Releasing Tension In Your Face

In our age of information, so much of our attention is localized in our head and face, where our sense organs are processing data, decoding patterns, and generally working hard to take in the avalanche of information we’re bombarded with every minute. This Embodied Meditation practice helps release contraction and tension in your head and face. Then, it invites you to drop more fully into the rest of your body, balancing energy and leaving you feeling more integrated and whole.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Paige.

In our modern information age,

So much of our attention is localized in our head and face where the prefrontal cortex of our brain along with our eyes,

Ears,

Nose,

And mouth are all processing data,

Decoding patterns,

And just working hard to help us make sense of the avalanche of information and stimulation we're bombarded with every minute.

It's easy to begin to feel like one of those drawings by a small child,

One huge head with little tiny arms and legs sticking out of it.

Today's embodied meditation helps release contraction and tension in the head and face,

And then invites you to drop more fully into the rest of your body,

Balancing your energy and leaving you feeling more integrated and whole.

You might like to have a proper two on hand for this practice.

If you have a yoga bolster or even a firm couch cushion or pillow,

That might be nice,

And perhaps also a yoga block.

If you don't have any of those things,

You'll be just fine.

Those are just optional toys to have on hand.

We'll begin our practice in child's pose.

So coming down onto your hands and your knees,

And then separating your knees wide and letting your hips sink back towards your heels.

If your forehead easily touches the ground,

That's great.

If you want to put something underneath it,

Maybe one of those cushions or a block so that you have something to rest your forehead on,

That would work too.

Right in that spot where you tend to furrow your brow.

It's a specific spot a lot of us imagine as the seat of consciousness,

As if there's a little mini me in there working at breakneck speed to keep us functioning.

See if you can just rest that part of the forehead,

That part of the brain,

And then begin to gently rock from side to side across the forehead,

Across the brow line,

As if you're smoothing out little knots of tension,

Little places of gripping and contracting.

Let that slow,

Easy rocking from side to side along the brow line begin to even soothe the skin around your eyes,

Your inner ears,

Your jaw,

Your throat and neck.

Then as you're ready,

You can let that movement get still.

Just another breath of pressure right there on the forehead.

Then begin to ease your way up out of that child's pose and all the way down onto your belly.

We'll come into sphinx pose.

It looks like what it sounds like.

As you come down onto your belly,

You'll position your elbows right underneath your shoulders.

Your forearms will just be parallel to each other,

Flat on the earth.

Your fingers can spread wide.

Gently stretch your tailbone back toward your feet.

Gently broaden through your collarbones.

Some easy neck rolls here in this sphinx pose.

Drop your chin toward your chest and roll your right ear over toward your right shoulder.

As you pause there,

You might even tip your chin up toward the sky,

Maybe rock your jaw a little bit side to side,

Relaxing any subtle gripping or holding you've been doing there.

Let your chin drop all the way back down toward your chest.

Left ear can roll its way over to your left shoulder.

Maybe tip your chin up,

Maybe softly rock the jaw from side to side.

Chin all the way back down to your chest.

From here,

See how it works just to rest your forehead in the heels of your hands.

Your elbows will bend now.

Your hands will come up to hold your forehead.

You can just apply the tiniest amount of pressure of the heels of your hands along your eyebrows,

Your forehead,

And then let your fingers make their way all the way up to your hairline and the scalp.

Let them just massage their way around a bit.

Fingers just walking around the top of the scalp.

Little bits of pressure on the head,

Imagining the brain relaxing as the forehead and the eyebrows and the hairline and the scalp relax.

You can just be still with your fingers for a moment.

From here,

Ease your way up to your hands and your knees.

We'll start to allow some of this release in the face to allow energy to inhabit the body a little bit more as we move into some cow and cat movement and breathing.

From your hands and knees,

The next time your body is ready to inhale,

A gentle arch to your spine.

You might feel the belly drop and the collarbones broaden,

Sitting bones lift.

As you exhale,

Rounding into that little cat tuck shape,

Rounding through your low back,

Your middle back,

Your upper back.

We'll do this again,

Adding either an open mouth sighing exhale or a lion's breath on the exhale where you extend the tongue and roll the eyes up.

Inhale,

Just arching through the spine.

Then as you exhale,

Either sighing or maybe a lion's breath,

The tongue extending,

The eyes rolling up toward the forehead,

Whole face and jaw and throat releasing.

Inhale again,

Arching,

Gently lifting through the chest and the sitting bones.

Either a lion's breath or a sigh as you round in and maybe let the head hang for a moment,

Shake it out,

Yes and no.

One more of those.

Inhale,

Arching through the spine,

Opening up and then a full face release as you sigh or lion's breath that exhale out.

At the bottom of that exhale,

Letting the head just rock like a pendulum.

Then all the way back through neutral and make your way into a comfortable seat.

You can be cross-legged,

You can have your legs stretched out.

As you feel ready to inhale,

Scoop your shoulders way up towards your ears so you feel a little squeeze along the sides of the neck,

Maybe even the jaw,

Maybe up into the ears.

And then gently roll your shoulders around,

Back and down as you exhale,

Feeling the back of the neck release.

Do that twice more.

Shoulders forward,

Way up to the ears,

A little squeeze right along the sides of the neck,

Up into the jaw and the ears.

And as you exhale,

Let everything that you squeeze simply relax,

Release.

One more.

Inhale,

Shoulders up to the ears,

A little squeeze maybe along the jaw,

The ears,

The sides of the neck.

And as you exhale,

The ears,

The jaws,

The neck,

Relax.

Settle back into your seat.

And we'll do some easy eye exercises here.

So if your eyes have been closed,

You can softly blink them open and take your gaze at a diagonal up and to the left,

Way up into the left,

Both eyes.

And then follow that diagonal all the way down and to the right,

Rolling the eyeballs down.

And do that again,

Slowly roll your gaze up into the left and then slowly pivot your gaze down and to the right.

One more of that direction,

Up and to the left with a gaze and all the way slowly down and to the right.

And then just bring your gaze back through neutral,

Maybe close your eyes for a breath.

Blink your eyes open again and take your gaze all the way up into the right,

Both eyes stretching a little bit in the musculature of the eyes.

And then exhale slowly extending your gaze down and to the left,

All the way up and to the right,

Muscles of the eyes helping the gaze shift and then all the way down and to the left.

Once more along that diagonal,

Gaze shifts all the way up and to the right and all the way down and to the left.

Bring your gaze back through neutral and close your eyes gently if you would like.

And bring your palms together,

Give them a little rub,

Create some warmth,

Some friction and then rest your palms right over your closed eyes taking in the gentle weight of your hands,

The warmth of your palms.

Feel easy pressure,

Palms over eyes.

And as you relax your hands away from your eyes,

Feel any lingering bits of tension release from the eyes.

And if you've been sitting in a cross-legged shape,

You might feel like you'd like to switch the cross of your legs and drop your right ear over towards your right shoulder.

Right ear just drips over towards your right shoulder.

And then if you like,

You can reach that right arm up and across the head so it just rests a little bit like a weight.

Could be that the right hand even touches the left ear.

And then you're not pulling on your head.

In fact,

You might even gently press the left side of your head into your right hand and the hand could gently resist back into the left side of the head.

So there's this slight bit of engagement as the body stretches and breathes here.

One more breath.

And all the way back up through neutral,

Relax that right arm,

Bring the head right back up through center.

And then your left ear towards your left shoulder,

Left ear dripping towards your left shoulder.

And then if you'd like,

That left arm can reach up and over the head so that it just drapes there.

In fact,

The left fingertips might touch the right ear.

And again,

That slight bit of resistance,

Hand into the head,

Head into the hand.

One more breath there.

Release the arm.

Let the head float back through neutral.

Then bring your hands up to your temples so your fingertips could touch the temples of your face and just make some little circles,

Some little intuitive massage-like actions.

You might even walk your fingers around a little bit.

Maybe move that circling action around the other way.

Little bits of pressure with the fingertips and the temples.

Just tiptoe your fingers to your cheekbones and let them continue to massage there.

They can make little circles or they can walk along the bones of your cheeks,

Relaxing any pockets of holding or contracting.

Move your fingers,

Maybe even your thumbs get involved a little bit more to your jaw right along the ridge,

The bones of your jaw.

Maybe walking,

Massaging your fingertips all the way to the chin.

Moving,

Massaging,

Walking the fingertips back up the jawline.

And gently hold the very tops of your ears,

Maybe between your thumb and your index finger and give them a little squeeze.

Start to move down the shape of your ear,

Little squeezes and releases down the whole edge of the ear.

Slow,

Just the perfect amount of pressure until you get all the way to the lobes of your ears.

You could give them a little squeeze,

A gentle little tug.

And finally,

Let your fingers move back to the very base of your skull,

That little ridge back there.

And maybe tiptoe your fingers right around that ridge where you feel like your neck connects to your skull or your head.

You might even tuck your fingers up under that ridge as they massage and walk their way back and forth across it a time or two.

And then release your hands,

Release your arms.

If you feel comfortable here,

You could release an exhale and let it blubber out your lips one or two times.

And from there,

Scrunch up your whole face so you're really contracting in the cheeks,

The lips,

The nose,

The ears,

The jaw,

The eyes,

The skin of the forehead,

The top of the head.

Sip in and inhale right there and open your mouth and sigh out that exhale and let everything that you contracted relax,

Dissolve almost.

Do that again.

Scrunch up the entire face,

Maybe even the throat and the neck and the jaw and the cheeks and the nose and the ears and the eyes and the forehead and the skin of the scalp.

And as you open your mouth and sigh and exhale,

Let tension just dissolve,

Drift away.

One more time,

Whole face and head scrunching,

Squeezing,

Constricting.

Sip in and inhale.

Open your mouth,

Sigh out your exhale,

Let every bit of that tension release.

We'll finish with some gentle breathing,

A little bit of visualizing of energy moving from the face and the head into the full body.

You can stay seated.

You can arrange yourself on your back if that would be more restful and comfortable.

We'll move into some alternate nostril breathing just with the power of our attention and imagination.

So as you're ready to inhale,

Imagine your inhale coming in just through your left nostril.

And as you exhale,

Imagine that exhale releasing just through the right nostril.

Your next inhale just through the right nostril.

Exhale just through the left.

Inhale left nostril.

Inhale right nostril.

Inhale right nostril.

Exhale left nostril.

Let your breathing return to a pattern of effortless breath through both nostrils at once.

Feel the energy smooth in the head and the face.

Feel it begin to spread and descend into the chest.

That energy beginning to balance its position into the rest of the body.

Almost as if you're unlocking a gate,

Allowing energy that's been concentrated in the head and the face to spread into the chest.

Allow it from there to begin to spread and descend into the belly and the hips.

Your gate is opening,

Energy that's been contained in the head and the face reaching into the chest,

Expanding into your sense of you.

Full center of your body sharing the energy of breathing,

Feeling relaxed and alive.

Thank you so much for making this time for yourself.

I look forward to being with you again soon.

Reviews

Beautiful Paige 😇 grateful for all the gifts you share.. Pure presence and grace 🙏🏻 thank you 😊

Wonderful, I have unexplained facial pain and this felt lovely, thank you 🙏 🌟

This felt really good. I needed that. Thank you 🙏 ❤️✨

Thank you much 💕

👍

Wonderfully effective time, particularly after a brief warm up upon awakening. Thank you for sharing this with us here in the Insight Timer community. I see you and the light within you. ❤🤲🏻❤

This is wonderful Paige, thank you.

That was amazing! I needed that very much and it was very effective. I will return to this to support my long days on computers. Thank you, Paige, for making these great experiences available. 🌅

Lovely and relaxing . Warm, kind voice. Feel nourished . Thank you 💜

Thank you 🌼🌼🌼for the wonderful movement meditation 🔆relaxing the face is a unbelievable feeling through the whole body 🍀take care🙏Namaste

Thank you! Excellent practice!

Wonderful! Thank you so much 🙏