Trauma-Sensitive Body Scan

This trauma-sensitive body scan offers invitational language and concrete, body-based cueing to guide awareness through the body, including awareness of breath. This guided body scan is an opportunity to cultivate present moment experience, choice-making and body/breath awareness.

Transcript

Welcome to this trauma sensitive body scan.

When you're ready,

Maybe beginning to bring your body into a position that feels as at ease and stable as possible.

This could be lying down or seated.

Whatever feels best for you in this moment.

And as you're getting situated,

Maybe beginning to sense the parts of your body that are supported right now.

The parts of your body that are maybe supported by the floor,

The ground,

Whatever is beneath you.

Maybe a chair,

Maybe a bed,

Whatever is beneath you,

Beginning to notice the parts of your body that are supported by that surface.

And maybe beginning to feel the movement of your breath as it's coming in through your nose or through your mouth and going out either through your nose or through your mouth.

Maybe beginning to sense your breath as it comes in and as it goes out.

Perhaps starting to feel the movement of your breath inside of your body.

Perhaps sensing some movement in your chest or your belly or maybe elsewhere in your body as you're breathing in and breathing out.

And then when you're ready,

Perhaps beginning to bring your awareness down to your feet.

Bringing your awareness down to the soles of your feet and maybe noticing if the soles of your feet are supported by anything right now or not and just noticing,

Noticing the bottoms of your feet.

And as you're ready,

Maybe allowing your awareness to move into your heels and into your ankles and into your lower legs,

Into the backs of your knees,

Your upper legs,

Maybe allowing your awareness to move into your seat,

Into your hips,

Maybe noticing your hip joints,

Your sacrum,

Your lower back.

And if you would like,

Maybe pausing at your lower back just for a few breaths,

Maybe noticing a little bit of movement in your low back as you breathe in and out.

And then when you're ready,

Knowing that there's no rush,

Just as you're ready,

If you would like maybe allowing your awareness to move up a little bit into your mid back,

Maybe sensing the area of your mid back,

Your upper back,

Your shoulder blades,

Your spine,

Your shoulders and maybe bringing awareness into your right shoulder,

Sensing your shoulder joint and perhaps allowing your awareness to move down into your upper right arm,

Your elbow,

Your right forearm,

Wrist,

And into your right hand,

Maybe allowing your awareness to fill your right hand,

The palm of your right hand,

Your fingers,

All the way to your fingertips.

And then when you're ready,

Maybe allowing your awareness to move back up into your wrist,

Forearm,

Right elbow,

Upper arm,

Right shoulder,

And then over to your left shoulder,

Maybe sensing your left shoulder joint down into your left upper arm,

Elbow,

Forearm,

Left wrist,

Down into your left hand,

Maybe letting your awareness fill your left hand,

The palm of your hand,

Down into your fingers,

All the way to the tips of your fingers.

And then just as you feel ready,

Allowing your awareness to move back up into your left wrist,

Forearm,

Elbow,

Left upper arm,

And shoulder.

And then maybe noticing both shoulders,

Left and right,

At the same time,

Both arms and hands at the same time.

And then allowing your awareness to move into the back of your neck,

To the base of your skull,

Maybe bringing your awareness to the back of your head,

And up to the top of your head,

And to your forehead,

Your eyebrows.

And if you'd like,

Bringing awareness to your eyes,

Maybe sensing your eyes resting in their eye sockets,

Maybe sensing your eyelids and eyelashes,

Maybe noticing the points where your upper and lower eyelids meet.

And then if you would like,

Maybe bringing your awareness to your ears,

Noticing the shape of your ears,

Your earlobes,

Maybe noticing your inner ears and your sense of hearing.

And then when you're ready,

If you'd like,

Bringing your awareness to your cheekbones,

And to your nose,

The bridge of your nose,

The tip of your nose,

Your nostrils.

And if you're breathing through your nose,

Perhaps noticing the touch of the air at your nostrils as you breathe in and breathe out.

Maybe noticing the temperature of your in-breath and your out-breath.

Maybe one breath is a bit warmer or cooler than the other.

Just if you want to,

Maybe noticing temperature of your breath.

Maybe three or four more breaths here at your nostrils if you're breathing through your nose.

And then there's no rush,

Just as you feel ready,

Maybe bringing your awareness down to your lips,

Maybe noticing your upper lip and your lower lip,

Maybe noticing if your lips are touching or if there's space between your lips.

And when you're ready,

Maybe bringing your awareness to the inside of your mouth,

Maybe noticing the roof of your mouth,

Your tongue,

Underneath your tongue,

The insides of your cheeks,

Maybe noticing your upper row of teeth and your lower row of teeth.

And if you would like,

Maybe sensing the whole inside of your mouth.

And then perhaps bringing your awareness to your jaw and to your chin,

Bringing awareness to your throat,

The front and sides of your neck.

And if you would like,

Allowing your awareness to spread down to your collarbones and to your chest,

And as you're breathing,

Maybe noticing a little bit of movement in your chest,

Maybe a rising and falling of your chest as you breathe in and breathe out.

Maybe three or four breaths here,

Here in the area of your chest.

And then just as you feel ready,

From your chest,

Maybe allowing your awareness to move to the sides,

Sensing your rib cage and perhaps noticing the movement of your rib cage as you breathe in and out.

Maybe three or four breaths here,

Sensing the movement of your rib cage as you breathe.

And then when you feel ready,

If you'd like moving your awareness down to your belly,

Maybe sensing a bit of movement here in your belly as you're breathing,

And perhaps allowing your awareness to center here at your belly for three or four breaths.

And then just as you feel ready in your own time,

Maybe allowing your awareness to move back into your hips,

Maybe sensing your hip joints,

Maybe even a sense of your breath reaching your hip joints.

And then if you'd like allowing your awareness to move down into your upper legs,

Down into your knees,

Your kneecaps,

Down into your lower legs,

Your ankles,

Maybe allowing your awareness to move into the tops of your feet,

Into your toes,

All the way to the tips of your toes,

And back to the soles of your feet and your heels,

And maybe sensing your breath reaching all the way down to the bottoms of your feet.

Maybe perhaps sensing a whole body breath as though you're breathing in with your whole body,

Head to toe,

And breathing out with your whole body.

Maybe three or four of these whole body awareness breaths,

Sensing your whole body as you breathe in and as you breathe out.

And then as you feel ready,

Maybe bringing your awareness back to the parts of your body that are supported by whatever is beneath you.

If you'd like just beginning to sense the support that is beneath your body.

And then as we begin to transition,

Maybe just beginning to deepen your breath a bit or becoming aware of the movement of your breath in your belly or your chest.

You can always sigh out your open mouth on the out breath if you wish.

And maybe beginning to bring a little bit of movement into your fingers,

Your toes,

Feeling free to stretch your body,

Your arms,

Your legs,

Your neck,

Just in whatever way feels natural to you right now.

And taking your time,

You can stay here as long as you wish.

Or if you feel ready to transition completely,

Feel free to do so.

Thank you so much for practicing this trauma sensitive body scan.

May you be well.

Reviews

Thank you. I loved the pace and flow of this body scan. I’ll be returning to this 🧡🧡🧡

I really appreciate this meditation. Thank you so much

Very nice and thorough, all of my body feels well acknowledged, thank you.

I love that the guidance is in the form of suggestions. Very gentle.

I often struggle with body scans. This meditation is beautiful. The invitational language used helped me to acknowledge what I was experiencing and release what was not necessary or beneficial at the time. Thank you for sharing this meditation!

Very gentle and deeply grounding, thank you!

So fun to stumble upon this! I've taken a yoga class you taught years ago on the other side of the country 😌

Gentle and relaxing body scan. Perfect for helping me get back into my body and feeling more present. 💚

A very nice soothing voice. Jessa gives you permission to take her suggestions or do what feels right for you.

Thank you for this. Helped me completely relax and go back to sleep.