Deep Body Scan Holding Gratitude For Your Body

We hope you enjoy this deeply relaxing yet playful meditation. Where have your feet been? How clever is your wrist? How sensitive are your hands? Celebrate your body in heartfelt connection and with gratitude and wonder. This meditation can be used to aid restful sleep and to evoke a sense of playfulness at the moment.

Transcript

Okay,

Welcome everyone,

Whether you're listening live or catching on replay.

Just welcome to you all and yeah,

Just thank yourselves as I sometimes invite you to do,

Thank yourselves for making the effort to give yourself this time.

And let's just start that walk towards stillness,

Just close your eyes when you're ready or turn your eyes down.

And let's just do a little,

A little check in with ourselves.

Starting at our feet,

Let's just notice how our,

How our feet are.

Have they been pounding pavements,

Walking upstairs or stepping into the grass?

Have you been on a beach with the roughness of the sand or have your feet been closed up in socks and walking boots?

Just say hello to your feet.

Maybe wiggle the toes,

Crunch your foot and then relax.

All these steps that we've taken in our lives,

Hesitant steps as we're babies,

Older steps.

Do you think your feet remember the first time that you actually ran somewhere?

Your feet will have that memory,

That muscle memory.

The first time they walked on wet grass,

First time they were put into shoes,

The first time they jumped in a puddle,

Squelched in mud,

Stretched out in the sun,

Touched the coldness of the sea.

We think of our hands as the thing that sense these things and goes before us,

But often it's our feet.

Just check in with your feet.

Coming further up,

Check your ankles,

Your calves.

Do things feel tight or relaxed?

How's your skin doing?

How's it reacting to external pressures,

Midgy bites or prickly heat or starting to pick up a glow from the warmth of the sun?

Do you prefer your legs to have a covering or to be in the air?

Coming further up to your thighs and your pelvic area and your buttocks.

How are you sitting?

How are you holding yourself here?

Have you got any aches or pains in your hips?

Or are you feeling nice and fluid,

Nice and relaxed?

Coming up to your lower tummy,

What have you nourished yourself with so far today?

Water,

Coffee,

Tea.

What have you put into your body today and how's it taking it in?

Cereal,

Toast,

Fruit.

How's your gut doing?

Have you been kind to your body today?

Take a big deep breath in and allow it to come all the way down to your gut.

You can feed yourself with a deep breath.

Feed yourself by allowing some of life's energy force to come in and restore you,

Relax you,

Revitalise you.

Notice now what's happening at your midsection,

Just below your diaphragm.

Are you sitting in such a way that that's free or are you scrunched over?

It doesn't matter which way you're sitting,

Just notice is there space to breathe all the way down and are you tight in some way here?

Just continue to take these deeper breaths and as you breathe in with this awareness in your midsection,

Just imagine your breath not only going down to your lower tummy,

But imagine it going into your back,

Your kidneys.

We think of our chest rising and our tummy expanding when we breathe in,

But we can also take a conscious breath that comes out to the sides,

That goes to our back.

Just allow yourself to inflate and deflate.

Notice your chest area now.

How do your lungs feel?

Do they feel expansive or is there a hesitancy over taking a deep breath because you feel it might catch,

Catch in your throat?

That's fine,

Just notice are you holding yourself back in some way?

And maybe there's a good reason to do so.

Just take the time to check.

Take the time to notice whether you are holding back,

Restricting your breath in some way with your physical posture or your attitude,

Your expectation of yourself.

This is how I breathe.

This is the deepest breath I can take.

Just be curious.

Can the breath go deeper?

Can the breath go wider?

Can the breath go behind you?

Just play around in the same way as you played around in puddles,

Jumping into the sea,

Scrunching your toes into the sand,

Watching your feet sink and then playfully stepping out,

Not getting trapped in anything.

Just notice how your breath is and just see whether your limits that you've set yourself,

The notion of how deep your breath is or can it be?

Just check whether those limits are still valid for this moment.

Bring your awareness now into your shoulders and imagine breathing all the way into your shoulders,

Touching the base of your throat and spreading out the way,

Past your clavicle and all the way to the end of your shoulders.

Just feel that expansion,

Your chest expanding even further.

Bring your attention now.

Let's do our arms one at a time.

Let's come down our left shoulder and let's keep our attention going all the way around so we're aware of our underarm pit.

Let's circle that attention round and round our upper arms.

Coming down to our elbows,

Circling round our elbows,

The back,

The front,

The sides.

Coming into our forearms all the way down to our wrists and let's really hang out in our wrists for a little bit of time.

So many nerves and tendons being safely carried through into our hands to be able to function so well,

To do everything from pick up a dropped stitch,

To stroke a cat,

To feed ourselves,

To weep,

To point.

So many things our hands do and our wrist carries all of these things through that space.

Just be aware of your wrist around 360 degree awareness and just notice,

Have an awareness of the veins and the arteries,

The ebb and flow of your blood line coming all the way down into your hand.

Maybe just rub your hands gently together,

That sensation of touch.

It's your right hand that is touching your left hand at the moment.

Notice how sensitive your hands are.

This is somewhere where our hands are.

The skin is sometimes the toughest,

But how sensitive our hands still are.

So we can literally hold both in our hands.

We can hold a toughness and a softness and just be aware of that.

We can make big moves and we can make tiny moves.

Just be aware of that.

Just hold that awareness in your left hand,

Keep that sense of connection.

And if you like,

You can place your left hand on your lower tummy.

Just bring your awareness now back up to your neck,

Your shoulders and let's come down the right hand.

Aware again of our armpits,

Our shoulders.

And just notice any judgment creeping in of how your upper arms are.

Notice any comparison you might be making to others or to how your body used to feel for yourself.

You're on a journey.

Allow yourself to be where you are now.

Allow your body to be where it is now.

Maybe it's not as muscly as you would wish it to be.

Maybe there are softer,

Squidgier bits that you would rather in your mind's eye were somehow toned and firm.

Maybe there's wrinkles or skin tags or whatever it is that you're aware of in your body.

And just maybe think of these as just the same as the rings of a tree.

If we cut the tree down and we see all the rings,

We don't criticize it for having 20,

25,

30 lines.

We marvel at it.

What an amazing tree.

Think of all the birds that have nested in it.

Think of all the leaves that have grown and fallen and nurtured other things in the forest.

Just think of your body like this as well.

All these bits that we would rather were different are just our rings of life,

Seeing that we've been here for a while.

Think of all the times that we have held a hand out to someone or to an animal or rescued a plant that was overgrown with weeds.

That's our leaves,

Nurturing those around us,

Growing and then falling to the ground and nurturing.

So just notice if you judge your body and if you notice,

You can choose to have a different attitude.

What an amazing body that's carried you this far,

That's held others,

Held yourself.

And maybe there's things you'd rather you hadn't done.

Maybe there's things you'd rather you'd done earlier.

But just like the rings on the tree,

You don't get the outer ones unless you've got the inner ones.

You can't jump ahead on your journey.

You are the right person in the right place at the right time.

Just bring your awareness down your right upper arm into your elbow,

Your forearm and back down to that amazing wrist,

This little relatively narrow space that carries so much into our body.

What an amazing thing.

And bring that awareness into your right hand.

And again,

Just notice,

Be aware of the ebb and flow of your veins and artery.

Be aware of the tendons and muscles that allow your fingers to stretch,

To come together.

And notice again if any judgment starts to creep in.

Are there knobbly bits on your hands now that you rather weren't there?

But again,

Just think of that tree.

And it's all these extra bits.

It's all the bits that have grown over that tree's life that make it,

Make it what it is,

Make it so interesting and beautiful to look at or to draw or paint.

Who wants to paint a sapling for the rest of their lives?

Just feel that bark that bumps the grooves.

How amazing.

Now back to talking about your body.

How amazing.

And just notice your breath.

And hold that focus in your right hand and just allow it to join your left hand on your lower tummy.

And just breathe in deeply,

Inviting your breath to come all the way down,

Filling your chest,

Your ribcage,

Front,

Back,

Allowing yourself to inflate and deflate.

And just imagining that breath coming all the way down to meet your hands.

You can have this sense of supporting yourself with your hands and inviting in support from your higher resources with the breath.

And just start now to walk back up towards the surface.

Become more aware again of your physical surroundings.

But take this gratitude for your body as it is with you.

Take that sense of stillness with you into the rest of the day.

Just use your breath to come all the way back to the surface.

Take a couple of breaths and breathe out with a soft sigh.

Whenever you're ready,

You can open your eyes.

Welcome.