Day 10 - Feel Rest In Your Head - UM 30-Day Challenge

This short meditation with lots of guidance is part of a 30-day Unified Mindfulness challenge I offered at CarMax, and am now happy to share it with the Insight Timer community. The 30 sessions are designed to be done in order, however, you can jump around if you wish, just keep in mind I may refer to a previous recording.
There's a short introduction followed by a 5-minute practice.
This session focuses on restful sensations in the area of your head.

Transcript

Today we'll continue with the feel rest technique.

This time we'll focus especially on easing tension and feeling relaxation in the head.

We often get a lot of tension here and it can be refreshing to relax and release that.

Let's get started with today's practice.

Take a moment to lengthen your spine and relax your shoulders.

Place your hands comfortably in your lap or by your side.

Allow your eyes to close if you wish or keep them open.

Start by bringing your attention to your jaw.

Is it clamped tight?

See if you can relax it.

Perhaps even letting your mouth drop open a little.

Enjoy the feeling of rest in your jaw.

Now relax your mouth.

Feel any relaxation or relative lack of sensation in and around the mouth.

Now moving attention into your cheeks.

Let any tension go there.

Now relax your eyes and the muscles around your eyes.

If they're open,

Soften the gaze by defocusing the eyes and just relaxing them.

Relax the forehead and observe what that feels like.

Soak into the sensations.

Move the spotlight of your attention to your scalp.

See if you can relax that.

Feel into it.

Move your attention back along the top of your head and down the back of your head,

Releasing any tension as you go.

Now hold the entire field of sensation in your head in your awareness at once,

Noticing whenever restfulness is there.

Allow the relaxation to sink deeper.

Continue holding restfulness throughout your head in your attention or zoom into specific areas of particular rest.

We'll conclude this five minutes of guidance here,

But feel free to stay in meditation as long as you like.

When you're finished,

Take your time transitioning out and carry forward the relaxation with you.