Trauma Sensitive Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Join me for this trauma sensitive progressive muscle relaxation. This practice is a muscle tension and relaxation technique to release deeply stored stress and fatigue from the body. During this meditation, if you feel the urge to sigh deeply, cry, yawn, or if you find your muscles shaking, you can trust that it is your body's way of releasing that deeply stored tension. I hope it leaves you feeling relaxed and tension free. Enjoy!

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this trauma-sensitive progressive muscle relaxation meditation. I'm Maria and I'll be your guide throughout this practice. So this is an exercise to release deeply stored stress and fatigue from our bodies. This practice is best done sitting in a comfortable chair or laying down, Whatever you prefer. It can be laying down, You can lay down on a mat, Just on the ground, On a towel, In your bed, On a couch, Wherever you feel comfortable. During this practice, If you feel the urge to sigh deeply, To yawn or cry, Or if any parts of your body begin to shake, Any muscles begin to shake, You can trust that this is your body's way of releasing whatever it needs to release. So there's no need to attach any type of story or anything to anything that comes up. Just let yourself feel the sensations and then let them go if you can. As we go throughout this practice, Just remember that everything I say is a suggestion, That you know your body best, Your body is the best teacher in the room, And if anything isn't feeling right to you, You can just shift into something else that does. So we'll begin by just noticing what is present for us in our bodies today. Noticing any sensations, Any stress, Feelings, And you can rate your level of stress or fatigue on a scale of 0 to 10. So 0 being no stress and 10 being like the most stressed that you've ever been. All right, So we will go ahead and close our eyes or soften our gaze. I will keep mine open so that I can guide you through this practice. And just take a few deep breaths. We'll go in through our nose. And out through our nose or mouth. Let's do three of those just in your own pace with your own breath. So in through your nose. Out through your nose or mouth. And on that third exhale, Go ahead and begin to shift your awareness to your right foot. Begin to tense all the parts of your right foot tightly. So your toes, The top of your foot, Your ankle. You can kind of flex your ankle back and forth. And just tense. We can get the shin involved. We're just going to do that. You can kind of tense and release. To keep that tense, So tensing those muscles for 10, And keep breathing through this, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And as you release your next long deep exhale, You can breathe into those muscles, Letting go of any tension. Notice the difference between your left and your right foot. And then we'll gently shift over to our left foot. I'm repeating that, So beginning to tense all parts of your left foot tightly. Your toes, Top of your foot, Your ankle flexing back and forth. We'll tense for 10, 9, Continue to breathe, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Releasing with a long deep exhale. Maybe a sigh into those muscles, Letting go of any tension or stress. Shifting up to our right upper thigh and right glute, So some big muscle areas. We're going to tense those as tightly as possible. And if some of these areas it feels kind of tough to tense them, To make them tense, Just notice that. So we're on our right glute and our right thigh, Our right upper thigh. We're going to tense those large muscles as tightly as possible for 10, 9, 8, 7, Don't forget to breathe, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Releasing with a deep exhale into those muscles. Shake them out a little bit if that feels good in your body, Letting go of anything no longer serving you. We'll notice the difference from our right side to our left side. And then shift to our left upper thigh and left glute. So, Tensing those muscles as tightly as possible, As tightly as we can, As big thigh and glute muscles for 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Let it all go. Releasing with a deep exhale, Letting go of anything we no longer need, Anything holding us down. Just notice your whole lower half of your body now. Notice how it's feeling, Anything that came up. Let it go. You can always pause this practice if there's a space in your body that feels like needs a little extra tensing or releasing or if you're feeling some of that anything come up that you'd like to just be there for a little bit longer. That's always an option. Moving up to our abdominal muscles, So tensing them, So kind of you might even have like a contracting feeling. Or your body kind of contracting. So tensing those for 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, And 1. Releasing with a deep exhale into those muscles, Freeing up any blockages, Letting go of anything no longer serving us, We no longer need. Alright, We're shifting to our back now. So we can kind of do our upper back and our lower back together, Or if you'd like to split them into two, You can do that as I'm talking as well. So we'll begin with our lower back, Tensing that area of our lower back. You can check out tensing lower back and upper back at the same time, Or just one and then the other. So we'll tense those back muscles. Don't forget to breathe. In and out through our nose. We often hold so much of our tension in our back so we can take our time here. Tensing for 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And release, Let it all go. Release with a deep exhale, Breathing into those back muscles. Thanking them for holding whatever they were holding. Reminding them that they can release, They can let it go. We've got this. Okay, Now shifting to our right hand. Do this. Shifting to your right hand, We can make a fist, Kind of tensing and releasing those fingers. You can go back and forth with your wrist, Flexing it forward and tensing, And then flexing it backward, Kind of rolling around. Whatever tense and release feels good in your right hand. For 10. Nine, Eight, Seven, Don't forget to breathe, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, And release. With a deep exhale, Breathing into those muscles, Maybe wiggling your fingers a little bit. You can notice the difference between your right hand and your left hand. And we'll shift our awareness now to our left hand. Doing the same thing, Tensing our fingers and a fist. We can flex our wrists back and forth. We can kind of roll our wrists around, Feeling any cracks, Letting those just come. Then we'll tense for 10, Nine, Eight, Breathing, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three two one let it all go releasing with a deep exhale into those muscles. You can wiggle the fingers if that feels good in your body. All right, Shifting now to our shoulders. We're going to flex them forward and upward toward our neck. We can go down our back body. We're going to tense our shoulders for 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Release. The deep exhale, Breathing into those shoulders. Another place where we hold a lot of tension, Or we can. I certainly do. Moving to our neck so with our neck we're going to be careful not to crunch the back of our neck but we'll look up gonna stretch the front of our neck kind of tense the back a little bit. Then we'll look down, Trench your chest. I'm just going to count down from 10 and you can go left ear to left shoulder come through the middle right ear to right shoulder and for 10 seconds just explore movement in your neck that feels good 10 9 8 seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One. Releasing with that deep exhale, Breathing into the neck. And last but not least is our face. So we're going to screw our face into a grimace, Kind of tinting our brow or forehead. It might feel kind of funny, That's okay. You can tint and release, You can tint and pretend. 9, 8, 7, 6, It's hard to do when I'm smiling, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Release. Breathing into the face, Maybe allowing the corners of your mouth to turn gently upwards. Into a smile. And we'll bring our awareness just to our whole body now from head to toe. Notice anywhere that you felt you were releasing something. You can return to that space if you would like and spend a little more time there, Tensing and releasing. Take any movement that feels good to you. If after that you're like, Oh, I need to get up and move around now, Or I just need to do some stretching, Or I'd like to get up and go for a run, Go for it. I'm not stopping you. And also just notice how you feel, Remembering how you rated yourself on the scale from zero to 10 at the beginning, Zero being no stress or tension, 10 being the most stress, The most tension. And how would you rate yourself now after this practice? Come back to this anytime you need to release some stress, Tension, Or fatigue. Thank you so much for taking time to do this practice with me. Send yourself a little gratitude and love for taking this time for yourself. It's always an honor to guide you through these practices. Until next time, Sending you so much love. Take such good care.