Hello and welcome to meditation.
So as we start our practice,
I invite you to close your eyes if you haven't yet.
Or just find a soft gaze.
Just whatever feels more comfortable and safe for you at this moment.
And as you start to check in with yourself,
With your body,
Making sure you're bringing the attention from inside your body rather than from a mental state.
So this practice is a practice to feel the body rather than thinking the parts of your body.
So a way to make sure you're feeling from inside is to make a contraction or pressing parts of your body and then relaxing down and noticing the sensation.
So if you're sitting down or if you're lying down or standing,
Maybe you can make a fist with your hands,
Really a strong fist,
And then open it up and relax.
Just feel the sensations on your hands.
And that's bringing awareness from inside.
It's what in the science,
The physical sciences,
Is called interoception.
So to start the practice,
Bring your inner awareness to your feet.
And again,
You can also crunch and then relax just to make sure you're feeling it.
Bringing a curiosity to how does your feet or your foot feel.
Maybe it's touching the ground,
Maybe it's not.
Is it relaxed?
Is it carrying weight?
And moving up from the feet all the way to your ankles and your shins,
Noticing your lower leg.
What can you feel there?
Noticing the muscles and the tissues around the bones.
And rising to your knees and the back of your knees,
Maybe noticing a softness in the back of your knees.
Noticing the knee cap and the protection around your knee.
And bringing your awareness from inside to your thighs.
Feeling the back of your legs,
Your hamstrings.
Feeling maybe points of contact where your legs are feeling the chair or the ground or the cushion.
Noticing that sometimes our minds are all the time calling our attention and how important it is to dropping into the body,
Even if it's just for a moment.
And listening to the body and what the body has to offer at each moment.
Our bodies are always communicating with us,
But it's not always that we listen.
So this practice is to reconnect and start paying attention and giving attention to the body.
Feeling your hips,
Maybe your lower back if you're lying down,
Your tailbone,
Your pelvis.
Noticing any tension,
Any constriction maybe that the body might be carrying in that area.
There's a lot that we store in our hips.
And the invitation is not to change any sensation,
It's just to notice.
Notice the body as it is at this moment.
And as you bring the awareness up to your belly,
To your ribs and your back,
Your middle back.
Noticing how the breath is really moving these areas or maybe not so much.
Again,
Just to notice.
How does it feel in the body to have your lungs expand and the ribs fly out and the belly rise?
How does it feel to simply exhale and return the belly down into the spine?
And as you're paying attention to this part of your body,
Your whole torso,
Notice if you stopped paying attention to the lower part of your body,
Your legs,
Your feet,
Your toe.
And see if you can include the demo.
Just noticing from the toes all the way to your ribs.
And then bringing the awareness up to your chest,
Your upper back,
Your shoulders.
That's another area that we also tend to carry a lot of tension.
So just noticing how it feels right now.
Allowing the air also to come to this place and just open up if needed.
And maybe you can feel your heart beat on your chest.
Or maybe not.
Just being curious about what is it that you can feel in this area.
Knowing that whatever it is that you feel is okay.
Allowing the body to just feel what's present.
And then from your shoulders,
Bringing awareness to your arms,
The upper arm,
The elbows,
The inside of the elbows.
Your forearms.
The area where your arms connect with your wrist and then becomes your hand and your fingers.
All the way to your fingertips.
What sensations can you feel?
And then bringing the awareness up to your neck,
The back of your head.
Noticing also that this is another area that we carry tension.
And that's okay.
You're just listening to the body right now with a kind attention.
Just allowing the body to feel whatever it is feeling.
And bringing awareness also to your face,
The muscles around your jaw,
And the back of your eyes.
Your forehead.
All the way to the top of your head.
How does it feel,
The top of your head?
And it might be easier for some people than others to have that feeling,
To have sensations there.
And if you don't,
That's okay too.
Just be curious.
And as you get to the top of your head,
Just noticing the whole body now.
Noticing all the sensations throughout your body at once.
And as you feel the sensations in your body,
Noticing how ground you are.
Noticing the support of the chair,
If you're in a chair,
Or the floor beneath you.
Feeling your connection to the ground.
