Hello,
I'm Kelly Villarreal.
Welcome to a 10-minute guided body scan meditation.
A body scan is a mindfulness technique,
A practice that helps shift us out of our heads and into our bodies by utilizing awareness of sensation and felt sense as a place to anchor our attention.
This type of practice is also sometimes referred to as bottom-up regulation and this can be a useful way to downregulate the nervous system when we're feeling stressed,
Anxious,
Triggered or just want a moment to come back to ourselves.
Let's begin.
You could start by finding yourself a comfortable seat and then close your eyes.
You'd take a deep breath in through your nose and a settling breath out and then just for a moment watch some rounds of breath come and go.
You could start to gently travel your awareness down into your feet and notice where they're in contact with the floor.
What parts of your feet do you feel in contact with the floor?
What is that sensation like?
You could say to yourself,
I can feel my feet on the floor.
You could begin to notice now the space between your feet and your knees.
Notice what's present out toward the external layer of the body at the skin.
Then noticing in through tissue like muscle or the bones of the lower legs and the feet.
If there's a sensation present that you can clearly identify,
You might name it to yourself or just notice what's present in the space between your feet and your knees.
You'd start to let your attention now walk to the space between your knees and your hips,
Feet to knees,
Knees to hips,
From the skin to the muscle,
In toward the layer of bones.
Notice what's present.
What do you feel?
How does it feel?
Where?
You'd notice for anywhere in this space between feet and hips that you have a sense of the body holding on to itself,
Gripping.
Any space that you can identify that sensation of the body holding tightly,
You could invite a letting go.
Each time you breathe out,
Find a layer to soften here.
You could come to notice your seat.
Where it's in contact with the floor,
Your cushion or a chair.
Notice what your sit bones are connected to and then start to draw a line of awareness of the tall center line of your body,
The line of the spine.
To allow your attention to move slowly here,
You take notice of each vertebra and the spaces alongside those vertebra across your back.
As you look around at this space on the back of the body,
Maybe there's sensation present there.
Nothing to do about that sensation,
But to notice,
Become aware of.
As you walk your attention up the spine,
You might also notice the wave-like quality of the spine.
You'd come to notice the lowest part of the belly,
The space below your navel.
Notice if you have any sense of constriction or holding there.
Could you let the lowest part of your belly spill out,
Be contained by your clothing,
And you could come to notice the way that your low belly moves with your breath,
With the rhythm of your respiration.
You'd come to shift that awareness into the ribcage.
Notice where you feel the ribs rise and separate,
Open up to accommodate your breath in and where all of that returns as you let the breath move back out.
As you watch that unfold for a few rounds of breath,
You could say to yourself,
I am breathing in.
I am breathing out.
I can feel my feet on the floor.
I can feel the connection of my feet.
I can feel my breath in.
I can feel my breath out.
Notice the tops of your shoulders.
Might let them soften away from your ears.
Notice the space from shoulders to elbows,
From elbows to fingertips,
From skin to muscle into bone.
You could name what you feel your hands in contact with.
That might be your legs.
You could come to notice the sides of your neck,
Your throat,
The lower half of your jaw.
Find just a little bit of space between your back teeth and let the tongue rest softly in your mouth.
Notice your face and let the muscles in your face be soft.
It might bring a softening to the space around your eyelids.
Notice the sensations present around your temples and all the small muscles along your scalp until you find your way to the very top of your head.
Take notice head to shoulders,
From shoulders to hips,
From hips to feet.
Notice the whole body.
Whole body together,
Whole body breathing.
Notice for just another moment the sensations of your breath,
The sensations connecting you to this present moment.
And take another deep breath in and a soft slow breath out.
As you're ready,
You could blink your eyes back open and reorient yourself to the space around you.
Thank you so much for joining me for this guided body scan practice.
