The body scan.
So just finding a comfortable seated posture.
Finding a sense of balance,
Of alertness.
Whatever it is you need to do to make yourself comfortable for the next few minutes.
And resting to find stillness.
Closing your eyes if that feels comfortable.
And just coming into the present moment.
You might become aware of sounds around you.
There might be thoughts or activity in your head.
We can just let that go for now.
As we tune into the direct felt sensations in the body.
Starting by coming to the breath.
Just tuning in and seeing what we can notice.
We're not trying to change the rate of the breath.
We're just watching as the body breathes itself.
Each in breath and out breath.
An invitation to notice the body.
On the in breath,
Bringing a sense of kindly awareness.
And on the out breath seeing if we can let go of any tension or holding in the body.
If there's any pain or discomfort in the body.
Just continuing to breathe.
And bringing kindly awareness and compassion to ourselves.
So we start by noticing our feet planted on the floor.
You might notice how it feels in the balls of the feet.
The toes and the heel.
What's it like to have the body's weight transmitted through these points of contact?
A sense of being held.
Of grounded and connected to the environment around us.
Noticing any of the sensations in the feet,
The ankles.
Up to the bony shins in front and the fleshy calves behind.
Or perhaps there's a lack of sensation,
A numbness.
And that's okay too.
We're just looking to notice whatever's there,
Even if it's not very much.
Moving up now to the junction of the knees.
All the important tendons,
Bones.
Tuning in now to the tops of the legs,
The thighs,
These big muscles in the body that do so much for us.
And just checking in with how they feel.
Coming up to the hips,
The sit bones.
And again another opportunity to notice how we're connected to the ground.
How we're rooted and connected through gravity.
The sense of the whole of the lower body as we continue to breathe.
Moving up now to any sensations of breathing that you might be able to feel in the belly.
That rise and fall.
Perhaps noticing any change in the sensations of the skin on the clothes.
A tightness.
Noticing how the chest moves,
The collar bones,
The shoulders.
You might even feel some subtle movements in the lower back.
The curvature of the spine all the way to the neck.
These sensations of the breath that are always there.
Checking in for any tension or holding,
Especially in the shoulders.
Using the out breath to see if we can release any of that muscular tension or holding.
Now noticing the arms,
The elbows,
The forearms and into the hands where we have so many nerve endings and sensations.
What can you feel right now?
The position of the hands.
How they lay in your lap.
And of course if our mind has wandered off,
That's okay,
That's just what they do.
Using this as an opportunity to gently guide our awareness back to the breathing body.
A magic moment of mindfulness.
Each time we do this.
Now moving up through the neck,
The back of the head,
The scalp.
All these sensations coming alive as we continue to breathe.
The face is another area where we can hold a lot of tension.
Perhaps around the eyes,
The cheeks,
The mouth.
And seeing if we can let go a little on the out breath.
Can we let go of the jaw?
And just sit in a sense of balance and restfulness.
Holding the whole of the body top to toe in this kind of gentle awareness.
No two areas of the body quite the same.
Our attention changing from moment to moment.
Are we able to just sit back and enjoy the masterpiece that is the present moment right now?
And as we now come to the end of the practice,
Just gently blinking your eyes open,
Making some small movements with the body as we return to whatever we're doing.
