Calm Mind, Open Heart, Peaceful Sleep

Enjoy this deeply nourishing practice that will invite calm to your mind, ease to your heart, and rest to your body. This practice was recorded live on the Insight Timer and works well for nap time or drifting peacefully to sleep for the night.

Transcript

Put your attention on the bottom of your feet.

You can connect to a sense of stability.

No matter how things are shifting and changing outside of you,

This ground beneath you is firm and is holding you up.

So just let yourself feel that.

Let yourself feel supported by the earth,

Supported by your body,

Supported by your home.

If thoughts come,

Let them come.

If emotions come,

Let them come.

And just return to the feelings of your feet.

Feeling in as much as you can to feel grounded,

To feel stable,

To feel supported.

There's nowhere to go and nothing to do,

Nothing to achieve,

Nothing to accomplish.

Just the chance to be present,

To be here now.

So now that you've felt your feet on the floor,

You've connected in to a sense of grounding,

A sense of stability,

A sense of security.

We'll start to notice what's real in this moment.

And what's real is always the breath.

It's our best friend.

It's always here.

And we can let our attention begin to travel up from the bottoms of the feet up to our breath.

And as you breathe,

Just noticing that your body is effortlessly breathing you.

No conscious thought required.

Just let yourself marvel at the beauty that you are being breathed.

And if you'd like,

You can bring one hand and bring it to your belly,

Right around your belly button.

And as you breathe,

You can use your hand here as an anchor,

As a way of feeling the breath and really having something stable to watch and to concentrate on.

Or if you don't want to concentrate,

You just want to be in the experience,

Then just let that be real for you.

Everything I offer here is just a suggestion to bring you into presence,

Into stillness,

Into balance,

Into relaxation.

Being aware of the breath,

Feeling it rise,

Feeling it fall,

Rise and fall.

And tuning in to your direct experience and with an attitude of openness and curiosity.

See what's alive in you now and how it might be different from a few moments ago.

Perhaps your thoughts are a bit more settled.

There's a bit more ease in places in your body.

The storms of strong emotion may have subsided a bit.

Or things might still feel pretty intense.

Holding with compassion,

Whatever your lived experience is.

And returning to your anchors whenever you get distracted or you just want to come back and feel home.

Accessing the breath if that feels comfortable and safe.

Or the bottoms of the feet to feel grounding and stability.

We'll sit here for a few minutes in silence.

Just returning to these anchors over and over.

Knowing that other things will come and go and just letting them be there.

Staying anchored here in the breath,

In the feet.

We'll begin a practice now that invites in relaxation and ease throughout the entire body.

This is really supportive when you're feeling anxious,

Stressed out,

You're suffering from insomnia or pain.

In this body scan,

We'll have a few parts.

We'll notice one particular part of our body.

We'll get curious about what sensations are there.

We'll invite in any relaxation or ease that wants to come.

And then we'll send gratitude to that part of the body.

And we'll start again in the bottoms of the feet.

And dropping your awareness deep into the bottoms of your feet.

Feeling your toes.

If you have socks on,

Feeling the pressure.

If you have shoes on,

Feeling that pressure.

Feeling the entirety of your feet.

What sensations are here?

Tingling,

Pulsing,

Warmth,

Coolness.

Being with what's here.

Not trying to change,

But just allowing yourself to be the scientist.

Curious about what is real in your feet.

And with your next in-breath,

Sending your full awareness to your feet as you invite in relaxation.

You're not forcing or demanding your feet to relax.

You're just giving them permission.

And with your next in-breath,

Feeling a sense of gratitude for all the places that your feet have carried you.

Letting that gratitude come out of your heart center where there's an infinite amount.

And come into your feet.

And as you feel this gratitude for your feet,

Allow it to come up into your ankles.

And then bringing your awareness into your ankles and into your lower legs,

The ankles,

The calves,

And the shins.

Be the scientist.

Get curious about what are the sensations here now.

Pressure,

Contact,

Weight,

Tightness,

Pulling.

Seeing what's there.

Holding it all with compassion.

Instead of wiggling if there's discomfort,

Seeing if you can breathe into that place where there's discomfort.

And with your next breath,

Inviting relaxation into the lower legs.

They've worked so hard for you today.

Invite them to settle and have some ease.

And drawing that gratitude that you put into your feet up now,

Up into your lower legs.

And just really being present with the miracle of your lower legs,

All they've done to support you,

What they are doing to support you.

And bringing that awareness up into your lower legs.

And bringing that awareness up into your knees and into your thighs.

Just feeling the whole upper leg now.

Noticing both legs and seeing what sensations are here.

Contact with your cushion,

Bed,

Or chair.

Maybe a pulling or a tightness.

A heaviness.

Weight.

Just letting whatever is there be okay.

Instead of wiggling or moving.

Just breathing into any discomfort and allowing it to soften as it will.

Inviting in relaxation and ease into your upper legs.

Just noticing what does it feel like to have more ease.

And with your next breath,

Drawing the gratitude up from your feet and letting it flow all the way up through the entirety of your legs.

Having so much gratitude for all the ways that your legs carry you and support you.

And allow you to be of service,

To live a joyful and purposeful life in the world.

Drawing your awareness up to your sit bones.

Your hips.

Glutes.

Your whole reproductive area.

And just noticing what sensations are here.

Heaviness.

Tingling.

Contact.

Heat.

Being with whatever is real in this moment.

And with your next breath,

Inviting this whole area of your body to relax as much as it would like to find ease.

And tuning back into your feet.

Drawing this sense of gratitude up from your feet,

Up the length of your legs,

And into this whole area of your body.

Gratitude for your hips,

Your sit bones,

Your glutes,

Your pelvis,

Your whole reproductive area,

All of the internal organs.

All the functions that they do every day behind the scenes.

Grateful you can experience pleasure.

Grateful that you can eliminate waste.

Grateful you can sit up.

And then drawing your awareness into your torso.

First around into the back.

Noticing sensations in the lower back.

The mid back.

And the upper back.

Maybe some pulling,

Some stabbing,

Some pressure or heaviness.

Being with what's there.

And when you're ready,

Sweeping your awareness around into the front of your torso,

Into your abdomen.

And feeling whatever sensations are there.

Maybe a clenching,

A knot in the gut,

A tightness.

A burning.

Letting yourself be with what's here.

With your next breath,

Inviting in relaxation.

Resting.

Finding ease.

As much or as little as feels possible now.

And inviting in gratitude for the strength and dignity inherent in your backbone.

For all of your internal organs that function behind the scenes to keep you healthy and vibrant.

For the seed of your willpower that helps you find your integrity and the truth inside of you.

Sending in so much gratitude for your torso.

Drawing it up from the feet.

Sweeping it up and letting it swirl around you.

Letting it begin to emanate from each cell in your body.

And drawing that gratitude up into your chest.

Noticing the sensations here in your chest.

A constriction or an openness.

A sense of heaviness or lightness.

Being with whatever sensations are here in the physical body.

And then going a level deeper and feeling in to what's real in the emotional body.

Being curious.

Holding with compassion.

Letting whatever is there be there.

Without trying to change it.

Without judging that it's wrong or bad.

Inviting in a softening.

An opening of the heart.

A relaxation and an ease that is your natural open hearted state of presence that you can come back to every day.

Over and over again.

And feeling the eternal wellspring of gratitude that resides right here in the heart center.

And letting it come up from the feet and tap back in to its originating place.

And let yourself fill up.

Drink in a sense of gratitude for your ability to feel everything.

Your ability to be with what is.

Your ability to access presence.

To access gratitude.

And to give it out.

And to feel,

Experience,

Receive,

And give love.

Feeling.

Noticing.

Filling up with the gratitude.

Bringing your attention to your shoulders.

And letting it come from your shoulders down the length of both arms.

And being with whatever sensations are here.

Noticing if you feel like you've been carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.

And choosing in this moment to set it down.

Inviting in ease and relaxation into the shoulders,

Into the upper arms,

The lower arms,

The hands,

And the fingers.

And taking that gratitude we've been cultivating and sending it up,

Up,

Up,

Through the shoulders.

And back down the length of the arms.

And out the hands.

Feeling grateful for these parts of your body and all the ways that they support you and enable you to be present.

To be vibrant.

To be alive.

To take care of yourself and others.

Letting yourself fill up with this gratitude.

And then tuning in now to your neck.

The front and the back of the neck.

The left side and the right side.

And coming up into the jaw.

Noticing if there's clenching or holding.

Perhaps inviting in a letting go.

A softening.

Then drawing your awareness up.

And noticing the sensations in the whole face.

Noticing the lips,

The tongue,

The ears,

The cheeks,

The eyes,

The eyebrows,

And the forehead.

Noticing whatever sensations come.

Watching them come and watching them go.

Inviting in ease and relaxation.

Softening.

Relaxing.

Allowing your whole body from head to toe to rest.

And then drawing that sense of gratitude up from the feet.

And letting it activate every cell of your body.

As it comes up into the neck and into the head,

Into the face.

And up to the crown of your head.

The very center of the top of your head.

And as you breathe in,

Draw that gratitude up and really fill yourself up with it.

And as you breathe out,

You can even imagine that it just sprinkles down and just coats you in a little dusting of gratitude.

Grateful for your face.

Grateful for your brain.

Grateful for your mind.

Grateful for your spirit.

And we'll rest for a few moments in silence.

Just taking it all in.

Letting the gratitude flow.

Being with whatever arises.

And inviting in more relaxation.

More ease.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Reviews

Gentle guidance and relaxing. Just the right tone and pace for winding down to sleep 😴Thank you 😊

The script and voice are beautiful and helpful and effective. Thank you