Yoga Nidra Practice

20 minute guided yoga nidra, prepare by lying in shavasana on a mat or the floor. Nidra is a guided meditation to lower brain waves to create a feeling of calm and peace. Great for stress, anxiety and to help wtih sleep.

Transcript

For today's practice of yoga nidra,

You'll only need your body and either a yoga mat or the floor.

So go ahead and either pause or find your way to lying flat on your back.

And today your focus is just to develop a deep state of relaxation simply by lying and listening to my voice.

Yoga nidra is a practice of awareness and a practice of listening and being only.

So go ahead and find your way to savasana now and make a commitment that if you can,

You will stay awake for the duration of this practice.

I will remain awake throughout the practice.

All that is important is that you function on a level of hearing and awareness and just listening to the voice.

You may have a tendency to want to intellectualize or analyze instructions.

But remember,

Your goal is just to listen and follow the voice with total attention and feeling.

And if thoughts come from time to time,

Just notice them and let them leave.

Continuing your practice without worry,

Just observing the thoughts as they float away.

And right now,

Become aware of any sounds that you might hear,

Listening for the most distant sound that you can.

And then let your hearing operate like a radar beam going out,

Noticing sounds in the space around you and just following them for a few seconds,

Identifying and naming them as you listen.

Moving your attention from sound to sound without attempting to stay there for too long.

And work your way to closer sounds,

Ones right near you or right outside the room that you're in.

And then bring your awareness to that room.

Without opening your eyes,

Visualize the walls,

The ceiling,

The floor,

And then imagine your body visualize your body lying on the floor,

See it there.

Becoming aware of the physical existence of your body lying on the floor.

Total awareness of your body lying in perfect stillness.

And then develop your awareness of all of the meeting points between your body and the floor.

Noticing your natural breath,

And at the same time,

The back of your head and the floor,

Your shoulder blades in the floor,

Your buttocks in the floor,

The back of your calves,

Your heels in the floor.

Becoming aware of all of these points at the same time simultaneously.

Keep on listening to me know that you are breathing.

Know that you are lying and stillness.

And then we begin to rotate our consciousness throughout different centers of the body as quickly as possible.

When I say the name of a body part repeat it mentally to yourself and at the same second,

Just send your attention and your energy to that part of the body.

As always,

We begin with the right hand thumb.

Second finger.

Third finger.

Fourth finger.

Fifth finger.

Palm of the hands.

Back of the hand.

Wrist.

Lower arm.

Elbow.

Upper arm.

Shoulder.

Armpit.

Waist.

Hip.

Right thigh.

Knee.

Calf muscle.

Ankle.

Heel.

Top of the foot.

Right big toe.

Second toe.

Third toe.

Fourth toe.

Fifth toe.

Left hand thumb.

Second finger.

Third finger.

Fourth finger.

Fifth finger.

Palm of the hand.

Back of the hand.

Wrist.

Lower arm.

Elbow.

Upper arm.

Shoulder.

Armpit.

Waist.

Hip.

Left thigh.

Knee.

Calf muscle.

Ankle.

Heel.

Sole.

Top of the foot.

Left big toe.

Second toe.

Third toe.

Fourth toe.

Fifth toe.

And then to the back.

Right shoulder.

Left shoulder.

Right shoulder blade.

Left shoulder blade.

Right buttocks.

Left buttocks.

The spine.

The whole of the back together.

The top of the head.

Forehead.

Right eyebrow.

Left eyebrow.

The eyebrow center.

Right eyelid.

Left eyelid.

Right eye.

Left eye.

Right ear.

Left ear.

Left cheek.

Nose.

Tip of the nose.

Right nostril.

Left nostril.

Upper lip.

Lower lip.

Chin.

Jaw.

Throat.

Right collarbone.

Left collarbone.

Right chest.

Left chest.

Middle of the chest.

Naval.

Abdomen.

Whole of the right leg.

Whole of the left leg.

Both legs together.

Whole of the right arm.

Whole of the left arm.

Both arms together.

Whole of the back.

Whole of the front.

Whole of the head.

Together.

Whole of the head.

Together.

Legs.

Arms.

Back.

Front.

Head.

The whole body together.

The whole body together.

The whole body together.

Develop awareness of the whole body and the space that is occupied by your body.

Body in space.

Come back to the physical points between the body and the floor,

Noticing the back of the head and the floor.

The shoulder blades in the floor.

Your elbows in the floor.

The back of the hands and the floor.

Your buttocks in the floor.

The calves in the floor.

The heels in the floor.

And then bring your attention to the eyelids.

Noticing that line between the upper and lower eyelids.

Intensifying your awareness here.

And then bring your attention to the space between the eyes.

And then to your lips and the space between your lips.

Noticing the meeting points between your upper and lower lip.

And then go to your breath.

Drawing your attention to the natural in going and outgoing.

Noticing the coolness of the air as it comes in through your nose.

The rise in your chest and your navel.

And then the warmth as it exits across your upper lip.

Trying not to make any changes just awareness of your natural breath.

And at the same time you have this awareness start counting your breathing backwards.

Simply as follows.

I am breathing in 27.

I am breathing out 27.

I am breathing in 26.

I am breathing out 26.

I am breathing in 25.

I am breathing out 25.

Count to yourself mentally following the rise and fall of your breath navel to throat and back again.

If you make a mistake,

Just go back to 27 and start over.

Continue counting with awareness of the breath.

Still breathing and counting.

And then as we leave our awareness of the breath,

We go to visualization.

And imagine that it's very early in the morning.

Still dark out.

And you're taking a walk through some hills in front of you are the mountains.

You're by yourself.

You're walking towards the east.

As you look back you'll see the moon low in the sky.

You know soon the sun will rise over these mountains you see in front of you.

As you continue to walk below you you notice a valley,

The lights twinkling.

And the path that you're on is twisting back and forth.

As it winds between boulders and over bridges you can see it going far off into the distance.

As you continue to walk you see a space between two hills.

And in it is a large snow covered mountain.

The pale sky behind it lets you know the sun is coming.

You continue to climb through the snow it makes a crunching sound underneath your feet.

As you continue to climb up,

It becomes very cold.

You hear the wind howling around your body it's pulling at your clothes.

Snow and ice are clinging to your shoes.

Maybe the wind is stinging your face.

But as you get to the top.

The only thing that draws your attention is the beautiful scene in front of you.

At the top of this mountain to the east is a vast range of snow covered peaks and dark valleys.

And to the west,

Smaller hills that lead to rolling plains in the ocean.

Intensify your imagination as you visualize the scene.

You no longer feel the cold.

You just see the sun rising in the east.

Sending rays of sunlight.

That reflects off the snow dazzling your eyes.

You look to the west it's still a little gray but right above you is blue.

And you get that cotton candy pink off to the east as the sun continues to come up.

You sit with cross legs on the top of this mountain,

Contemplating the dawn of a new day,

Feeling comfortable,

Closing your eyes letting yourself experience and meditate for a moment in this spot.

And then bring your attention back to your mind.

And in it visualize before you,

Just a wide open space almost like a movie screen right where your third eye would be.

As you leave this visualization rest your attention in this dark space and notice anything that manifests there lights,

Shapes,

Just paying attention to what appears in your subconscious mind.

And if thoughts come,

Just let them float away.

Just observing them without judgment as they drift on and bring your attention back to this wide space right before your eyes.

And then just bring your attention back to your breath,

Your natural breath.

The inhale and the exhale.

Just awareness of breathing awareness of the feeling of relaxation.

Bring back your attention to the awareness of your physical existence.

Noticing your arms and legs.

Imagining your body lying on the floor.

The walls,

The ceiling,

The floor.

See your body lying stretched out.

Awareness of the meeting points between your body and the floor.

And again sending your hearing out like a radar.

Just awareness of noises in the room that you're in and noises right outside.

Just lie quietly for a moment,

Keeping your eyes closed.

And then you just start moving your body slowly maybe with your fingers and toes.

There's no rush,

You can take your time.

The practice is now complete.

You can feel free to take a stretch.

Maybe roll over into the fetal position.

Or maybe even just go right into your evening sleep or a nap.

There's no rush to come back from this place.

But know that our practice together has ended,

And it was so lovely to spend this time with you.

Thank you again.

Namaste.

Thank you.

Reviews

Perfect rythm, in pace with that classic approach - thank you for a beautiful session and for your kind guidance tonight 😊 Namaste 🙏🏻