Join me here.
Join me for this meditation to unwind after your long day.
Join me either sitting or if you're already getting ready for bed,
Lie down underneath the covers and get cozy.
You might lie on your back.
You might lie on your side.
Whatever position allows you to find the most comfort,
Just go there.
And as you start to settle either in a seat or in this lying down position,
Taking note of your surrounding environment.
Perhaps you can hear cars on the road outside of your home.
Perhaps you can hear footsteps in other parts of your house.
And just taking note of these sounds,
Letting them just exist in the peripheral of your experience.
Drawing in your awareness from your surroundings,
Closer now towards your own body.
Feeling the weightedness as you relax down into your support.
Perhaps taking note of any tightness that might exist in your shoulders,
Your back,
Your hips.
Which are often the centers for holding certain types of emotions such as anger,
Frustration,
Worry and anxiety.
And instead of starting to write a story about these feelings in the body,
Just noticing them.
Allowing them to be exactly as they are.
And then we'll take the awareness closer now to our breath.
Without changing anything in your breath quite yet.
Taking a moment to see where your breath exists.
Can you feel your breath rising and falling just there underneath the space of the collarbone?
Perhaps you can feel it deeper into your ribcage.
Expanding on the inhale.
And contracting on your exhale.
Or maybe your belly starts to move in and out with your breath.
A sense of ease.
A sense of letting go of your day.
And we'll take a moment to surrender here in this moment.
I invite you to think back to your day.
The morning.
Midday.
And this past evening.
And then as if you could scoop up all of these happenings with your breath.
Take the deepest breath you have today.
So really inhale,
Filling the ribcage.
Expanding through the low belly.
Scooping up all your experiences and then exhale.
Let that all go.
We'll do that a couple more times.
So really inhale.
Fill up your lungs.
Fill up your belly.
Pause.
And then let it go with this eye.
One more time to clear it all out.
Inhale.
Pause slightly at the peak.
And then exhale.
Letting it go.
Breathing now in and out of your nose.
Perhaps feeling a little bit more spaciousness in the body.
Symbolically having let go of everything that happened today.
And then we'll start to bring to mind a hope.
So often we feel burdened by all of the things going on in not only our lives,
But the world around us.
We carry these thoughts and ideas.
On our shoulders.
Weighed down by all the heavy things that happen.
So we will together invite an idea of hope.
Thinking of a state of being that you would like to reach for yourself.
Or perhaps a certain feeling.
That you would like to feel more often.
This can be subtle.
Perhaps feeling more strength.
Perhaps feeling a sense of calm.
Maybe feeling more confident.
Or sure of yourself.
Maybe it's feeling a sense of contentment or non-attachment.
Whatever you land on,
I want you to imagine yourself in this feeling state.
What does it look like for you?
How does it feel in your body to feel this way?
Take a breath in.
And a breath out.
Breathing in this feeling.
And then breathing out this feeling.
And then we will put this feeling into a phrase called a sankalpa.
An I am statement.
Saying this to yourself three times.
I am.
I am.
I am.
And to integrate this into our bodies before we start our body scan,
I invite you to do some breathing with me.
Taking equal breaths in and equal breaths out.
Calming the nervous system and preparing you for sleep.
You can choose to count in for three,
Four,
Perhaps five.
And then matching your exhale for the same amount of time.
Slowly counting in.
Slowly counting out.
Breathe.
Filling your lungs with this life energy and then letting it go.
Just like experiences come and go in our lives.
Intimately watching.
As the breath goes in.
And then intimately watching as the breath leaves the body.
And then beginning to mind your sankalpa,
Your I am statement.
Every once in a while.
Perhaps feeling a glimmer of that feeling in your body as you breathe.
And if your mind wanders.
That's okay.
No judgment.
Back to the breath.
In.
And out.
In.
And out.
And as you continue to breathe,
I'll guide you through a body scan.
Helping the body dissolve.
And surrender into the bed.
Into your support.
Taking a moment to get a little cozier.
And then bringing your body once again to stillness.
Keep breathing.
And we'll start at the toes.
All ten toes.
The soles of the feet.
The arch.
Of both your feet.
And the delicate bones of your ankles.
Your heels.
Sliding up to your shin bones and wrapping around to your calves.
The delicate knee.
To the thigh.
To the hamstrings.
Leaning up into your hips.
Wrapping around to the tailbone.
And then sliding this awareness up through your spine.
Tracing along each vertebrae.
Landing at the base of the neck.
And sliding your awareness back down to the front of the pelvis.
Up through the lower belly.
Through the navel up towards the sternum.
The collarbone.
And then from there branching out left right to either shoulder.
Wrapping down the shoulders through the arms.
To the elbows.
Down your forearms to your wrists.
And then branching out towards your fingers.
The palms.
And then landing again once at your collarbone.
Going up the sides of your neck.
Around the ears up towards the crown of the head.
And then softening through the forehead,
The space between the eyebrows.
The cheekbones and then down to the jaw.
Feeling supple.
And then once again going down towards the feet.
Drawing up through the legs.
The torso.
The chest.
And then the arms.
And lastly the head.
Now thinking of your whole body.
Your entire body taking up space.
Breathing here.
Slowly breathing in.
Slowly breathing out.
And then perhaps surrendering your body here.
Perhaps on the exhale just lingering there on empty.
Finding that moment in between the moments.
And then filling up with breath once again.
Noticing if your breath has shifted.
Any changes in the mind or in the body.
Reflecting on the beating of your own heart just there in your chest.
Bringing to mind your I am statement once again.
I am.
Washing away any tension.
Any of those spaces in your body that feel a little tight.
Finding more ease by sending your breath to these spaces.
Letting your breath carry you into sleep.
Letting your breath carry you into deep restful sleep,
Preparing you for yet another day.
Letting your breath carry you into sleep.
Letting your breath carry you into sleep.
Letting your breath carry you into sleep.
Letting your breath carry you into sleep.
