Gentle Mindful Movement

This guided mindful movement intentionally is very gentle and spacious as the goal is to develop mindfulness with any physical benefits being secondary. Notice any impatience with the slowness and use this an opportunity to be even more mindful. All of Adele's meditations are unscripted. Adele would like to thank Amanda and Loretta for inspiring this meditation.

Transcript

This moving meditation was recorded by Adele Stewart,

MBSR teacher,

At the Mount Kirra Scout Camp day retreat in June 2020.

So finding yourself a comfortable lying position,

Starting on the back.

Perhaps it might feel comfortable to have the legs stretched out flat,

Or perhaps more comfortable to have the feet flat on the floor with the knees pointing to the ceiling,

Or even having the feet out at the edges of the mat with the knees touching.

Noticing the points of contact,

Perhaps areas of softness in the body,

Tension.

Noticing the breath coming and going.

And placing the feet now flat on the floor with the knees pointing to the ceiling.

Starting off with some gentle pelvic rocks.

Perhaps rocking with the breath,

So you might breathe in as the tailbone goes down and there's a little arch in the back,

And then breathing out as the back flattens and the pubic bone lifts.

Really keeping the attention in the pelvis,

Noticing all the points of contact.

Perhaps the pleasant sensation of the movement.

The change in the weight and the feet,

Sensations in the legs.

You might even notice the whole body is moving a little bit with the pelvic rock,

Or if it isn't,

Maybe experimenting with allowing the whole body.

You can feel you right up to where the back of the head's on the mat might be moving.

And then coming into a resting position,

Noticing the effect on the body of the pelvic rocks.

And now keeping the feet on the floor and the knees pointing upwards,

Perhaps putting the arms out horizontal in a T-shape.

Doing some gentle twists,

So moving the knees to the left,

And perhaps the head to the right.

Coming back to centre,

Moving the knees to the right and perhaps the head to the left.

Continue to do this,

Perhaps with the breath.

Maybe seeing if it can become a flowing graceful movement.

Perhaps you might notice it's anything but.

Feeling the gentle twist in the spine,

Noticing how far it feels comfortable to take your knees down to the side.

And keeping the knees together if that's possible for you.

One more time on each side,

And this time maybe staying with the knees to the side and feeling that sort of edge where it's not too uncomfortable,

But you can really feel that twist.

Maybe your knees might be right down to the ground,

Maybe not.

Taking a few gentle breaths to explore that edge on each side.

Coming back to having the knees pointing to the ceiling.

Perhaps just putting a hand on each knee and gently pulling the knees into the chest.

You might want to stay like this,

You might want to do some little bit of rocking from side to side.

Perhaps noticing that massaging effect on the lower back and the upper back.

Coming into a resting position,

Noticing the effect on the body.

So keeping now the left knee pointing to the ceiling,

The left foot flat on the floor.

And taking now just the right knee towards the chest.

Gently pulling it in towards the chest on a breath out,

And then moving the knee away from the body on the breath in.

Back and forth with the breath.

You might even want to give that knee a little bit of resistance when it comes out against your hands,

Noticing the tension in the buttock and the back of the right thigh.

And then bringing it back into the chest.

Perhaps giving that right knee a bit of a circle,

Feeling the movement in the hip joint as you hold the right knee and circle it two or three times in each direction.

Bringing it again into the chest gently.

And now if this feels right for your body,

On the breath in straightening that right leg so that the sole of the foot is facing the ceiling.

Keeping the leg as bent as it needs to be,

But straighter than it was.

And then on the out breath,

Bringing that knee back into the chest with the knee bent.

Again with the flow of the breath,

Straightening,

Maybe you might even want to put your hands behind your right thigh as you do that.

And bringing the knee into the chest.

Respecting your body's limits.

And this time when you have the leg straightish,

Perhaps doing some movements of the ankles here,

You might want to keep your hands behind your right thigh for some support,

Bending the foot right back and then pointing the foot a few times.

And then making circles with the ankles,

The right ankle,

So that the toes are painting a little circle.

And then when you've had enough,

Bringing that knee into the chest again with the bent leg.

And if you've had enough with this leg,

Feel free to rest,

Or if not,

Placing the right ankle on the left knee with the right knee pointing out to the side with the knee bent.

And either staying here or perhaps you might want to put your hands behind your left thigh and pull the left thigh towards you.

This is sometimes called threading the needle.

You might want to move a little bit while you're here,

Again finding that nice stretch in the buttock.

A good position if you've been doing lots of sitting meditation.

And then releasing that right leg down,

Either with both knees bent or with the legs straight.

And notice now the difference between the right side of the body and the left.

And keeping the right knee pointing to the ceiling,

Right foot flat on the floor,

And now moving to the left leg,

So wrapping the hands around the left knee,

Pulling that knee into the chest on an out breath.

And then away from the body a little bit on the in breath.

Again feeling if it feels good for you to give yourself some resistance with the hands on the knee as the knee comes out.

Flowing with the breath.

So holding the left knee and rolling that knee around,

Getting some sensation in that left hip.

And then pulling the knee into the chest and straightening the left leg as best you can with the foot facing towards the ceiling.

The leg nearly straight,

Or perhaps for you it needs to be still quite bent.

And flowing with the breath here,

So breathing out as the knee comes into the chest.

And pointing the leg up to the ceiling.

And then with the legs straight,

Sole of the foot facing the ceiling,

You might want to hold that thigh with your hands behind your left thigh.

And some movements of the foot,

Maybe pointing the foot and then bending it.

And then painting some circles with the toes,

Feeling the movement in the ankles.

And then if you'd like to,

You can bend that left knee and place the left ankle over the right knee.

And perhaps the hands behind the right thigh,

Getting that stretch in the left buttock,

Thread the needle.

And releasing the legs now into a resting posture,

Noticing how the whole body feels,

Comparing the left and the right side.

Moving into bridge pose now,

So again placing the feet flat on the floor,

Perhaps a bit closer to the buttocks with the knees pointing to the ceiling.

And on an in-breath,

Lifting the buttocks off the ground to the bridge pose,

On an out-breath,

Rolling the spine down vertebra by vertebra to come to rest.

And continue this flowing movement,

The hips up off the ground and the breath in,

Rolling the spine down and the breath out.

And only if you'd like to,

You can bring your arms into this as well so that when the hips are lifted,

You might want to put the arms above the head so that they actually rest down behind you.

And then bringing them back down to your sides as the spine rolls down.

Resting the body,

Noticing the effect of that bridge pose.

And the last lying movement,

Placing the feet more towards the sides of the mat and allowing both the left knees to come down to the left,

With the head going to the right,

Then knees pointing to the ceiling and knees then relaxing to the right.

Like a pair of windscreen wipers,

You might want to have your arms out in the T position.

And when you've evened yourself up,

Coming into a resting position,

Noticing how the body feels after the lying movements.

Noticing the breath coming and going.

Any change in temperature of the body,

Any sensations in the legs or pelvis or back.

And now bringing yourself slowly up into a sitting posture.

Maybe sitting cross-legged for a little while to get used to being vertical again.

Maybe doing some wrist movements here,

So making like kangaroo paws and then changing the direction so that the palms face upward and there's a bend back in the wrists.

Kangaroo paws and then opening the palms.

And relaxing the hands on the knees.

Doing some very gentle figure of eights with the head.

So using the nose to draw a figure of eight on its side.

Maybe starting off with a very small one.

And really noticing the sensations in the neck as the figure of eight gets a little bigger.

Noticing areas of flow and perhaps other areas where things feel a little sticky or clunky.

And at some point reversing the direction so that you're roughly even.

Really noticing the sensations in the neck.

And then perhaps doing some shrugging of the shoulders,

So pulling the shoulders right up to the ears and then releasing them.

Maybe flowing with the breath.

Maybe you might want to put your fingertips on your shoulders and do some shoulder rotations,

So like you're doing circles in the air with the elbows,

Bringing the elbows in together on the out breath and then out wide on the in breath.

And then reversing that direction.

And noticing the effect on the gentle joint rotations.

And moving into a hands and knees position,

A bit like a table top.

Moving into the cat cow pose,

So arching the small of the back up,

Looking down on an out breath.

And then flattening the back,

Arching it the other way,

Looking up on the in breath.

From cat to cow.

And then coming back to rest in child's pose,

Putting the bottom back on the feet with the arms either stretched out in front or by your sides.

Relaxing and releasing into this posture.

Maybe even really curling up tightly like a little baby wrapped in a blanket.

And then for those that want to,

Coming back into the table top position,

Doing some tail wagging.

Moving the hips from one side to the other,

Notice what your head wants to do,

Maybe you want to turn to the same side or maybe the other side.

And you might even want to do some rotations here,

So rotating the whole of the pelvis and hips around one direction and then the other.

And for those who'd like to,

You can even get your whole body involved,

So really coming quite forward and back almost into child's pose.

Getting a lot of movement in those hips and even in the shoulders.

And again,

Coming back into child's pose with the knees a little apart.

Taking a full rest.

We're going to slowly move into a standing position now,

So either coming up whichever way is easiest for you,

Nice and slowly.

You might want to tuck your toes under and come into a bit of a squatting position on the toes.

And then putting the heels to the ground with the hands still on the ground,

Gradually straightening the knees and unfolding the spine up.

Vertebra by vertebra.

Perhaps taking a big breath in if you feel any dizziness as you stand up.

And resting for a little while in a standing posture,

Just noticing the difference between the lying,

The sitting,

The kneeling and now the standing.

Perhaps here you might like to sway a little bit back and forward,

So taking the weight a little bit on the balls of the feet and then onto the heels until you find a really steady sense of gravity.

You might even want to do the same to each side.

So you have a sense of really finding nice balanced grounded posture.

Perhaps having the hands facing the front of the room,

The shoulders a little bit back,

Chin tucked in a little so that string is pulling you up gently from the crown of the head.

And relaxing what we call the mountain pose now.

Bringing the weight into,

Say,

Your left foot.

You're putting the right foot forward.

Imagine maybe that you're dipping your toes into the water at the beach.

So exploring the water and the sand.

Or depending on the temperature,

Maybe you might want to,

You might prefer to imagine putting that foot into a beautiful warm slipper.

Exploring the sensation of that slipper as the really bend the toes,

Spread the toes out,

Find the weight on either side of the toes,

Either side of the heel.

Maybe even having a little bit of appreciation for having feet,

Even if they're not the perfect feet.

And then coming back into a standing posture,

Noticing the difference between the two feet.

And moving now to having the left foot out.

Delicately exploring either the edge of the water and sand at the beach or that nice fluffy slipper.

Noticing the toes,

Spreading them out,

Bending them,

Straightening them,

Exploring,

Rocking through the balls of the feet,

Both sides of the heel.

And again,

Coming into standing.

Moving into some rotations of the hips,

Like doing a hula hoop now.

Maybe starting off quite small and then increasing the movement,

Noticing if this is nice and graceful and flowing or a bit clunky.

And then evening and up on the other side.

And then perhaps you might want to move into sort of more of a figure of eight with the hips.

So you might need your feet quite far apart and have a bit of a bend in the knees.

And then you might want to get your arms involved now.

So a real free flow of the arms as you figure of eight the hips.

It might be like a sort of swimming type movement.

First forearm and then back arm.

Or it might be more like you've got a big ball between the hands that is moving.

Experimenting what feels right for your body today.

Maybe if you're doing this practice with no one watching,

You could just let your body just move exactly the way it wants to.

Flowing movements of the legs,

The arms,

The torso,

The waist and the hips.

You might feel that you want to reverse the direction or maybe not.

So.

And making any movements that you're doing smaller.

Until you come to a standstill and standing with the feet about hip width apart,

Perhaps palms facing forward,

Noticing any sensations in the body now from top to toe.

Remember like any meditation practice,

There's likely to be other experience that comes up in the moving meditation.

Thoughts,

Perhaps judgments.

No need to block them out.

Just noticing what the mind brings up and returning the attention over and over again to the body.

Perhaps with that kind,

Curious attitude.

And for those who'd like to,

Speeding up again with the arms just swinging now.

Swinging to the front and to the back.

Maybe breathing in as the arms come forward and out as they go back.

And just noticing the knees off lock,

Either quite bent or a little bit bent.

And slowing that down.

Noticing how the body feels after the more dynamic practice.

Now moving to a spinal twist.

So maybe having the feet out even a little bit wider.

Arms might be up at the sides just a little bit or maybe up at a 90 degree angle and twisting to each side,

Looking around the back of you.

You might want to do this nice and slowly or you might want to make this a dynamic practice also.

You might even want to tap yourself on your lower back and your shoulder.

And slowing down.

When you've come to a standstill,

Noticing perhaps any tingling in the hands,

Sensations in the shoulder blades,

Perhaps change in the breath or the temperature of the body.

And making the feet now a little bit closer together.

And making a sort of flying movement to the arms.

So fly the arms up with the palms facing downwards until they nearly touch at the top.

And then flying them down.

And then another option is to come up onto your tiptoes as you come up and down.

Keeping the knees off lock and having this real sense of almost like graceful flying.

Your big wings.

In as you go up and out as you come down.

Noticing the balancing aspect if you're coming up onto the balls of your feet.

And then slow the flying down.

Make the movement smaller and smaller.

Noticing the whole body after the movement practice.

Reviews

Hello beautiful 🎀🌸🎀🌸🎀Thank you so much for the wonderful movements⭐️🌞my sun is shining and I’m smiling 🗺️ much love 🕉️Namaste