Hi,
I'm Amy-Patty Colvin,
And thank you for joining me on this meditation of expressing gratitude for our bodies.
Find yourself a comfortable position.
You could be lying down,
You could be sitting up,
Whichever feels more relaxed and at ease to you in this moment.
And let's begin by taking some nice deep breaths all the way down into the belly.
Breathe in through the nose,
And follow the breath down through the lungs,
All the way down into the belly.
Just imagine that breath going down into that space that's in the center of the body,
A couple finger widths below the navel.
The space in the middle of the body,
A couple finger widths below the navel,
Is the Dantene,
Or sometimes known as the Sea of Chi.
It's the place where our life force resides.
And as we exhale,
Exhale from this space,
Up through the lungs,
And back out either through the nose or the mouth,
Whichever feels more comfortable for you in the moment.
Your eyes can be closed,
Or you can have a soft gaze.
And for just a few moments,
We'll continue focusing on the breath,
Bringing it deeply into the body,
All the way down into the Dantene.
Having full exhalations,
Pulling the stomach muscles in just a bit as you exhale,
Bringing that air up from the belly through the lungs,
And out either the nose or the mouth.
And throughout this meditation,
Do your best to continue breathing deeply and fully,
Allowing your belly to relax,
Feeling an expansion into your low back and sides as you breathe deeply and fully.
And bring your awareness to your feet.
And take a moment to express gratitude for your feet,
For the balance that they help you find in everyday life,
For the ability to rise up on your toes,
For the ability to balance on one foot or the other.
And just imagine bathing your feet in a warm golden light that's derived from your own internal energy.
If you'd like,
You can wiggle your toes to help you connect with your feet.
And then bring your awareness up to your ankles and say thank you to your ankles,
That complex joint that allows the full motion of the foot in conjunction with the leg.
The ankle joint allows us to leap and to bend our legs,
And again helps us with balance.
Bring to mind a time when you were joyful while using your feet and your ankles,
Knowing that if it weren't for that flexibility in that joint,
You might not have been able to do the thing you were doing.
And surround those ankles with a warm white light,
Penetrating all the way into all the ligaments and the tendons and the joint capsules of the ankle.
And bring your awareness up to the calves.
And for a moment,
Express gratitude for your calves.
Again,
Part of the process that allows our lower legs to move and function.
And say thank you to your calves for the hard work that they do.
And bathe your calves with that warm white light surrounding the outsides,
Allowing it to flow into the muscles and the fascia.
And bring your awareness up to your knees.
And say thank you to your knees.
Express gratitude for their flexibility and strength.
Sometimes our knees are achy.
And on those achy days,
Extend a special thank you and gratitude to the knees.
They help to hold you upright.
They help to move your legs.
They allow you to squat down and smell the flowers.
Or pet the bunny that's jumping across the grass.
Just bring to mind some joyful time where you have been in a squatted position and thank your knees for allowing you to get there.
And surround those knees with that golden white light,
Allowing it to circle around the knees and then fill all the way into the cartilage and the tendons and the ligaments.
And bring your awareness up to the thighs.
And say thank you to your thighs.
No matter the shape or the size,
The thighs help us be strong.
They help us stride forward in life.
And think of a time that you were joyful for the use of your thighs.
Perhaps you were riding a horse or jumping from side to side or forward over something.
Those big,
Strong,
Powerful muscles allow our legs to move with strength and grace.
And surround your thighs with that golden white light and allow that light to permeate into the muscles and the tendons of your powerful thighs.
And bring your awareness up to the joint that connects your legs to your buttocks,
That hip joint.
And be joyful and express gratitude for that hip joint that allows us to bend our legs,
Pull our legs up to our chest,
Extend our legs behind us,
Rotate and pivot.
And bring to mind some joyful time where you are using your hips and your legs.
And express gratitude for that joint,
Even if sometimes it's cranky.
And bring your awareness to your buttocks.
Truly the powerhouse of our body,
The strongest muscle in our entire body is found in the buttocks.
So be grateful and joyful for this strong and powerful muscle that moves us from sitting to standing,
That helps us climb stairs and walk up hills.
And bring to mind some time when you were joyful about that freedom of movement.
Maybe you were in nature walking up a hill to the top so you could see out to the far horizons.
Maybe you were at a museum and walking upstairs.
Say thank you and express gratitude to your buttocks.
And surround those big muscles with golden white light,
Allowing that light to surround your muscles and enter into the muscles,
Filling you inside and the outside with golden white energetic light.
And shift your attention forward to the pelvis,
The region that holds all of our reproductive organs.
That foundation of creativity and life.
And say thank you and express gratitude for your reproductive organs.
The seat of creativity and pleasure.
And bring to mind a time when you were truly creative,
Giving birth to an idea,
Giving birth or participating in the process of creating new life.
And surround your reproductive organs with that golden white light.
And bring your awareness up to the belly.
And say thank you and be grateful for your belly.
Sometimes it's hard to love the shape of our belly,
But it's an important part of who we are.
Inside the belly are strong abdominal muscles that help to keep us upright.
Our belly is the covering and the surroundings for many of our internal organs.
So say thank you and be grateful for your belly and the fact that it's part of who you are.
And surround your belly with golden white light,
Creating a sensation of ease and relaxation and acceptance.
And bring your awareness to the spine that runs from the tailbone all the way up to the base of the skull.
The spine is magnificent.
It allows you to be fluid and yet sturdy.
It allows you to bend from side to side and forward and back and twist.
And yet helps hold all of us together,
All parts of ourselves.
So say thank you and be grateful to your spine.
And bring to mind a joyful time when you were reaching and stretching or twisting,
Knowing that your spine helped you in that action.
And surround that spine with a golden white light.
Imagine wrapping that golden white light around every vertebra.
That light is flowing up and around your spinal column.
And spilling down your nerves as they exit the spine and innervate the body.
And bring your awareness to all of the organs in the belly,
The stomach,
The intestines,
The liver,
The spleen,
All the organs you can think of.
Those amazing muscles that do their jobs without our conscious awareness.
And say thank you and be grateful for all of the organs and all of the activity that they do of their own volition purely to keep you alive.
And imagine surrounding all of those organs with a golden white light.
Feeling that light enter into the organs.
Filling them with internal energy,
Helping them to do their job more easily and with grace.
And bring your awareness up into the rib cage and say thank you to and be grateful for your heart and your lungs as they too do so much of their work without our conscious direction.
And imagine a time that you were breathing deeply into the lungs smelling something fantastic.
It could be the scent of fresh baked bread or ocean air or a rose in your best friend's garden.
Be joyful and express gratitude for the lungs and the heart.
And surround those organs with a golden white light.
Filling all the nooks and crannies and valleys of the lungs and the heart with that life giving energy.
And expand your awareness outward to the ribs and say thank you and express gratitude for this amazing part of your skeleton that's so protective of those delicate organs inside.
And imagine surrounding your rib cage with that golden white light.
Bring that light to wrap around every rib.
Surrounding your body and entering into all of those spaces between the ribs,
All of those fine muscles.
And bring your awareness up to your shoulders and the shoulder joint,
That amazing joint that allows us to move our arms in so many different directions.
That joint allows us to move our arms up and over our head to the sides and the front and the back.
And say thank you and be grateful for that complex joint and all of the ligaments and muscles that attach to it for their flexibility and their strength.
And imagine just reaching joyfully up over your head towards the stars or the sun.
Feeling that fresh air on the face and knowing that you are able to reach your fingers up into the universe because of that magnificent flexible joint at the shoulder.
So say thank you to those shoulder joints and be grateful.
And surround the shoulders on the outside and deep into the joint with that golden white light.
And bring your awareness down through the arms,
The upper arms,
The elbows,
The forearms.
And say thank you and express gratitude for your arms.
The arms that allow you to hug a friend,
Cradle a baby,
Lift up and snuggle a puppy.
Think of a time where your arms have brought you joy.
And say thank you to your arms and express gratitude.
And then surround the arms with a golden warm light,
Allowing that light to enter into all of the muscles and ligaments and tendons and joints.
And bring your awareness down to your wrists and your hands and your fingers.
And say thank you,
Expressing gratitude for those fine motor skills that our hands and our fingers and our wrists allow us to have.
Our ability to thread a needle,
Our ability to knead bread or write with a pen or type on a keyboard.
And surround the wrists and the hands and the fingers with a golden warm light,
Allowing that warmth and light and energy to penetrate deeply into all of the ligaments and tendons and muscles and joints of the fingers,
The hands and the wrist.
And then bring your awareness back up to the neck,
The back of the neck,
The front of the neck.
And say thank you and be grateful for that resilience and strength that is found in the neck,
The ability to hold up our head in moments of joy and in moments of sorrow.
The ability to speak our voice,
Both metaphysically and physically.
The ability to look from side to side and up and down.
So say thank you to your neck and be grateful and bring to mind a joyful memory of when you either were able to hold your head high or speak your truth.
And then bring your awareness up into the brain,
That magnificent organ that allows us to do so many things.
It's so complex and we know so little about it.
And yet we do know that we are alive,
We are able to see and hear and taste and smell.
And all of those senses are processed by our brains.
So say thank you and express gratitude for the brain that you have.
And imagine filling that brain and surrounding the brain with that golden warm white light.
Allowing that energy and that warmth to flow into all of the nooks and crannies of the brain.
Allowing our own internal sense of self to expand and glow.
And bring your attention to your skull,
That amazing bony structure that protects our brain,
That provides the scaffolding for so many of our sensory organs.
And say thank you and express gratitude for your skull.
And bring to mind a time where you were joyfully hearing something or smelling something or seeing something.
And know that your skull played a part in that.
And surround your skull with a warm white light.
Allowing that light to permeate the bones.
Allowing all those spaces between the bone with light and energy.
And now your entire body is surrounded and filled with that golden warm light.
That energy that is just yours and yours alone.
And as you carry that lightness with you,
After having expressed joy and gratitude for so many aspects of your body,
As you move out into the world,
People will notice.
That you're radiating peace and joy and light.
And bring your awareness back into the belly,
To the dantene,
That space in the center of the body a couple finger widths below the belly button.
The sea of chi,
That source for all of that golden warm light.
And as we wind this meditation down,
Just take a few breaths again into the dantene,
Noticing all of the imagery.
And simply allowing yourself to be without thinking or doing,
Simply breathing.
Feeling that breath as it comes in and flows out.
And when you're ready,
Let's bring this meditation to a close and move on with your day.
Thank you for joining me and I look forward to talking with you again.
Bye bye.
