Welcome to this foundational mindfulness practice.
A body scan which is essentially rotating attention around the body and feeling the parts that I name as sensation.
The overall objective of a mindfulness practice is to dial into a sense of inner harmony.
So even a body scan as a foundational practice can trigger distress for some people.
So if that happens for you just recognize that and know that you've got choices.
You can have your eyes opened or closed and it might be helpful to you to have an external object that if you feel any distress you can just focus on to ground you and and bring you into the present moment away from that distress.
Or you can just direct your attention to anything that gives you a sense of comfort and ease.
That's more important than following my voice.
My voice can just be an anchor for you to return to if you find that you've become distracted.
But let it be your own.
Let yourself be the inner teacher here to take you to what most gives you that sense of harmony.
So we'll move into the practice now and the idea with this is as I name the parts to just rather than projecting an image or a picture of that body part to actually feel the sensation that comes from the part.
And that could be a little,
It could be a lot,
Or it might be nothing at all.
And all of those things are welcome in a mindfulness practice more than anything else.
It's just welcoming your moment-to-moment experience just as it is.
So we'll get started.
Let's make yourself comfortable.
Perhaps just take a moment to run through your senses.
There's a sense of touch perhaps the supports beneath you.
Noticing what you're hearing,
Sounds around you,
Outside,
Inside.
Taste in your mouth any scent or smell that you can detect.
And whether your eyes are opened or closed and either is fine.
It's what's coming to you through your sense of sight.
So that your senses are wide open.
Start by feeling the sensation that comes from your top lip and your lower lip.
And the sensation of where the lips meet or perhaps where they're slightly apart.
The gums,
The teeth,
The inside walls of your cheeks as sensation.
The roof of the mouth,
The floor of the mouth.
The sensation of the tongue as it rests beautifully on the floor of your mouth.
And that all of the parts of your mouth together as one field of sensation.
Feel the sensation of your jaw,
The hinges of your jaw.
Notice whether there's any tension in your jaw.
Just noticing.
Perhaps it's unnecessary.
Just exploring what might be present.
Feel into the inner ear canal.
Those little tunnels of sensation leading to your outer ears.
The folds and valleys of your outer ears.
The left temple,
The right temple.
The left eyebrow,
The right eyebrow.
Your forehead soft and cool.
Bridge of the nose,
Upper eyelids,
The lower eyelids.
The sensation where the eyelids meet or perhaps where they're slightly apart.
Sensation of your eyes behind the eyelids.
Tracing down the nose as sensation.
Feeling the sensation inside the nose.
Perhaps the air as it enters and leaves.
Noticing the temperature of the air coming in and perhaps differently as it goes out.
You might even notice particular scents as you breathe through your nose.
Your left cheek,
Your right cheek.
And bringing all the features of the face together as one field of sensation.
Feel your scalp as sensation.
Return your attention to your eyes and then drop back even further behind the eyes to a point somewhere inside of your head.
And feel your whole head as a field of sensation.
Trace that down inside the throat and the neck.
The skin at the back of the neck,
The sides of the neck.
And tracing under the chin and down the front of the neck to the notch at the base of the neck.
From there tracing out along the collarbones,
The tops of the shoulders.
And streaming down the arms as sensation.
Upper arms,
Elbows,
Forearms,
Wrists,
Backs of the hands.
The fingertips and the palms of the hands as sensation.
Feel the left palm,
The right palm.
Feel both palms at the same time.
Trace that sensation from the palms of your hands all the way back up the arms.
Across the collarbones back to that notch at the base of your neck.
And trace the sensation down inside the chest bone.
And following the ribcage as it radiates from the front around the sides to meet the spine at the back.
The sensation that comes from the vertebrae in your neck,
The upper back,
The mid-back.
The left shoulder blade as sensation.
The right shoulder blade as sensation.
Both shoulder blades at the same time.
Feel the left side of your ribcage,
The right side of your ribcage.
Feel your whole ribcage and the organs that the ribcage protects.
Sensation that comes from the heart and the lungs.
Trace the line of the lower ribcage and feel the sensation down inside the abdomen.
Internal organs,
The front wall of the abdomen,
The sidewalls.
Sensation in the lower back,
Vertebrae,
Sacrum,
Tailbone,
Floor of the torso,
Your glutes,
Both hips,
Upper legs,
Kneecaps,
The soft flesh behind the knees.
Sensing the shins and the calves,
The ankles,
The tops of the feet,
The soles of the feet.
The sensation that comes from your ten toes.
Feel from the left hip to the left toe and everything in between as sensation.
Your whole left leg as a field of sensation.
From your right hip to your right toes and everything in between as sensation.
Your whole left leg,
Your whole right leg and both legs at the same time.
Now bringing all of the parts of the body together as one.
The legs,
The torso,
The arms,
The neck and the head.
The whole body.
The whole body as a field of sensation.
However you experience that.
Just as it is,
No right or wrong.
Whole body as sensation.
Sensation inside the body.
Sensation around the periphery of the body.
To the extent that you're comfortable exploring the sensation out in front and back behind and to the left and to the right.
Sensation above,
Sensation below.
Your whole body as a vibrant field of sensation.
It's radiating in all directions at the same time.
You'll set your attention wander through all of these sensations and start to find your way back into the room now.
Running through the senses,
A sense of touch.
The sounds that you can hear,
Taste and smell.
And as you're ready in your own time,
Perhaps just blinking open and close your eyes a few times.
As you bring with you any sense of comfort or ease that you found in the practice back into the rest of your day.
Thank you for practicing.
