Loving Hands Meditation

Touch calms our nervous centre and slows down our heartbeat. Providing this touch for ourselves as a mindfulness practice in this precious 15 minutes encourages self-reliance, body acceptance and distraction from thoughts. Human touch also lowers blood pressure as well as cortisol, our stress hormone and triggers the release of oxytocin.

Transcript

This is the loving hands meditation.

Our objective is to touch ourselves all over lovingly.

So in order to do this we start with our hands in the prayer position.

Then we open it out so that our thumbs are still touching.

We've got the two palms of our hands that we are now going to cup the foot in.

So we are going to start with your right foot.

So we are going to put your foot in between your hands and feel your palm of your hand making contact with the whole of your foot.

So slowly,

Deliberately and carefully making sure that the warmth of the surface of the palms of your hands are touching your foot all over.

So you could have one hand on the left side,

One hand on the right side,

One hand above,

One hand below.

Make sure you move from your toes all the way to your heels.

Make sure your palms are making contact with your ankles.

Your left side of your ankle,

Your right side of your ankle.

Now you are slowly going to move up your leg,

Up your calf,

Cupping your calf in between your palms.

All you are doing is making sure that every single area of your skin is being touched by the palms of your hands.

And if you can put love in your hands,

Even if not love,

Just attention is fine.

Giving attention to the whole surface of your body that's within your reach.

So you are moving up your calf now.

Keep moving all the time up.

Just a gentle contact and then move.

Hold and then move.

Just moving your hands around and all the way up to your knees.

Don't forget the back of your knees and your palms.

You can have your knees in between them and then you move slowly up your thigh.

So making sure that your palms are touching every surface of your skin on your thigh.

The front of your thigh,

The side of your thigh,

The underside of your thigh.

The inside of your thigh,

Working your way up to your crotch.

That's it.

Find your hands touching just slowly and deliberately,

Your palms making contact.

Under your buttock,

All the way around your buttock.

All the way up,

Up your hip.

Down the front of your groin.

A crease between your leg and your pelvis.

Your genital area,

Your perineum.

Then you make your way down to your left foot and cup your foot in your palms.

Feel the warmth of your palms as your foot is sandwiched in between them.

All the way from your toes to your heels.

Make sure your whole soul has felt your palm of your hands.

The top of your foot has felt the palm of your hands.

Just gently cupping all over your foot and move to your ankle.

Cup your ankles.

Make sure you do the outside of your ankles,

The back of your ankles,

The inside of your ankles.

And then work your way slowly up your calf.

Feeling the warmth of the palm of your hands,

Noticing that warmth on your skin.

And making sure that all of your skin feels that warmth and attention.

Taking your way up the calf,

Deliberately,

Carefully.

Trying not to miss one bit so that each part of your skin has felt the contact of your hand.

Up to your knee,

Cupping your knee between your palms and then working up your thigh.

Cup the inside of your thigh.

All the way up.

The front.

The outside.

The back.

Moving all the way up towards your buttock.

Churning up your thigh,

Making sure every single piece of skin has been touched by the palms of your hands.

All the way up to your groin.

Under your buttocks.

A crease between your torso and your leg.

Then around all of your butt cheeks.

Gently feeling the warmth of your hands,

Making sure you can contact yourself.

Okay,

Now we're going to move into the lower belly.

The pubic bone,

Your crotch.

You can have one hand on the left crease and one hand on the right crease.

And then cup your pubic bone.

Move around your lower belly,

Making sure the whole area has been touched by your hands.

Make sure that the middle of your buttocks have been touched.

And make a kind of ring around your body with your palms touching all the way around in a circle around the lower part of your body.

Obviously with the back we can't reach quite as well as we'd like to,

But the lower part of your back should manage to get the attention of your palms.

And move up as soon as you've done the lower ring.

Move up another layer.

This might include your navel.

Your full part of your belly.

Just feel your hands go all the way around.

From one side to the other.

As far around each side as you can manage.

And then all the way up higher.

Now you might have one hand above the other and you'll be moving in a curve from under your armpits to the top chest over your breast.

From one side to the other.

To the other armpit.

As far around as you can reach.

And then your next ring might be from your shoulders.

The real upper chest and the collar bones.

You can cup your hands all around your shoulders up to your neck.

Starting on one side,

Including your neck and your collar bones.

And the throat.

Put your hands on your throat.

To the next side of your neck and the collar bones and your shoulders.

Going all the way around your neck and all the way around your shoulders.

And move down an arm.

Take your right arm.

You can use your left hand to.

.

.

The surface of your palm touches your whole arm.

That can include your underarm.

And all around the upper side of your arm.

As long as every single part of your skin has been touched,

You know you're doing a good job.

Bringing attention to parts of your body that may never have had such slow,

Careful attention.

Just by giving attention to your body,

It fills your appreciation.

So moving all the way down from your shoulder to your wrist,

Making sure that the whole of your arm has had contact with your left palm.

Cupping your right hand in your left palm.

Making sure you touch all the fingers.

Hold all the fingers.

Hold your wrist.

When you've completed,

Move to your left arm.

Move your attention to your left arm.

So you're going to be holding it with the surface of your palm,

Touching as much of your left arm as possible.

So including your shoulder,

Including your underarm.

Slowly work your way down your arm.

Just moving your right hand so that it gently contacts all of the skin.

Moving down to your elbow.

Just cupping your arm.

Working your way from the shoulder to the wrist,

Slowly giving it attention.

Taking your right hand and wrapping it around your left hand all the way down to the fingers.

Let it feel wrapped up,

Enveloped with the attention.

Touching every surface of skin that you can.

Now,

You can use both hands to touch the back of your neck and as much of your back as you can reach.

So at this point we're just doing as much as we can.

See how much of your surface of your back you can touch with the palms of your hands.

You can put your hands under and try,

Put your hands over and try.

There'll be bits that you can't touch,

But you can send your attention to them.

You can cuddle yourself.

That's another way to try and reach the parts of your back that you can't reach.

Just wrap yourself in your own arms.

Give yourself a hug.

Give yourself a hug with the left arm over the right arm,

The right arm over the left arm.

Any way you can just to make contact with your back and your hands.

You can even try the move where you try and let their two hands touch each other.

One hand over your shoulder and one hand under.

Cup your neck between your hands,

Your left hand and right hand with your neck in between.

Now put your hands over your face.

Feel your hands cover the whole of your face.

Move from one side to the other.

Put your hands over your ears.

Put the hands over the back of the skull,

Sides of the skull,

The top of your head,

Your temples.

Cup your eyes.

Make sure you've not missed a single part of your face.

Your forehead.

You can have one hand at the front,

One hand at the back.

Swap them around.

Now take your two hands and place them over your heart.

The job is done.