Hello,
This is Addie D.
Hilster and I'll be guiding you today through a body scan,
Which is a wonderful embodied mindfulness practice.
As we move our attention through the body in this practice,
The intention is to be receptive to sensations in a nonjudgmental way.
And sensations come in all kinds of forms.
Some places in the body will feel more,
Some less.
If there's an area that you know is a bit more emotionally fraught or that's experiencing a lot of physical pain,
You can skip over it for now and focus on areas that feel more neutral.
You can always include those areas another time when you feel ready.
Lastly,
If at any point you start to feel overwhelmed,
You can just open your eyes,
Look around,
Reorient to your present moment environment,
Shift your position,
Or totally stand up and stop the meditation if it's not quite right for you today.
With these options in mind,
The body scan can be a fantastic vehicle for exploring embodied presence on your own terms.
Let's get started.
Let's come into a comfortable seated position or lying down position.
Take a moment to arrange yourself so that you feel supported,
Feel steady.
Take a few breaths,
Letting yourself relax into the posture as much as possible.
And then starting to bring your attention to the top of the body,
To the head,
Notice any sensations around the top of the head and forehead.
There may not be a lot going on,
But we can be curious.
Maybe you notice some crinkle in your forehead or some engagement of muscles around your eyes.
We can soften and relax these areas as we become aware of them.
And we'll continue letting our attention flow down the face and the head,
Sides of the face,
Back of the head.
And through all the sense organs on the front of the face,
The eyes,
The nose,
The mouth.
Maybe you feel a breath as it flows in and out from this perspective of the nose and the mouth.
Maybe feel the jaw giving it permission to relax a little bit.
We'll keep our attention moving and flowing and let it move down into the throat and the neck.
With each area of the body,
We're just being receptive.
There may be a lot to feel there or not so much.
We're just kind of saying hello with our attention and listening for an answer,
Listening for any signals or sensations.
I'm starting to feel into the shoulders,
Shoulder joints,
The upper arm bones.
You might even feel areas where clothing is touching your skin.
Maybe you feel a muscle relaxing,
Continuing down through the elbows and the forearms.
Maybe you feel where your arms are resting on your lap or on the ground.
Moving into the hands,
Whatever the hands might be touching.
We can notice texture,
Softness,
Hardness.
We can notice that outside of the hand through whatever the hand is resting upon,
But also internally the textures of skin and bones and muscles.
Maybe you feel some temperature sensations in the hands like warmth or coolness.
Maybe some sensations of movement like little muscle twitches or the pulse of circulation,
Tingliness.
We'll bring our attention back up to the upper torso,
Around the chest and the upper back.
Finding ourselves in three-dimensional form,
The front and the back.
Chest and this energetic heart area.
We might feel physical sensations as well as emotional sensations,
Lightness,
Heaviness,
Expansiveness,
Contraction.
Keep our attention moving downward through the rib cage,
All around the front,
Back and sides of the ribs and this middle part of the torso.
Feeling movement with the breath perhaps.
Letting our attention move on down into the lower back as well as the abdomen,
The front of the body,
Feeling front to back this part of the torso.
Of course we feel some parts of the body more clearly than others,
Totally normal.
It can even change depending on your position or even the clothing you're wearing.
That can have an influence.
We can let our attention move into the very base of the torso,
The hips,
The pelvis.
You might feel how your body's resting on the ground or on a chair or cushion.
Maybe it's the back of the pelvis,
Maybe it's the sitting bones,
Depending on your posture.
Moving on down into the sense of the legs,
The upper part of the legs.
And when we reach a part of the body sometimes where there's an image or a memory or thought comes up,
An opinion we have about the body,
We can just acknowledge that.
We can note that as thinking,
Thinking.
And then we keep our body skin moving,
Staying with the pure sensations as much as we can.
Just feeling what the legs are contacting or what might be touching the skin.
Maybe moving on down into the knees and noticing any sensations there.
Notice of the bones and joints.
Noticing how the skin may pull tight over parts of the knees or may feel delicate in other parts of the knees.
Moving into the lower leg,
The shin and the calf.
Maybe you feel a muscle let go of some tension or you feel the weight of this part of the leg resting onto something or maybe it's a part of the body that feels less clear.
We're just curious,
Just exploring.
We continue to feel our way down into the ankles and then the feet.
Bringing our curiosity to the feet.
Feelings of touch,
Temperature,
Heaviness or lightness,
Twitchiness,
Tingliness,
Whatever's here to be noticed.
And let's see if we can open our attention from the feet all the way up to the rest of the body,
Feeling our whole form at once.
From the feet to the crown and the front to the back,
The left to the right.
Opening our lens of awareness wide enough to hold the whole body.
This full range of different sensations,
Some more pleasant,
Some less pleasant,
Some maybe neutral,
Some that are more intense,
Others more subtle.
Coming and going.
Feeling of the body like it's a universe,
It's the night sky and we're watching the sensations twinkle like the stars.
Sparkling on and off here and there.
Now a little brighter,
Now a little dimmer.
Just coming and going in this alive,
Breathing body.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your presence and your practice.
