Welcome to this practice of Yoga Nidra.
Prepare yourself for Yoga Nidra by coming to rest in Shavasana.
Lie on your back with your legs stretched out,
Your feet about a foot apart.
Allow your feet to naturally fall away from each other completely at ease.
Allow your arms to rest alongside your body with palms facing upward.
Make sure that you will be warm and completely comfortable throughout this practice.
Finalize any adjustments to ensure you will be completely comfortable and able to settle into a sustained posture of stillness and deep rest.
Allow your body to begin to settle completely.
Release all physical effort.
Release all tension in the body and let go of being fully supported by the earth beneath you.
During this practice,
Stay connected to my voice.
If you lose awareness at any point,
Once you become aware again,
Continue the practice from there.
Release all physical and mental effort and feel the transition from action to rest,
From inner and outer motion to complete stillness.
Take a deep breath in,
Filling your lungs completely.
Then slowly exhale while simultaneously relaxing your whole body.
You will repeat this two more times.
A deep breath in and a complete release of mental and muscular tension through the exhale.
With the third round,
Deep breath in and through the exhale,
Let go completely.
In Yoga Nidra,
We shift from mental and physical effort to becoming effortless.
From making things happen to allowing what is to be just as it is.
We merely rest and take a back seat of the observer to all contents of experience with our inner.
Let every sensation that may emerge during this experience come to you.
Let any potential distractions that may arise take you even deeper into the seat of the observer,
The non-reactive witness.
Now it is time for your body to rest deeply.
Let go of all thinking and all doing.
Notice what sensation the skin feels,
The temperature,
The touch of clothes or covers,
The feeling of air upon the skin,
The sense of where the skin comes in contact with the earth beneath you,
The perception of the sun,
Cloud,
Or ceiling above you,
The awareness of the space surrounding you.
Observe the breath arriving in the nostrils during the inhale.
Notice the breath departing out from the nostrils during the exhale.
Feel how the air flowing in is slightly cooler and the air flowing out has a warmer quality to it.
Begin to slow down the outgoing breath.
Allow your exhales to become longer than your inhales,
Perhaps allowing your exhale to become twice as long as your inhale.
Each time you're experiencing the prolonged exhale,
Feel that there is more time to sink into the quality and the experience of letting go.
Over the course of each exhale,
The whole body sinks deeper and deeper into a state of complete effortlessness.
Allow the settling process to happen now.
Invite rest deep into the bones,
Into every organ.
Feel the body here in this magical,
Sacred place.
Bring awareness to the body resting on the planet as just one small part of the entire universe.
Allow tension to begin to unravel while you occupy one tiny space upon the surface of the vast expanse of the earth.
Simply sense the enormity of this planet,
Of earth,
And at the same time,
Sense the small space upon which you rest as just one minuscule part of it.
Connect to your breath.
Sense your small human vessel resting upon the enormous surface of planet earth.
To be resting authentically,
Just bring your awareness now to the space between the eyebrows.
Let all the currents of the mind gather there.
Let your attention coalesce into a single stream of awareness deep within the abode of the third eye,
Within this sacred stream of awareness.
Yoga Nidra helps us to remember who we are beneath the noise.
So within the quiet abode of your heart space,
Ask yourself gently now and complete permission to listen to your soul's genuine answer.
Your sankalpa may be a word,
An essence,
Or a felt sense or knowing.
The very thing you are calling forth is already a reality in this very moment.
As you repeat your sankalpa silently to yourself,
Three,
The Ajna Chakra.
As the flows of attention continue to coalesce there,
Radiant cosmic starlight.
Shift attention to the throat.
There see or feel a point of cosmic starlight.
The right shoulder joint,
Point of cosmic starlight.
Tip of the ring finger,
Deep within the center of the chest,
Point of cosmic starlight.
In the right side of the chest,
Center of the chest.
At the navel center,
Point of cosmic starlight.
Center of the pelvis,
Cosmic starlight.
Center of the pelvis,
Point of cosmic starlight.
Center of the pelvis,
Point of cosmic starlight.
Center of the throat,
Cosmic starlight.
Let the attention become fully absorbed into the stillness of the third eye center.
See all these points of cosmic starlight suspended within the space of the body.
A twinkling of cosmic lights suspended within space.
Let the breath become natural and effort and out as a steady uniform.
That with each inhale,
You are drawing in stardust from the cosmos.
And with each exhale,
You are dissolving into the vast infinity of space.
As you continue watching this simple movement,
Begin counting each breath.
Tethering your awareness like a constellation across an inner sky.
Drawing in the light of distant galaxies.
Breathing out,
Softening into the great expanse of the universe.
Drawing in the light of distant galaxies.
Breathing out,
Softening into the great expanse.
Continue counting backwards at your own pace.
Let your breath be slow,
Spacious,
Cosmic.
Effortlessly observing the body.
With each breath,
The body settles more completely.
Each breath,
A beam of brilliant light.
You are starlight,
Breathing starlight.
Let the counting of the breath fall away as you settle into an even deeper level of stillness and silence.
Settle into experiencing the body as a subtle field of cosmic awareness.
Awareness to the third eye center.
The space between your eyebrows.
Rest back as a quiet observer to all content in the silence beneath the noise of the mind.
Allow these images of pairs of opposites to rise and then drift away.
Without comment or judgment.
Sense and sensations of these pairs of opposites.
The bright luminosity of the full moon.
The complete darkness of the new moon.
The totality of a solar eclipse in the sky as it sets before twilight.
The brilliant birth of a star.
The spectacular explosion of a supernova.
A fiery hot solar flare.
A vacuous,
All-consuming black hole.
The constraints of the illusory nature of time.
The feeling of all-pervading timelessness.
The vastness of infinity.
The unity of singularity.
The expansion of the cosmos.
The contraction of the universe.
Now begin to visualize your body as weightless.
Gently floating throughout the vastness of outer space.
Imagine yourself lovingly held and cradled by the cosmos.
Surrounded by an infinite expanse of stars and planets.
You are safe here.
You are whole here.
Welcome yourself home as you are held by the vast intelligence of the universe.
There is no gravity.
No pressure.
No expectations.
Only spaciousness and light.
Radiant starlight begins to shimmer above the crown of your head.
Like a soft,
Glimmering mist.
It pours gently into your body through the crown of the head.
Feel the celestial light cascading downward.
Relaxing your face.
Your jaw.
Dissolving any tension.
Quieting any inner noise of the mind.
With each breath you begin to drift deeper into this cosmic sanctuary.
Planets and star systems orbit peacefully around you.
Their energy is subtle and supportive.
The sun gifts you vitality and the freedom of self-expression.
The moon creates space for your emotions and intuition to be nurtured and supported.
Venus offers you the softening and opening of your soul.
Mars inspires you with energy and motivation.
Jupiter blesses your growth.
Saturn grants you structure and patience.
Uranus ignites your innovation and individuality.
You are in harmony with the dance of the universe.
Communing with the cosmos.
Held and supported exactly as you are.
Perhaps you envision a glowing path of stardust stretching out before you.
Your soul's own personal Milky Way.
Begin to float along with this glowing path.
Ahead you see a shimmering portal of pure,
Brilliant,
Bright light.
You effortlessly float toward it.
Feeling called to its high vibration and frequency.
As you pass through,
You experience a sense of inner clarity and divine cosmic alignment.
It is here that you remember you are stardust.
You are sacred.
You are exactly where you are supposed to be.
Rest now in this infinite space.
Let your awareness dissolve into the stars.
Completely into this astral field made up of infinite galaxies.
Allow yourself to exist as the cosmos.
Allow yourself in the unchanging,
Unmanifest.
Allow the duality of the mind to merge with the oneness of the cosmos.
Notice that the universe has no boundary.
The cosmos are ever-present and all-pervading.
Let go into this formless,
Timeless,
Omnipresence of the universe.
Of awareness.
Experience a peaceful emptiness.
Beyond time.
Feel into this vastness and infinity.
The rich,
Felt experience that they're calling forth.
Begin to invite in and explore small,
Gentle movements.
When you're ready,
You can invite these gentle movements into the extremities of the body.
Perhaps taking a full body stretch.
Maybe rocking side to side.
Or giving yourself a hug.
To thank yourself for taking time for this yoga nidra practice.
And all the contents of your experience.
If you would like to return to full,
Wakeful.
As you notice all the contents of your experience that are present.
Notice also that awareness is present.
Sense as though awareness is emanating from the background.
Silently shining onto and throughout all.
Keeping your eyes closed.
Slowly make your way to a seated position.
Again,
Sense the presence of all you are experiencing.
And the presence of awareness.
Join your palms together at the front of the heart.
And rub them rhythmically together to generate heat.
Once warmed,
Place your palms directly over your eyes.
Feeling the gentle transfer of heat.
Awaken and nourish.
Slowly blink your eyes open inside of your palms.
Allowing filtered light to shine in.
Finally,
When you feel ready.
Remove your hands as you return to full,
Wakeful.
This practice of yoga nidra is now complete.
Thank you for joining this yoga nidra session with me.
The light and dark in me sees,
Honors,
And respects the light and dark in you.
Hari Om Tat Sat.
Hari Om Tat Sat.
Hari Om Tat Sat.
