This is a recording of a mindful body scan designed for you to use regularly to help you assume an active and powerful role in your own health and wellbeing.
It's best to listen to this recording and do what it suggests while in a comfortable place where you can feel safe,
Secure and free from interruption.
Looking at this practice time as an opportunity to be both by yourself and fully with yourself.
An opportunity to nourish yourself,
To open up to and experience the potential of strength and healing within yourself.
Our culture asks us to live so much in our thoughts,
In our heads,
That we may sometimes forget that the whole body feels and knows.
That there is a wisdom beyond words.
We may have built in habits that ignore,
Minimise or completely shut down the possibility of feeling our own aliveness.
Now the body scan is an opportunity to connect a little more to the body.
This marvellous sensing instrument that can bring you closer to yourself,
To the world and to others.
This practice is a time for gentle exploration of the present moment.
The opportunity to explore bodily experiences can be very helpful.
You can begin to notice what feels good,
What you withdraw from,
When you tense up,
When you can give yourself space.
This is a time for simply being your experience.
Being just as you are,
Without criticising,
Judging,
Wishing or trying to change the experience in any way.
While many people prefer to do the body scan lying on their back on the floor,
On a mat or a cushion to protect you from the hardness of the floor.
The body scan can be done in any position,
Lying or sitting on the floor,
On a bed or on a chair.
What really matters is your presence in the moment.
What really matters is that you are choosing to show up for what is happening now and the attitude that you bring towards this practice.
Lying on your back with your arms and hands at your sides and legs outstretched or with the knees bent and the soles of the feet on the floor.
Perhaps with a cushion under your knees,
If that's more comfortable,
Or sitting in a chair in a relaxed posture.
Making a choice to allow yourself to be exactly as you are in this moment.
Coming gently to notice the breath.
It's such a constant feature of life that it's easy to ignore.
So taking time with it now.
Actually feeling the sensations as the breath enters the body and leaves the body of its own accord.
Allowing it to move through its cycle of in-breath and out-breath without having to control any of it.
If it feels right to you,
Attending to the belly,
The lower abdomen,
Noticing that it may be rising and falling with the cycle of the breath.
And if you care to,
Placing your hands on your belly,
Feeling the movement of the breath,
The rhythm,
The waves of the breath.
Simply riding the waves of your breath from moment to moment.
As you listen to this body scan.
If at any time sensations in the body become too uncomfortable or emotions that arise are too difficult.
Knowing that it's always possible to return to the breath as a safe place,
A haven,
A retreat for you to rest in until you're ready to venture again into the body scan.
Wherever this recording is in its progress.
If you placed your hands on your belly,
Now taking them off and moving your attention to the top of your head.
Noticing that sensations may arise when you bring attention to a particular part.
There may be tingling,
Maybe pressure,
Maybe a feeling of the breath or the pulse affecting this area.
Or perhaps there's no sensation.
That's okay.
That's simply your experience of this moment.
And when you're ready,
Moving your attention to your forehead.
Observing any sensations.
Perhaps furrows of tension or tingling or a sense of relaxation.
Letting yourself to feel whatever you feel.
Now moving your attention from the forehead to the eyes and the eyelids.
Noticing how you're holding them.
How much or how little pressure does it take to keep them closed.
Experiencing the eyes from the inside.
From behind the eyelids.
Are the eyeballs moving or still?
Is there darkness?
Light?
Color?
Movement?
Or maybe you don't see anything.
How does the breath and the cycle of breathing affect this area?
Looking with eyes closed.
When it feels right,
Beginning to pay attention to the cheeks.
Sensing the bones,
The muscles,
The skin of the cheeks.
Noticing the play of air.
Sensation of coolness or warmth.
Tightness.
Relaxation.
Noticing perhaps that some sensations stay for a while,
While others pass quickly.
And that intensity may change one way or the other as you bring attention to them.
And attending now to the nose.
From the bridge to the edges of the nostrils.
Perhaps feeling the breath in the nostrils as it enters and leaves.
Noticing temperature,
Moisture,
Sensations on the upper lip.
Moving the attention to the jaw.
Being aware of any tightness or softness.
Allowing the jaw to drop down slightly.
And noticing any changes in sensation in the muscles of the face and neck.
Or in other parts of the body which that small movement may create.
And expanding your focus of attention to include the mouth and the lips.
Inside the mouth.
The tongue against the teeth.
Against the roof of your mouth.
If you care to.
Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Allowing the air to play on its way out.
Observing the sensations of dampness,
Dryness,
Warmth,
Coolness.
And expanding the attention to encompass the entire face.
Not a picture of your face in your mind.
But really feeling the sensations in the area that we call the face.
What's there for you?
Aware of any thoughts and emotions.
Any thoughts or emotions arise.
Allowing them simply to come into awareness.
And pass.
Like clouds in the sky.
Without judgement.
Mind wandering.
It's a natural phenomenon.
Shifting the attention to your neck.
Noticing how it is right now in the big muscles at the back of the neck.
And the base of the skull to the shoulders.
The throat.
Aware perhaps of the play of air or the touch of clothing.
Being present in this experience.
Moving now to the shoulders.
Checking into their condition in this moment.
Any tightness or softness.
Recognising that this is how they're feeling right now.
Accepting it.
Knowing that it does not need to be some other way.
And knowing also that conditions change.
Noticing if there's any sense of breath in the shoulders.
How much of the body does breathing affect?
Allowing your attention to travel to the upper and mid back.
Sensing the muscles.
Tight or loose.
Aware perhaps of sensations of the weight of the body here.
Pressure against the floor or the chair back.
Feeling of the texture of clothing.
And noting how the breath moves in this area.
Bringing attention now to the lower back.
To the sense of contact or lack of contact with the floor or chair.
The sense of yielding to gravity or resisting.
Any tightness or softness.
Noticing any tendency to move away from or towards any sensations.
Or maybe there's thinking.
Feelings.
Judgements that arise.
Remembering that this is simply how it is right now.
How you're feeling and experiencing your lower back at this moment.
And now experiencing the whole back.
From the shoulders to the base of the spine.
Aware of the subtle and not so subtle motions of the back as you breathe.
Dwelling in the sensations of the back.
Not watching from your head.
Just knowing what the back knows.
Shifting to the arms.
To the upper arms.
And forearms.
Aware of the pull of gravity.
The weight of the arms.
Feeling the muscles and the joints.
The elbow.
The touch and texture of clothing.
Your arm against the floor.
Or the weight of your arms by your sides.
And expanding the attention to include the wrists.
And the hands.
There may be sensations of warmth or coolness.
Tingling.
Moisture.
Or dryness.
How does the breath affect the arms and the hands?
Is it possible to feel the pulse here?
Just being with what's here right now.
And moving as you are ready to the chest.
Aware of the lungs and heart in this space.
Maybe sensing inside as the lungs fill and empty.
Perhaps noticing the heartbeat.
The rhythm of the heart and the breath together.
Being present to these sensations of life.
And feeling the surface of the chest.
The skin.
The touch of clothing.
Any sense of movement.
And now extending the tension into the abdomen.
The belly.
Feeling inside first.
This place where we have our gut feelings.
There really are nerves here that sense and know.
Feeling into the motion of the diaphragm.
As it rises and falls.
The sense of the breath in the belly.
And when it seems right,
Moving attention to the pelvic region.
From hip to hip.
Aware of the effects of gravity.
The weight of the lower body.
The buttocks pressed into the floor or the chair.
Sensations in the hip joints.
The groin.
The genitals.
The lower abdomen.
Tuning into the sense of the breath.
Of the pulse here.
How far do they reach?
And again noticing thoughts and feelings that may arise.
Aware of judgements.
And as much as it's possible for you,
Letting them go.
Now shifting the focus into the upper legs.
The thighs.
Aware of gravity's work.
The pressing against the floor or the chair.
And the feel of clothing against the skin.
And moving in.
The quality of the muscles.
There may be tightness,
Tension,
Looseness.
Is it possible to feel the bone running through?
And extending the tension now down the leg to the knees.
To the knee joints.
To inside the knee joints.
To the lower legs,
The calves and shins.
Noticing points of contact.
Or lack of contact with the floor or the chair.
Aware of gravity.
Aware as well that the legs are alive.
How does the breath affect them?
How about the pulse?
Is there a sense of the blood flowing?
And when you're ready,
Exploring onward to the feet.
Feeling where they are.
The floor.
Perhaps a sense of temperature.
Warmth or coolness.
A sense of the breath and heartbeat perhaps.
Extending your awareness to the soles of your feet.
And your toes.
You don't have to move your toes.
But having a sense of your toes being next to one another.
Noticing what that's like.
Maybe having an awareness of no sensation.
And that's okay.
Now expanding the attention to include the entire body.
From the soles of the feet to the top of the head.
Being present to the totality of the experience of sitting or lying here in this moment.
Perhaps feeling the breath.
How it's been a constant companion.
It brings the whole body together.
As does the pulse.
The heartbeat.
Feeling the sense of gravity.
The sense of being held gently.
Closely.
Without fail.
Selling in what the body feels.
In what it knows.
And the last moments of this body scan.
Congratulating yourself for spending the time and the energy to nourish yourself in this way.
Continuing to make choices.
To live a more healthy,
Satisfying life.
And knowing that you can carry this awareness of your body's deep wisdom beyond this practice session.
And into each moment of the day.
Wherever you may find yourself.
As you end this practice,
Allowing your body to tell you how it wants to move.
And if you're laying down,
Rolling to your side,
Before you raise your head and get up.
Taking care.
Taking care of yourself.
