Your Meditation Journey #1: Physical Relaxation

The first in this series of meditation practices, Physical Relaxation takes you through a body scan from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, feeling a warm wave of relaxation moving slowly, gradually down throughout your entire body. You may just feel the most relaxed you have ever felt in your life from this meditation. I hope you enjoy it--I think you will.

Transcript

Thank you for joining me again.

This is the first in a series I started called Your Meditation Journey and this meditation is about relaxing your body.

These meditations in this series are reminiscent of the first meditation course I ever took back in 1976.

It was called Creative Mind Expansion and was a life-changing experience for me at 20 years old.

So I've been excited to share this with people here on Insight Timer and I hope you enjoy it and I hope it's beneficial for you in relaxing your body.

So here we go.

So as you find your most comfortable position,

Whether it's sitting up or lying down,

Just simply take an easy breath,

Inhaling in and exhaling out.

And move into another breath,

Nice and easy.

Just relax,

Let your body inhale,

Let your body exhale.

And as you do so,

Feel your body relaxing.

And now take a third breath and inhale nice and easily.

And as you exhale,

Feel tension begin to release from your body as you relax more and more.

So to relax your body fully,

We'll start at the top of your head and begin to feel a warm wave of relaxation slowly spreading out across the top of your head.

Just gently moving across the top of your head,

Relaxing all the muscles and the nerves in your scalp,

The skin,

Your hair.

And allow this warm wave of relaxation to slowly move down across your head,

Down across your forehead,

Relaxing all the stressors that may be there,

Across your temples and the back of your head.

Many of us hold tension in our temples.

See what you can do about relaxing the tension that may be in your temples.

And then slowly allow this warm wave of relaxation to move down across your ears,

Relaxing your ears,

Across your eyes,

And relaxing all the tiny muscles around your eyes.

Just feel them move into a state of relaxation as your eyes relax.

And now the warm wave of relaxation moves down across your sinuses,

Across your nose,

Relaxing these spaces internally and externally.

And down across your lips and your mouth,

Relaxing your lips and your mouth.

Nice and easy as this warm wave of relaxation simply continues to move down across your head,

Relaxing the muscles in your jaw,

Another place where many of us hold tension.

So just feel the muscles of your jaw,

Your jaw muscles,

And feel this warm wave of relaxation sinking into your muscles of your jaw and relaxing those muscles.

Feel them,

Relax them,

And let them go.

And then this warm wave of relaxation continues down across your neck and your throat,

Relaxing your throat,

Relaxing the back of your neck,

Relaxing your larynx so that you can speak clearly and fully,

So that all of your throat and your neck is now relaxed along with your head.

As this warm wave of relaxation continues down across your shoulders,

Another place where many of us hold tension,

So just relax your shoulders,

The shoulders up around your neck,

The shoulder areas down across the tops of your arms,

And the shoulder area across your back.

Just feel all of this space,

Feel the relaxation,

And then let it go.

As this warm wave of relaxation continues down now across your chest and your upper arms,

Relaxing your chest and all the way into your lungs,

Relaxing your lungs,

Feeling more and more relaxed.

As this wave of relaxation continues down now,

Relaxing your biceps and your elbows and your forearms all the way down to your hands,

Relaxing all of these muscles and tendons and joints,

Ligaments,

Just letting it all go through your arms.

As this warm wave of relaxation moves down across your torso and your stomach,

Your intestines,

And all your internal organs,

Just feel the healing nature of this warm wave of relaxation as it continues to sink in and relax all of your body.

Moving down now across your hips and your pelvic region,

Relaxing these places,

Letting them go,

Feeling the relaxation and letting it go.

Moving down now across your thighs,

Relaxing your thighs,

A place where many people hold tension,

Down into your knees,

Relaxing your knees,

A place where many teachers talk about grief being held in our knees.

So if that's true for you,

Allow this warm wave of relaxation to move down across your knees,

Relaxing any tension or sadness or grief that may be there and simply letting it go.

Moving now down across your calf muscles and your shins,

Relaxing and releasing these muscles and feeling this warm wave of relaxation as it moves now down to your ankles,

Relaxing all the joints and connections there in your ankles,

The tendons,

The ligaments.

Feel the relaxation in your ankles now and then let it go.

As this warm wave of relaxation moves down now across the top of your feet,

All the way out to your toes,

Relaxing your toes,

Feeling the relaxation into your toes and then letting your toes go.

And finally having this warm wave of relaxation move all the way down to the very soles of your feet,

A place where acupuncture and reflexology tells us that there are many,

Many connections between the soles of our feet and the rest of our body.

So just relax the soles of your feet,

Feel this warm wave of relaxation warming the soles of your feet through and through,

Relaxing all the pressure points that are there so that this healing energy,

This healing state moves back up through your body as the soles of your feet are relaxed and then let it go.

And now feel your entire body completely immersed in this warm wave of relaxation from the top of your head all the way down your body to the very soles of your feet.

Feel this warm wave of relaxation as it moves from the top of your head all the way down your body like a wave and then turns around and goes back up from the soles of your feet all the way up your body to the top of your head.

And just for a moment imagine and feel this wave of relaxation,

This warm wave pulsing downward from the top of your head all the way across your body to the soles of your feet and then turning around and going back up again all the way to the top of your head.

So just feel this wave pulsing and moving through your body for just a moment and use your attention and your intuition.

Find any places in your body that may still hold tension or emotional difficulty or stress.

Our body remembers and it's good to relax our bodies and to feel relaxation sink into those places where tension is held.

So use your attention,

Use your intuition to scan your body and to see any places that may be holding tension and focus your attention and relaxation there,

This warm wave of relaxation.

Focus it into that place where you may feel some tension.

You might even put your hand on that place and feel the relaxation sink into this place where there's tension and relax that spot and let it heal and release and then let it go.

Sit with your body for just one more moment and feel this relaxation now that your body is totally and completely relaxed.

This may be the most relaxed you've ever been in your life that you can remember.

So just know that this level of relaxation is yours.

It belongs to you and you can come back to it any time you want.

All you have to do is sit quietly,

Take a few deep breaths nice and easy and then imagine this warm wave of relaxation slowly moving down throughout your body.

The more you do this the better you'll get at relaxing your body and the easier it will be to both feel comfortable in your body and in the world and the easier it will be for your body to heal.

You can also use this state of relaxation as a place to move out into greater expanses of your own awareness.

Oftentimes our bodies and the tensions and stresses that we hold in our bodies can get in the way of our expanding awareness because we have to focus on those tensions and pains and struggles in our bodies.

So the more you relax your body,

The more you practice this kind of relaxation,

The better you'll get at it and the easier it will be to relax your body any time you feel tension or stress.

So just remember that you can come back to this relaxation and get better and better at it anytime you want.

So make this relaxation practice your own.

Thank you again for joining me.

I wish you well in your journey.

Namaste.

Reviews

A good sequence of steps for full body relaxation and quieting. 🙏

Thank you so much. Your voice is so relaxing which helps with the relaxing technique you share! Looking forward to more of your meditations ❤️

Very good. One of the teachers who goes to the Rubin Museum uses this technique too. Thank you for reminding me as I haven’t tuned in with them for some time now and I’ve missed the wisdom of Sharon Salsberg and Tracey Cochran and the Lama, who does that particular meditation and exaggerates the words Feel The Relaxation and makes me laugh. She is funny. 🙏🏼❤️😬

I rate this body scan as the most effective and rewarding experiences I have been fortunate to encounter. Thank you, Don! Also you may recall that in my last communication with you (after benefitting from session 7), I mentioned that I had missed the previous 6! Thank you for your interest in encouraging me to explore further. Now, as you can see, I am on track, having found the complete set of sessions. I also want to mention that, other than the excellent content of your meditations, you have a unique and blessed talent for drawing the meditator into a very personal and warm space which, in turn, is an added blessing.