Body scan meditation.
Beginning by taking a few deeper breaths.
Bringing the awareness into the body.
And giving yourself an overall sense of how you are right now.
The overall flavour of your body,
Your heart and your mind.
Giving yourself that kindly permission to honestly notice how you are at the beginning of this practice.
And we are going to scan our awareness through the body from feet to our heads.
Turning a kindly awareness to each part of the body.
Doing our best to open towards what we find there.
Whether that's pleasant,
Unpleasant or neutral.
So bringing your awareness down towards your feet.
Noticing sensations of touch,
Of temperature.
And doing your best to include any painful sensations.
As well as listening out for pleasant,
Subtler,
Pleasant sensations.
Really inhabiting your feet.
And bringing your awareness to your ankles and your lower legs.
As if we are listening in to the body.
Listening to how it is.
And allowing its song to change from moment to moment.
And noticing your knees.
Front,
Back,
Sides.
Contact with the cushions.
The ground.
If not very much is happening,
That's okay too.
Just noticing.
Not very much is happening.
And bringing your awareness to your thighs.
Breathing in to the body.
As best you can,
Allowing your interest in the body to be kindly and curious.
How is your body right now?
And when you meet pain in the body,
Doing your best to include it with kindness and gentleness.
And allowing your awareness to move to your hips and your pelvis.
As we breathe down into the pelvis,
We might notice subtle sensations of the breath.
Rocking the pelvis.
Going low in the abdomen.
So if you can,
Tuning in to these sensations of the breath in the pelvis.
So in the body scan we are coming in to our senses.
As best we can we are trying to absorb ourselves in the body's sensations.
So when thoughts arise,
As they will do,
Just noticing them arising.
Doing our best to let them go and come back to the body.
And I'm inviting you to bring your awareness into the whole of the back of your body.
Resting in the back of the body.
No need to rush forward into life.
Perhaps you can feel the sensations of the breath in the back of the body.
The back of the ribs moving with the breath.
And then allowing your awareness to move to the neck,
Your neck and the back of your head.
If you're lying,
Giving the weight of your head up to gravity a bit more.
If you're sitting,
Allowing the head to float on top of the body through an upright posture.
And then bringing your awareness to your face.
Breathing into the face,
The forehead,
The eyes,
And your nose.
And then your mouth and lips and jaw.
And don't be surprised if as you come into contact with the sensations of the body,
The thoughts and emotions might arise,
Noticing how they feel.
And then bringing your awareness gently back to the body,
To your body.
And bringing awareness to your throat and your shoulders.
Perhaps you can feel the breath in the shoulder joints,
The shoulder joints rocking with the breath.
And it's not unusual to also experience tension and holding in the shoulders.
And not trying to force relaxation or letting go.
But by breathing a kindly awareness,
The body may relax a little more.
And bringing your awareness to your arms.
And then into your hands.
Feeling the contact of your hands with the floor or your belly or the blanket.
Noticing sensations of touch,
Of temperature.
Doing our best to include both pleasant and unpleasant sensations.
And then bringing your awareness to the chest and the belly.
Noticing sensations of the breath here,
Expansion with the in-breath,
The relaxing back with the out-breath.
So tuning in with the breath as it's felt in the body.
And as we listen to the chest and the belly,
We also might notice other sensations.
Pleasant,
Unpleasant,
Sometimes there's anxiety,
Tension,
Emotional holding.
So if you notice anything like that,
Then doing your best to allow that to be there alongside the breath.
So not pushing anything away.
Doing our best to rest in a non-judgmental awareness of the body.
So just for another moment,
Allowing your kindly awareness to expand to the whole body.
The whole body lying or sitting here.
And breathing with awareness and kindness with yourself,
With your body,
However you are right now.
Thank you.
