Welcome to this gentle guided body scan to help you fall asleep.
And first off,
Maybe you're playing this track because your mind is active or there are some worries present and I want to invite you to allow those thoughts and worries,
If they are there,
To be there.
And if you want to have something to do about them,
It can really help to just write that down quickly,
So you can take a break if you want to use that option,
And then continue the meditation.
Alternatively,
What helps is that you can actually let them simply be there,
The thoughts,
The worries,
Some rumination,
And you can speak to them directly and kind of reassure that part of you that is worried.
And you can say in your own words something like I hear you,
I have noted you and I will tend to you tomorrow.
So you can do that right now.
Very good.
And let's just do a big breath.
You can even do a few if you want.
So preferably always through your nose a big long full inhalation,
Feeling the expansion.
And then either through your nose or your mouth a big long full relaxing exhalation.
So make the breath your own,
Feel what is nice for you right now,
To sink into some further relaxation.
And then we're going to do a very simple body scan,
Just visiting the areas of our body,
Breathing some relaxation in those spaces.
And specifically what I want to invite you to do is to approach the body with a sense of acceptance and gratitude.
There might be pain or discomfort or stress or tension or judgments coming up when we visit the different places in our body.
So take a moment to to find that quality of acceptance and gratitude in yourself with which we will then do the body scan.
This is the same as setting an intention.
Very good.
And then let's go to the body scan.
And I really invite you to play a bit with it,
To just hang out.
There's not really a technique but just giving some mindful attention,
Beginning with the head and the face and the neck so that everything is in balance.
And each part that we visit you can sort of imagine that when you're breathing in,
The breath comes from the outside,
In this case of your head,
And fills your head with kind of light and awareness and energy and a sense of peace and calmness.
And then we're going to do the body scan again.
So I invite you to play a bit with it.
And I invite you to and fills your head with kind of light and awareness and energy and a calm energy,
A compassionate energy.
And when you exhale you can really imagine,
Visualize,
Feel that stress is leaving the head.
Tension is leaving the face and the neck and the throat.
So do that in your own way for a moment with the head and the neck area.
And then moving to the torso.
So let's take the chest first,
The chest area,
Including the front chest,
The side ribs,
The back of your chest and the inside.
So breathing in calming energy,
Awareness,
Compassion into your chest area.
And really allowing,
It's mostly an allowing of relaxation.
And when you exhale,
Letting the stress and the tension that can be released,
Release.
Release.
So take a few breaths there.
We use the breath as a as a as a means to place awareness.
So again including your belly,
Your lower flanks and lower back of your body.
Breathing in gentle,
Pleasant,
Calming energy and awareness.
And exhaling away all the tension.
And of course if any stuckness appears or maybe you notice that something isn't moving,
Then that's where we practice acceptance.
You might also intuitively sense that you can speak softly that you can speak some words to some parts.
Let that just come by itself if it wants to.
And then let's do the same for the left arm.
You can just take the whole arm,
Upper arm,
Lower arm and hand.
We're doing a simple body scan.
Inhaling that energy,
That awareness,
That gratitude and grace,
Calmness and allowing with exhalation any tension,
Pain,
Stress,
Discomfort,
Judgment to just dissipate into the space surrounding your left arm.
And then doing the same for your right arm.
Very good.
And then we're going to move to the hip slash groin area.
So the genitals,
The hips,
The buttocks.
Breathing in there the same quality of calm presence,
Awareness,
Spaciousness and breathing out.
Letting go of tension,
Worries,
Anything that is not serving you at the moment.
Just let it go.
Very good.
And then we move to the left leg as a whole again.
Feeling all the parts that want to be felt on the inhalation and relaxing anything that can relax.
And then moving to the right leg.
Maybe it's a different feeling,
Left leg from right leg.
So just have a very gentle kind of awareness and curiosity as you're inhaling awareness and presence and acceptance and spaciousness into the right leg and exhaling,
Relaxing,
Releasing,
Letting go.
And then let go of the body scan as such.
Just take a few breaths here.
And then I want you to zoom out and just see or feel or imagine your entire body.
Seeing yourself laying down or feeling your whole body.
However it would come to you to connect to your whole body and then breathing in from the outside of your entire body.
Long,
Full,
Pleasant,
Deep,
Nurturing inhalation.
Feeling your body when light,
Graciousness,
Acceptance,
Calmness.
And again that deep exhale,
Letting everything go.
And do that two to three times as it feels comfortable for you.
And then let that go as well.
And then lastly I want to invite you to notice if there's any body part that feels incomplete with the body scan or that you just notice is kind of calling out for some more attention please.
So just be with that body part,
Breathing,
Accepting or just hanging out there.
Just giving it some aware presence.
You can use the same technique as we've been doing or intuitively feel what's needed there.
It might be that you want to massage your knee.
I don't know,
This is your practice.
And then very slowly we're coming to the end of this body scan.
I wish you a beautiful sleep.
