Settling yourself ready for this practice of yoga nidra and inviting a delicious sense of letting go into this very moment as you arrange yourself into the most comfortable position and it can be any position that you like.
If you're listening to this out and about you may well be seated or you could try standing I guess it's always nice to be able to completely relax.
So inviting that wonderful sense of melt into the body so the body can just relax and let go and there may be particular places that could do with extra awareness,
Extra invitation,
A really warm welcome either side of the spine around the shoulder blades,
The back of the neck,
The lower back,
Hips or even the jaw and the brow line and as we take our awareness into these places that perhaps they're stuck,
They're stuck in a way of coping given all of the demands on ourselves throughout daily life we end up in these patterns of holding ourselves just like the layers of the earth.
Sometimes you go to the beach you can just see in the cliffs layer upon layer of sand and shingle and time and we can be a bit like that.
So inviting your awareness around the body,
Around the cliffs of yourself and just noticing if there's perhaps a deeper layer of stress and actually right now we don't need to keep holding on to that and so welcoming yourself to this wonderful space of arrival and welcome the body and the lovely support on which you are right now letting the earth hold you up let gravity draw you in The weather interlates summer here in Glasgow it's a bit like the sea some days it's calm other days it's very choppy and on top of all of that time held patterns of holding and tension there's the chilliness and the windiness and the raininess and then the lovely sunniness and the angry wasps and all of that to deal with.
And so these first few weeks of transitioning into late summer it's very much on feeling grounded feeling supported and held.
And so breathing up and down the spine and you may like to imagine yourself or imagine your imaginary self in another place entirely also breathing up and down the spine and that place could be somewhere so nourishing so welcoming so beautiful.
And see if that imaginary self wants to doesn't have to may wish to start breathing in and out for an even length of time could be breathing in for three and out for three.
And both both versions of yourself are held and supported.
And then the lovely imaginary version of yourself if it felt nice could even breathe in for an even count and then hold the breath for an even count breathe out for that count and hold the breath again and this is a really lovely breath work called equal breath or square breath so you can imagine with each part of the sequence you're going along the next side of a square and meanwhile just the version of yourself lying on the mat can breathe softly and easily in whichever way feels good up and down the spine.
It doesn't matter if your awareness wanders away goes somewhere else entirely.
And this lovely imaginary self or whatever you want to call that version of yourself it could be you just as you are lying there.
That version is just filled with such a wonderful sense of herself or himself and is feeling really contented and well.
Perfect in fact there's a sense that that version of yourself is enough that doesn't need fixed that doesn't need to do anything that version of yourself is very contented and feels truly enough and if you like you can decide that you want to be that version of yourself for a few moments and just see how that feels what does it feel like to feel like you don't have to keep doing to keep up that just as you are is perfect and is there anything that you might want to share with the version of yourself that's lying on the mat in your yoga space just now and so I leave it up to you which version that you would like to be and then a few moments we're going to bring ourselves towards the end of this inspired practice and it may be that you would like to be both or come and be the person who was on the mat because that feels real or you might be quite intrigued by the person who truly knows that they are enough you might like to wear that hat for a while and so deepening and lengthening the breath just the soft and easy comfortable breath letting go of any rhythm of breathing in and out for an even number or holding the breath just letting all the back home and noticing the the wonderful pattern of touch and sensation between your body and the surface on which you're relaxing and as you deepen that breath you may be able to hear the breath there may also be other sounds just happening around and that's exactly how it should be and so starting to bring small movements into the body if you're lying on your front you may end up coming back into a delicious child's pose if you're lying on your back you might end up hugging your knees and rocking from side to side just curling up finding a really lovely space just to curl up and then coming up to a more alert and upright position feeling nourished and supported so this practice of yoga nidra inspired by the earth and this wonderful season of late summer is now over thank you very much for listening
