Welcome to your practice of self touch,
Of breath,
Of mindfulness and contact with the present moment.
For today's self touch practice,
You are going to be instructed and encouraged to participate in some self facial massage techniques.
If you need to wash your hands or apply any lotion or face oil beforehand,
Just press pause and then come right back to it.
If you're ready,
I invite you just to find a comfortable seat,
Maybe crossing your legs or if you find yourself on a chair just allowing the soles of the feet to touch the ground.
If comfortable,
Soften the gaze,
Maybe even close your eyes.
Start to invite breath into your body,
Breathing in through your nose.
As you part the lips,
Exhale and let the breath tumble out.
Again,
Invite breath in through the nose.
And as you exhale,
Breath falls out of the body and you arrive.
Connect to tap into your own rhythm of breath here.
Each time you exhale,
Can you allow the weight of your body to be held by the chair,
The cushion,
The ground,
The earth beneath you?
Let the ground hold you and keep breathing.
Envision and imagine a softening in the physical body.
Can you drop the shoulders away from your ears and maybe there's a gentle rounding of the spine?
It's okay.
Your beautiful belly,
Allow it to soften,
To fall.
Take three more breaths here in this soft place.
You continue to support yourself through breath.
I invite you to drop your awareness to your fingertips,
To your palms and your hands.
And start to gently move the fingertips.
Maybe even place the index fingertip to the thumb fingertip and just gently kind of brush your finger pads together.
Move the finger pad of the middle finger to touch the thumb and again,
Just this gentle caressing of finger pads touching on each hand,
Just making your way down each finger,
Exploring the softness of your hands,
The contours,
The shape,
The texture.
Start to see if you can bring a circular motion into your wrists by circling the hands,
The wrists in one direction,
Then in the opposite direction.
Start to draw the hands together to touch,
Palms meeting palms,
Fingertips to fingertips.
Real pressure of each palm towards one another.
Start to rub the hands up and down,
Up and down.
You're building heat and fire in the palms.
Keep rubbing up and down.
Perhaps cueing breath to movement,
Inhale as you draw upwards with the palms,
Exhale as you draw downwards.
Continue to rub the hands up and down,
Warming up the hands.
See if you want to quicken the movement going faster.
Do you want to change direction,
Maybe a circular motion here or just staying linear?
We breathe three more times as we warm up the hands.
And now pause this movement and cup the hands ever so slightly and then draw the cupped hands,
The palms just over the eyes about an inch or two away from the face.
In this cupping motion,
You might notice the shift in the light cocooning around the eyes,
This beautiful kind of darkness.
Breathe here.
I invite you now to take your finger pads of each hand and place the finger pads into the center of the forehead.
Using both hands,
Start to tap the fingertips up and down,
Tapping,
Tapping,
Tapping,
Like gentle raindrops hitting the forehead as you tap and tap and tap.
And as you tap,
Can you notice the type of pressure you like?
Maybe you want to tap harder and slower,
Lighter and quicker.
The invitation is to stay with this tapping or pause finger pads in the center of the forehead.
Start to slide the fingertips out in opposite directions,
Out towards the hairline.
Again,
Finger pads meet in the center of the forehead with gentle pressure,
Slide them out towards the hairline.
Try this five more times,
Pressing through the center with the four finger pads of each hand and then dragging,
Sliding out to the hairline.
Three more times.
Allow the hands now to fall down into your lap.
Take an inhale through the nose,
Part the lips and allow the exhale to fall softly out of the body.
Re-centering yourself with three more breaths like this in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Breathe in and breathe out.
Again awareness drops down into the hands and this time into the index finger and the middle finger.
You create a peace sign.
Lifting that peace sign up,
I want you to use that peace sign to frame on either side of your ears.
Your middle finger is going to be on the front of the ear and the index finger will sandwich and be placed behind the back of the ear.
From here,
Start to inhale and slide the fingertips from the low part of the ear up towards the temple and then slide it back down.
Then inhale,
Sliding fingertips up,
Dragging fingertips back down.
That index finger pointer finger that's behind the back of the ear,
Use that to really get into that ear crease.
As you slide up,
You slide back down.
The invitation is to stay with this movement here,
Just focusing on the ear.
Or,
If you would like to explore,
As you slide that peace fingers down,
Continue to slide the fingertips down the jaw line.
Again index finger,
Middle finger with pressure down the jaw line to the tip of your chin.
And then slide back up towards the ear,
The base of the ear and the top of the ear.
Repeat four more times.
Explore pressure,
Light or deep.
Allow the hands,
When you're done,
To once again fall into your lap.
Invite softness into the body.
And finally,
Once again,
The awareness into the hands,
The index finger and the middle finger of each hand will come up and you'll place them into the center of the eyebrows.
From here,
Press finger pads of index and middle finger down along the bridge of the nose,
Along the cheekbone,
Using those two finger pads on each hand to trace along the cheekbones out to the temple.
And again,
Come back to center,
Peace fingers of each hand,
Index the middle finger in between the eyebrows,
Press,
Start to draw down along the bridge of the nose,
The crease of the nose to the cheekbones and out.
Explore this four more times.
Allow the hands to fall back into your lap.
Breathe in through the nose.
Breath tumbles out the mouth.
Allow the body to be supported by the earth,
By your sit bones,
And by your ability to use self-touch as a form of self-soothing.
Stay with your breath in this seated meditation for as long as you need,
Returning back to any of the touch techniques that you would like to explore or use.
When you're ready to complete your meditation,
Draw your hands once again to touch palm meeting palm,
Bowing your head down.
Acknowledge and give thanks to your body,
To your hands.
Have a beautiful rest of your day.
And if you are needing any visual cues for this meditation,
You can check out the philosophy on Instagram and look up self-touch for self-soothing to find the techniques we discussed here in a visual representation.
Thank you.
