Gently Held: Deeply Relaxing & Detailed Body Scan (No Music)

Let yourself be gently held in this most relaxing and nurturing body scan that goes beyond the traditional body scan to explore many often-overlooked parts. Revel in this unhurried, spacious and soothing experience either as a calming and rejuvenating practice during the day or as a restorative sleep meditation.

This version has just Wendy Sue’s gentle voice holding you throughout. There is another version with music to suit other moods. E n j o y !

Photo by Wendy Sue

Transcript

Hi,

And thank you for joining me to take a little break,

Relax,

Scan our bodies and come back refreshed,

Relaxed and ready to take on the day or maybe go to sleep.

You can use this any time,

So let's just sit back in our chair or our bed,

Maybe you like to lie on the floor,

Whatever feels right to you now,

Listen for a moment for what your body would like and get really comfortable.

Take a deep breath in and let it out.

Take two more deep breaths at your own speed and time.

Anything that's been going on before this meditation or that might follow,

We let it just fly into the air,

Like feathers in the wind,

Flying out of sight and out of mind.

Letting our jaw be heavy,

Our shoulders fall from our ears,

Feeling gently held by your surface and maybe the blankets around you,

Your pillow.

And let's start at the very top of our head.

Feel where your part is or if you don't have a part,

Just feel those hairs right in the middle of the top of your scalp.

You can almost zero in and feel those three or four hairs.

And slowly,

Letting your sense of feeling inside,

Inside your head,

On the surface of your head,

Let that feeling of those hairs spill out into so many hairs growing out of your head or maybe where hair used to grow if you don't have hair on your head.

All the little nerve endings on your scalp,

Imagine just honey dripping down your head very slowly,

And comes down the back of your neck,

Just before your ears and your eyelids and your forehead.

You feel really encapsulated and secure,

Feeling really protected by the feeling of this honey.

You feel your eyebrows.

You can almost feel the hair on your eyebrows,

Imagining the shape and the feeling going together.

And then your eyelids.

Maybe you've closed your eyes already or you can now if you'd like,

And just imagining how smooth your eyelids are,

Ending in those eyelashes,

Almost as if you can feel each little eyelash,

All lined up,

Top and bottom lids.

And underneath those lids,

Your eyes with all the many,

Many tiny little muscles,

Just letting those muscles relax,

Let down,

They don't have to do a job right now,

And come down the bridge of your nose,

On each side of the nostril,

Where the nostril flares out,

And inside the nostril,

Where you can feel the air you're breathing in and breathing out.

On either side of the nostril,

We feel our cheeks.

Maybe the cheeks are feeling puffy,

Or maybe they feel flat against your cheekbones,

Or letting them feel heavy and hang down.

On the far end of each cheek,

We have your ears.

Let's imagine our left ear first,

Looking like a little shell,

The most beautiful shell you picked from the beach.

The outside of your ear is similar to that,

It's twists and turns and curls.

You don't have to do this now,

But if you want to do this,

You can massage your left ear,

Pull down on the lobe and pull out,

Very relaxing,

Stimulating the vagus nerve.

And then let's go to our right ear,

Another beautiful shell,

Twists and turns and curls,

Beautiful shaped sculpture on the side of your head.

You can imagine doing this,

Or you can do it later,

Or you can do it right now.

Give yourself a little ear massage,

All around the top and side and bottom of your ear,

Ending with a little pull on your earlobe,

Down and out.

It's extremely relaxing.

And then going down to your mouth,

Your top lip,

Your bottom lip,

The inside of your lips,

Such different texture than the outside,

Your upper teeth and jaw,

Relaxing,

Letting go of any holding,

Your bottom teeth and bottom jaw also just hanging down,

Slack jaw.

Open mouth,

Letting your tongue just rest as it wants,

Feeling the tip of your tongue,

The sides of your tongue,

The top of your tongue,

The bottom of your tongue.

Your tongue can almost feel like it's spreading out in your mouth,

Like a rug being unrolled.

Coming down to your chin and imagining the shape of your chin and all the little nerve endings on your chin.

Come down your neck,

The front of your neck,

The sides of your neck,

The back of your neck,

Your neck doing such a good job holding up your head.

And if you're lying down,

You know that your neck is able to rest.

If you're sitting up,

Thank you neck for holding my heavy head.

Coming down to the chest,

Breathe into your heart and out.

Let's go down the left shoulder,

The feeling,

The similarity of the shoulder shape to the chin shape,

Sort of rounded.

Then under the arm,

Concave,

Soft,

Underbelly of the arm.

Down the arm,

The front and back of the top of the arm,

Leading to the elbow.

Maybe imagine swirling around your arm slowly,

Like the softest velvet ribbon.

Getting to your elbow,

Feeling inside the elbow,

Another concave,

Very soft area.

Forearm,

The soft underside and the top,

Leading to the wrist.

So many arteries going through the body,

Through so many bones in the wrist and the hand,

Extending into those,

The bones of your fingers.

Let's go down our pinky finger,

Feel the pinky nail,

Sliding down that pinky finger and then up the ring finger.

Up the ring finger and capped by the ring finger nail.

Down the ring finger and up the middle finger,

Capped by the middle finger nail.

Sliding down the middle finger,

Up to the pointer,

Feeling all around the pointer,

Capped by the pointer fingernail.

And swooping up and around the thumb,

Feeling the pad of the thumb and the fingernail on the other side.

Then coming up the arm again,

Through the underarm,

Going down the side of the body,

The left side,

The ribs,

The waist,

Your hip,

Really feeling into your hip,

Such a strong bone.

Down your left thigh,

The side of the thigh,

The front of the thigh,

The other side,

The inner thigh and the back of the thigh.

Your knee,

The front of your knee,

With the patella,

The round bone in the front of the knee,

And the soft,

Soft back of the knee,

Another inner belly,

Like our underarm.

Down your calf,

The back of your leg,

Coming around to your shin,

Bone coming almost to the very top of the skin.

Down to your ankle,

The little protrusions on each side of your ankle,

Going down the top of your foot,

Under your foot,

The sole of your foot,

Another soft part of our bodies.

Then wrapping around the heel of the foot,

Similar to our shoulder,

Rounded,

Powerful.

Then coming up to our big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

And pinky toe,

And feeling the spaces in between those toes,

And the little parts on the bottom in between each toe.

Take a big breath in,

And imagine drawing that breath up your body,

And crossing over to the right shoulder.

Let's go around that shoulder,

Capping the shoulder,

The round,

Strong shoulder.

Down the back of your arm,

And your inner arm can have that same velvet ribbon twirling around the arm softly.

Your elbow,

The inner part of your elbow,

Soft,

Inner belly of your elbow.

Down the forearm,

The inner part of your forearm so soft,

And to your right,

The left wrist,

The right wrist,

Your right wrist bones,

Finger bones.

This time we'll start with our thumb,

Going around,

Swooping around your thumb,

Feeling the thumb pad,

And the thumb fingernail,

And then swooping around,

And up to your pointer,

Capped by the pointer fingernail,

And swooping down and up to the middle finger,

Capped by the middle finger fingernail,

Swooping down and up the ring finger,

Capped by the ring finger fingernail,

And finally up the pinky,

With the pinky fingernail coming down the other side to the heel of your hand,

Top of your hand,

Palm of your hand.

Breathing up to your right ribs,

Right waist,

Right hip bone,

Strong hip bone,

Front of your thigh,

Right side of the right thigh,

Back of your thigh,

Soft inner thigh,

Kneecap,

Around the round patella of the right kneecap,

And then feeling back into that soft behind the knee place,

So soft,

Another concave spot,

Down the calf,

Following the curves of the calf,

And feeling the front of the shin,

Smooth shin,

Into the ankle,

With a little protrusion on each side of the bone,

Left and right of the right ankle,

All the bones in the ankle,

Just like the wrists,

So many bones,

So many little tendons and muscles relaxing and letting down,

The top of the foot,

The bottom of the foot,

The big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

And pinky toe,

Imagining the spaces between the toes,

And at the bottom of the spaces between the toes,

Just relaxing,

And from your toes,

From your feet,

Breathe all the way to your sacrum,

The bottom of your spine,

There's a flat part of your sacrum,

Imagine your hand just touching that flat part,

Resting on your sacrum,

Just above the tailbone,

And then breathe up each of your vertebrae and your backbone,

All the way to your neck,

Imagine your breath,

Winding in and out of each vertebrae,

Twirling around,

Taking whatever route it wants up to your neck,

And then spreading your wings,

Your shoulder blades,

All the way down your back,

And then imagine the entire body,

From those three little hairs at the top of your head,

To your two pinky toes,

To your middle fingers,

To your heart,

To your eyelids,

Around your neck,

Your earlobes,

And your ears,

Thank you for this visit,

Thank you for taking the time,

You can rest with all of this embodied relaxation,

For all the time you took with all the parts of your body,

For all the appreciation,

For all the attention,

Breathing in and breathing out,

And listen if anywhere in your body is calling for your attention,

You can revisit that area,

With presence,

And kindness,

And love,

Your body's going everywhere with you,

Doing its best,

Just stay as long as you want,

And when you feel ready,

Really listen when you feel ready,

Not a moment before,

You could hear the sound of your breath,

Take a deeper breath,

Notice sounds around you,

Maybe wiggle your fingers,

Wiggle your toes,

Rotate your wrists and ankles,

Move your body in the way it feels comfortable,

And just notice how you feel now,

To how you felt when you just first hit play,

Thank you so much for joining me today,

I've really enjoyed this trip around our body,

And I look forward to seeing you again soon.