Hello.
Welcome to transforming your anxiety and connecting with the body.
Our body holds so much information around stress,
Overwhelm,
Anxiety,
That our cognition sometimes can't understand.
So it's so important to get to know our body,
To get to know where we hold this information.
Sometimes when we have high levels of stress,
We may feel numb from our body and there's an absence of feeling,
And that's important too.
Other times,
We may have spots in our bodies like a deep ache in our stomach or a bad headache that are giving us a clue that we are really anxious right now and that that's something to be tended to.
So we're going to work on connecting with our relationship to our body today to receive information and also to let it be heard so that it can relax a little bit.
We're going to do a bit of a body scan meditation.
So I'm going to invite you to lower your gaze or close your eyes or whatever feels comfortable to you.
I truly believe that you know you're doing meditation in the way that's right for you if it feels right.
So just follow your own inkling,
Follow your own intuition.
With that,
I invite you to lower your gaze or close your eyes,
Whatever you need in this moment.
And we're going to start by just doing a little bit of breathing together.
So I'm going to invite you to inhale through the nose for a count of three,
And then we're going to exhale through the mouth for a count of five.
Let's begin together.
Inhaling through the nose for one,
Two,
Three.
And exhaling through the mouth for five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One.
Inhaling for one,
Two,
Three.
And exhaling for five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One.
Inhaling.
And exhaling.
Inhaling.
And exhaling.
And slowly in a moment we're going to begin a bit of a body scan.
I'm going to mention different parts of our body and I just invite you to bring awareness there.
What are sensations that arise,
Or is there a lack of sensation and just notice that we're just tuning into the quality of the sensations that are present.
So we'll begin with our feet.
Tuning into the bottoms of your feet.
The tops of your feet.
And your toes.
Each individual toe.
Coming to our ankles.
Just noticing any sensation that's present,
Or a lack of sensation.
Bringing our attention to our shins and our calves.
Coming to our quads and our hamstrings.
And bringing our attention to our glutes,
Our sit bones,
Perhaps feeling it physically against the earth.
Coming into our hips.
Just noticing anything that arises.
And I'm going to slowly invite you to work your way up your spine in your own time,
Vertebrae by vertebrae.
Just noticing sensations.
Noticing what it feels like to imagine each vertebrae.
Coming into alignment as we rise up our spine.
Coming into our neck and shoulders.
Noticing any feelings here,
Any sensations.
If there's tension,
What is the quality of that tension?
Is it tight?
Is it a throb?
Is it a pulsing?
If there's no feeling at all,
What is the quality of that?
And we'll come down into our upper arms,
Into our biceps and triceps.
Into our forearms.
Coming into our thumbs and the thumb joints.
Noticing any sensation.
Coming into each finger.
Noticing each feeling of the finger.
The palms of our hands.
The tops of our hands.
We'll move from our hands back up into our necks.
Noticing any sensations present.
Coming into the bottom of our skull,
Into our jaws.
Our cheekbones.
Our eyebrows.
The space between the eyebrows.
And the tops of our head.
And tuning into our whole body.
And noticing if there's an area of tension,
An area where we hold stress,
Or an area that's completely numb,
That we've been avoiding,
That we're not tuned into.
And I invite you to bring your awareness there,
And to really notice the qualities present.
If it's tight,
If it's heavy,
What does that tightness or heaviness feel like?
Is it pulsing?
Does it feel like a block?
If it's numb,
What's the quality of that numbness?
Is it like one note playing?
Does it feel like a void?
A lot of times these places in our bodies are giving us messages and just want to be tended to.
So let's tend to them now,
By giving them our attention.
If you feel called,
You can bring your breath here.
And each inhale,
Imagining expansion.
And each exhale,
Imagining release.
However that feels for you.
Letting the information come forth from our body.
Tending to ourselves.
Sometimes by just tending to our anxieties within the body,
The somatic sensation,
We actually release a lot of that tension,
A lot of that unknown.
Now is the time to tend to ourselves.
Asking your body what it needs in this moment.
And simply listening.
And thanking this space in our body for its wisdom,
Even when it's hard sometimes.
That it's calling out to us.
It's telling us,
Hey,
I'm here,
Something needs to be tended to that you haven't been tending to.
So thanking this place in our body.
And slowly bringing our awareness back to our body as a whole.
And feeling our connection to the earth in this moment,
Whether that's our glute,
Our bottom,
Seated,
Our whole body lying down.
Feeling that physical connection.
Now I'm going to slowly begin the transition out of this body scan.
But I invite you to enter that transition slowly.
As transitions themselves are so important.
So slowly beginning to raise your gaze or open your eyes.
And just noticing the quality of the space around you.
Noticing the quality of your being.
The quality of your body.
And thanking yourself for tuning in today.
Thank you.
