Hi there,
Dr Adele Stewart guiding you on what we call the back body practice which is a practice that Manuela Mischka-Reeds,
A trauma therapist,
Developed.
So firstly taking a comfortable seated posture.
If you want to close your eyes that's ideal but it's fine if you want to keep them open,
Downcast.
You can have your posture relaxed but alert and in this practice it's best if you're not actually leaning back on anything but have a little bit of space between you and whatever supports you at the back,
Unless that's not right for you of course.
So taking this upright dignified posture,
Feeling quite centered and grounded.
So notice your spine,
Although I speak about an upright posture,
Really the spine is gently curved.
Can you feel that?
Because there's no real such thing as a straight spine,
It's a beautiful curved spine.
Notice the sky is above you,
The earth is beneath you.
Feeling the solidity and the ground of the earth.
Notice the contact of your sit bones,
Perhaps the soles of the feet solidly on the ground or if you're cross-legged or kneeling just notice the base of your body on the ground and notice also that your crown is reaching towards the vast open sky.
Letting your attention now draw inward and begin to notice the front of your body.
Notice tension or perhaps softness in the forehead,
In the eyes,
Maybe in the jaws and then consciously with your breath using each exhale to soften in the muscles around the face,
Particularly around the eye sockets,
Corners of your mouth,
Behind your ears,
The jaw muscles.
Gradually moving down the front of the body,
Softening the throat,
The front of your chest,
Your solar plexus,
Your belly,
Your pelvis,
Tops of your legs,
Front of the legs,
All the way down to the feet and coming back to the shoulders on each exhale,
Seeing if you're able to soften the shoulders a little.
Moving down the front of the arms and hands as you notice the front of your body.
If there's any part that is still holding a bit of tension you can even sort of clench that part of you,
Perhaps contracting that part of you and then notice how it is to relax,
To soften with the exhale.
Not worrying too much if it doesn't work.
So now I'd like you to include in your awareness the space behind the layers of the front of your body.
You might even have the sense there's like a channel or a tube that runs from the crown of your head down the front of your spine all the way down to your perineum.
You can think of this channel as an energetic space,
Like the centre axis of your body.
So beginning now to drop your breath into that central channel.
As you're breathing in you can feel the breath rolling up from the bottom of the pelvis all the way to the crown of the head.
And as you exhale that breath descends from the crown all the way down to the perineum.
So you're breathing slow steady breaths in the centre of your body in that central channel and each breath has a soft rolling quality,
Perhaps like gentle ocean waves,
Fluid breath.
The soft front body and the fluid centred breath.
Staying with that for a moment.
So like the ocean waves these breaths travel up and down this channel of your centre in a slow and easy way.
I just invite you now to become aware of your back body,
The back of your head,
The back of your neck,
The back of your shoulders,
The muscles alongside the spine,
Your buttock cheeks,
The back of your legs.
Just the tiniest little millimetre you're making a tiny shift as if you're kind of backing up into your back.
So you feel an engagement of the whole back,
Relaxed but alert.
So almost as though you're backing yourself up.
You've got this lovely soft front body.
The breath is fluid in that central channel just in front of the spine and you're locating yourself now into the back of your whole body like a comfortable sofa.
You're just moving into your back muscles,
Your energetic back space while the front of the body is soft and the breath is travelling in that central channel.
It's a very small adjustment,
A tiny tiny movement and it can be dynamic.
It can be constantly shifting a little back and forth.
It's easeful if possible.
So feeling that quality of backing yourself up and you're the whole entirety of your back.
Strong muscles alongside the back,
The awareness that comes in the back of your head.
Strong muscles and your buttocks and your seat and a long slow rolling breath in the centre.
A soft front body,
Engaged back body.
And that might be enough for you now but you also might like to imagine that you have a person in front of you that is suffering in some way.
Just noticing how would you meet them from this place?
How is it different to be in this quality of back body engagement and awareness?
The breath fluid in that channel and a soft front body.
Notice the quality of your body and your awareness.
Letting go of the practice now and gently starting to externalise the awareness and move the body a little.
Know that this is a wonderful practice when you're with another as well as when you're on your own.
