Hi,
I'm Christy Kelly and welcome to the practice of Yoga Nidra,
An invitation to return home,
Home to yourself.
Greet these initial few moments with intentionality,
Creating as much comfort for the body as possible.
You may find yourself lying against the support of a bed,
The support of the floor or perhaps with the support of the earth.
Allow the weight of your body to rest,
A way to begin remembering yourself of the earth.
The head,
Neck,
Lower back,
The knees are all supported,
The body in an optimal shape to receive.
The world in which we live is filled with constant motion and as you begin to allow yourself to rest,
It may be that in these moments of stillness,
You feel into the entire history of the body,
Noticing just how tired you are,
Where the pain lies and the messiness of the mind.
And at the heart of this practice is how we meet ourselves,
How we support ourselves.
Our practice is based on relationship,
The relationship to the breath,
The relationship to ourselves and the relationship to one another and the relationship to the earth.
Notice what it is that you bring to the practice and perhaps there's a word or a phrase that may describe what is moving through you.
And as you recognize this,
Make a gentle agreement to be with what is perfectly imperfect yet filled with everything you need to know in this moment.
Gently bring your awareness to the face.
Soften the features with tenderness as you place the palms lightly over the eyes,
The fingers curling gently toward the forehead.
With the eyes closed and the light pressure of the palms cupping the area surrounding the eyes,
Begin to slowly circle the eyeballs clockwise three times and then anti-clockwise three times.
And the eyes then soften into the center of the eye orbits,
Tension free.
The arms rest comfortably beside you or perhaps you place your hands on your belly.
And as you begin to feel yourself moving back from your everyday life,
A newfound spaciousness rises to meet you.
And as you return to yourself,
You begin to call back all parts of you across all time and space,
Past and future,
To the here and now.
Starting to simply be,
To allow and to receive.
The practice of yoga nidra begins now.
As you begin to unfurl and tension leaves the body,
You may find that sleep begins to envelope you.
If you find your consciousness begins to fade in and out,
Trust that you will receive exactly what you need.
You are welcome to follow the sound of my voice,
Yet in moments where you become uncomfortable,
Return to the rhythm of the breath and how the body feels against the support beneath.
And come back to the sound of my voice when you are ready.
The practice is shaped by sankalpa,
Which becomes the seed of intention you wish to grow within life.
The sankalpa is stated in the present.
It is positive and concise,
Using the powerful words,
I am,
And then the quality desired.
It could be something like I am rested.
I release limiting beliefs.
What is it that your heart desires?
What would you like to see made manifest within your waking life?
With the powerful prefix,
I am state the intention three times.
Simply to yourself.
Feel it,
For it is the truth.
And I will guide you through the architecture of your form,
And the light of your awareness will guide your way.
As I name the regions of the body,
Allow yourself to feel and sense coming alive to the landmarks from within.
Our journey begins at the skin of the forehead.
The brow is unfurrowed as you release the desire to continue holding.
The light of your awareness meets the inner ears.
Everything begins to soften as the sounds of the environment rise to meet you.
The seeing eyes soften into the orbit of the sockets.
Gently swallow,
Giving up any unspoken words.
The hinge of the jaw hangs loose.
The skin of the cheeks drape across the cheekbones,
Silken.
The throat and the neck are free to flow with energy.
Your attention meets the hollow of the throat,
Where your awareness traces the length of the collarbones in opposite directions toward the shoulders.
The weight of the shoulders yield in response to the pull of gravity,
Which continues the length of the arms,
Moving toward the elbows,
The wrists,
Hands,
And fingers.
Your consciousness travels back toward the shoulders,
Flowing through the wrists,
Elbows,
And the shoulders,
To glide the length of the collarbones toward the hollow of the throat.
Your awareness descends toward the centre of the chest,
Where the heart rests into the embrace of the rib basket.
The heart rests into the embrace of the rib basket.
And silently you are drawn toward the belly,
Impatiently attuning to the sensations and sounds emanating from within,
Connecting and listening into how rest echoes throughout your systems.
And the light of your awareness sinks toward the bowl of the pelvis,
Any tightness,
Any gripping begins to ease.
And from the central point of the pelvis,
Your awareness is drawn in opposite directions toward the hips,
And simultaneously you meet the knees,
The ankles,
The feet,
Before your awareness retraces the ankles,
The knees,
And hips to return to the bowl of the pelvis.
And resting into the pelvis,
And the sounds and the sensations of the belly draw your attention toward this region,
Listening to how rest feels,
Listening to how rest sounds.
The rhythm of the heart draws your attention toward the chest,
The rhythm of the heart sounding its unique signature before your awareness is drawn back toward the hollow of the throat,
Before coming to reconnect with the space between the brows.
The body calling you to melt into the entire experience of your physical form.
Resting into stillness,
The front body sinks toward the back body,
And the back body sinks toward the support beneath.
Becoming familiar with how it feels to allow yourself to be held as you remember yourself of the earth.
The constant rhythmical expansion and contraction of the fluid breath anchors you within this experience.
Every breath calling you home,
Become alive to the world that exists within,
The fluidity of the breath,
A barometer of the internal world.
You begin to trace the path of the breath,
Sensing how it moves into,
Around,
And then out of the body.
Tuning to the rhythm,
The bumps,
The places it moves,
And the places where it may not.
The trail of the breath lightly holds your attention.
With each in-breath,
Your awareness flows inward,
Feeling how the breath fills the body,
How it expands outward in every direction.
With each out-breath,
The body gently deflates,
And everything moves back toward the center,
The entire body breathes,
The in-breath filling you completely,
The out-breath deflating your being as though evaporating.
You rest into the entire experience of how it feels to breathe.
The light of your awareness awakens you to the qualities of the in-breath,
The expansive and subtly energizing nature as the cool breath enters and travels its pathway into the body.
The rise of the belly,
The rise of the entire body as it breathes,
The whole body soaked in life-giving breath.
The light of your awareness begins to calibrate to the qualities of the out-breath,
The contractile yin nature as the warmth of the breath travels the pathway out of the body,
The fall of the belly,
The way the body seems to move back toward the center as it breathes out,
The body relinquishing what it no longer requires.
Rest into how it feels to be with the complete cycle of breath,
Both the expansive and contractile nature of the breath as the body revels in this harmonious exchange.
There's nothing for you to do,
Nothing for you to make happen.
You're resting into how it feels to be with the complete cycle of breath,
Meeting the experience of how it feels to rest into the breath.
The body rests into the earth and the breath soothes the mind and you become alive to your rested self.
How does it feel to rest?
Forming this version of you that yearns to be acknowledged,
To be seen,
To be held.
The part of you that is constant,
That is always there,
Yet so often hidden beneath the demands of modern day life.
Resting into the stillness of now.
Remembering yourself of the earth,
Remembering the pathway to return to yourself to simply be,
To allow,
To receive.
Simply present to the powerful alchemy that resides within the spaciousness of rest.
Resting into the heart of being,
Allowing,
Receiving,
And listening with your entire being.
The light of your awareness recognizing the inner world mirrors the outer and the outer world mirrors the inner.
Your sankalpa rises to the foreground,
Your heart's desire spoken as truth with the powerful prefix I am.
Sense the power of your intention permeating every cell of your being.
And silently repeat your sankalpa three times.
Feeling it move throughout your entire being.
Feeling it as the truth,
And so it is.
The practice of yoga nidra is now complete.
And as you begin to emerge from rest,
Sense the breath,
The steady constant flow,
Gentle and soothing.
Sense into how the breath gently moves against the container of the skin,
Drawing you back to the surface.
The light of your awareness begins to trace the density and the shape of your physical form,
Returning you to this time,
This space.
The tuning to the vibration of sound from within the space that you inhabit,
Becoming alive to the temperature as the air touches your exposed skin,
Becoming more and more aware of the world around you,
Whilst simultaneously maintaining your internal connection.
Your breath is soft.
Your mind is clear.
And the body is rested with renewed connection and knowing.
And with the help of the hands,
With the back of the heart leading,
Making your way toward any comfortable seat,
Taking your time.
And as the body orients itself in this upright seat,
Firmly ground the sit bones beneath you,
Perhaps becoming aware of the current of energy that moves from the earth through the spine,
Toward the crown of the head and upward toward the heavens.
And in this moment,
Observe what may be true for you,
Noticing the state of the body mind.
Just noticing if there's a word or a phrase.
And notice how things may have shifted since the beginning of practice.
Remind yourself of the gentle agreement that you'd made to be with what is.
And just note how easily you were able to meet this.
And if you found yourself bumping up against the way things are,
Know that this is a practice.
And some days,
Acceptance of the way things are will be met with ease.
Know that there is always capacity for change.
And bringing the hands to rest at the heart.
And in this moment,
Honour all that you were,
All that you are,
And all that you are yet to accept.
