing through the internal organs to the back body.
Deeper than skin level,
We're passing through the bones,
Through the tissues and the fluids,
Through the organs,
To the back body.
And then again,
Moving forward from back body through the center to the front.
This can be a challenging practice.
And as we become more aware of our body and our energy system,
And we become more embodied,
It becomes easier and easier.
So give yourself grace if this is difficult.
Just do your best.
And the next time you find yourself at the back body,
Just remain there.
Maybe you scan from head to toe at the back,
Or maybe you just hold a diffuse awareness of the whole back body at once.
We tend to live so much of our lives from the front body,
Seeing out our eyes,
Using our nose and our mouth,
Our ears,
Our hands.
This is the place that our personality lives,
The front body.
It's what we show to the world.
But our true stable self resides in the back.
And the more we learn to rest in the back body,
The more authenticity shines through.
The calmer we are,
Both in mind and body,
Our nervous system,
Relaxes when our attention is in the back body.
And if you're only able to reach the skin surface level,
That's okay too.
That's a good place to start.
Scanning the spine from coccyx to skull is helpful.
And so is having a visualization of really allowing the front body to kind of vaporize,
Leaving only the back body.
Noticing the piece that you've touched into here,
Getting familiar with this felt sense,
This quality of connection with your true self through your body,
Getting really familiar so that you can return to this place of peace,
Stillness,
Calm,
And truth.
That resides inside your own body.
And this is where I'll leave you.
So you can remain with your attention established in the back body as long as you wish.
And coming back to this meditation,
Or just the simple practice of moving from the front body to the back throughout your day.
I wish you peace,
Health,
Love.
Namaste.
