Rest Your Body And Nervous System

We let ease in our breath signal safety to our nervous system. We bring our attention to parts of our body, like the neck and shoulders where we brace ourselves or if our arms and legs are restless and ready to jump into action. This guided somatic practice relaxes our body from head to toes.

Transcript

One of the things we notice is,

Is our body comfortable?

Are we aware of our body?

So when we bring our attention to it,

Then we can bring our awareness into it.

But what is that experience?

Notice what it feels like in your body right now.

And our body and our breath are so connected.

If we're breathing smooth,

Even continuous breath,

It really signals to our nervous system that we're safe and then our whole body can relax from head to toes.

And even if our breath is not naturally like that,

If we bring our breath into a more regulated pattern,

Then it also works.

Our nervous system gets that message.

And of course,

Thoughts in our mind are so much a part of this as well.

It takes a little while sometimes for our mind to settle into a practice.

Noticing what's here,

Bring your mind in from other times and other places.

So when we're doing a practice and tuning in,

Sometimes our attention is right here in this moment.

And oftentimes there's another layer that's here,

Especially in our thoughts,

But also in our body.

We have that layer of history,

Contraction and tension,

Embracing ourselves.

So let's do a somatic inquiry,

Head to toes,

Kind of taking our time going through the body.

And we'll notice what that feels like,

But also how it works in the body,

The breath and the mind,

All of those different layers.

And the goal,

So to speak,

Is to come into stillness,

To let our body be so relaxed and our breath be so smooth that the mind really settles.

And then we experience that stillness that's always here,

But it's not always as accessible as we might like it to be.

Starting with your physical body,

Notice the whole of your body from head to toes.

And notice first if you're comfortable.

Are you comfortable in the position that you're in?

Are you warm enough?

You could change your position.

You could decide,

You know,

I thought I was going to lie down for this one,

But I think I'm restless and I'm going to get up,

Walk around for a bit first.

Or whatever is the most helpful for you.

Notice that you could allow yourself that.

And notice how your body is moving as you breathe.

Notice where the movement is.

Notice the rhythm and the pace of the movement.

And then bring your attention from that specific focus to a larger focus again and notice your whole entire body.

Notice as you go down through your body that there's a number of things that spring forward into your attention.

And then bring your attention to the back of your body so that you're noticing the back of your head,

Neck,

Shoulders,

Large muscles of the upper back in particular.

And if you're lying down or lying back or if you're sitting back,

Notice if you could accept the support that's here.

When we're bracing ourselves for trouble,

We're often doing that by this tension through the upper back.

To let that go,

Partly we do that through our intention of I'm going to soften that.

There isn't actually anything I need to do to protect my body by tightening up through that.

We might move our body a little bit.

Notice what that feels like.

One way to do that is as we breathe in,

Bring your shoulders up.

And then as you breathe out,

Let your shoulders release and let those muscles in your upper back soften.

And then bring your attention from there through the area behind the shoulder joints and into the back of the arms so that you're still aware in the back of your body.

We're letting our arms settle back.

We don't need to do anything right now with our hands or arms.

So it's okay to let them rest.

So it might be completely okay.

It might be yeah.

There's a lot of habit in the body.

So just to notice that.

I was to let my shoulders,

Back of the arms,

Upper arms,

Lower arms,

Back of the hands,

Fingers,

Fingertips.

I was to let that rest.

Does that feel comfortable?

And then bring your attention back into the back of the head,

The neck,

The shoulder blades,

Those large muscles that start at the center and then go out over the shoulder blades into the shoulders,

Arms.

Now bring your attention a little bit further down into your mid back area and behind the heart center,

Through the lower back,

The buttocks,

And then into the back of the legs.

And notice if it's okay to let your legs rest.

Part of that is we're doing a reading kind of in our body.

We're noticing,

Is it okay right now to let my body not be prepared for immediate action?

Could I go off guard for a bit?

When we pay attention to the back of our body,

It helps to lessen that forward momentum.

We walk forward,

We work with our hands in front of us.

We look forward.

With your mind's eye,

Focus on your back.

Notice sensations,

Energy.

Let your back body release.

Notice in particular the energy in your legs and your arms.

You can bring your attention to the whole of your legs,

Including the large muscles and the quadriceps,

The front of the thighs.

Be aware of your legs,

Your feet,

Your toes.

And if it would be helpful to stretch or move a little bit,

It's always okay too.

What would help your legs to go off duty and relax?

Sometimes people have a lot of restlessness in their legs.

And then the same for your arms.

Are your arms resting comfortably?

So notice the front of your arms,

The upper,

Lower,

And then the hands.

If your hands don't have anything to do right now,

Then could your arms and hands be at rest?

Bring your attention to the whole of your front.

We'll come back and do this a little bit more slowly in a minute.

Just to notice the face,

Your chest and stomach area,

Front of your arms and legs.

And then bring your attention into your face,

And in particular to your forehead,

Eyebrows,

And eyes.

And those small muscles around the eyes are a way that we communicate with each other.

And so those could be possibly at rest right now as well.

Relax the deep muscles of your eyes and all of the little muscles around your eyes.

Let your eyes be either closed or your gaze soft so that you're not bringing in a lot of new information into the eyes,

Into the brain.

And notice your forehead and your eyebrows.

You can lift your eyebrows up and then release them and see about any worry that might be rumbling in there behind your forehead.

If you could soften your forehead and let that ease.

And then bring your attention from there.

If it's wandered,

Bring it back in.

Bring it from the forehead,

Eyebrows,

And eyes down into the lower part of the face.

You could notice your mouth,

Your jaw,

The hinges of your jaw,

Your tongue,

Sensations of air through your nostrils.

And let your attention stabilize.

Keep your attention here on your face,

Mouth,

And jaw.

Let your tongue soften and rest on the floor of your mouth.

And then notice again where your mind went.

Bring it back if necessary.

And then come down into the throat and collarbone area,

The sides of your neck,

The front of your neck.

And notice if there's any more deepening or softening you could do there.

You might move your shoulders around a little bit and then bring your attention down into your chest area.

Notice what that feels like through your throat,

Large muscles that cover the chest at the top of the rib cage,

The middle part,

The lower part.

And when we bring our attention back to the area of the body where the breath moves the body,

We'll often notice that we'll tune into the breath again and we'll perhaps soften and release any tension that's in the breath.

And as we're inhaling and exhaling,

Just notice the rhythm,

The pace.

Notice where your chest is moving.

Diaphragm muscles right at the lower rib cage.

So the chest itself,

The upper chest,

Doesn't have a lot of movement when we're diaphragmatically breathing.

The stomach area rises as we breathe in and releases back to the spine as we breathe out.

We could anchor our attention to that for a little bit.

Ideally,

We're breathing diaphragmatically,

Which feels like that expansion on the inhale and the release on the exhale.

The breath is continuous.

We're not holding our breath.

It's an even length or a little bit longer on the exhale.

It's this smooth,

Continuous flow of breath.

If you find that you're holding your breath,

One way to work with that is to really focus on the transition points in the breath.

Just as you're coming to the end of the exhalation and your belly's getting quite soft,

Keep your mind focused as you watch and the body starts to breathe in.

And as you're coming to the end of your inhalation,

See if you could let go without any hesitation,

Finishing your inhale and then letting go of the breath.

As you come back to that softening belly at the end of the exhale,

Let the in-breath come in without any hesitation there either.

Just a smooth,

Even flow of breath,

Inhaling and exhaling.

And then we could experiment with some refinements with the breath.

You could check your volume.

You might be able to breathe a little bit more deeply,

And it would be helpful.

You could extend your exhalation so that it's perhaps twice as long as your inhalation,

As long as you can maintain the ease in the breath.

Let your mind be steady.

We're not trying to get rid of thoughts in the mind.

We're allowing them to be in the mind and we're not putting our attention on them so much.

As you're watching the breath and the way your body's moving with the breath,

Engages our attention for a while,

Then the mind will probably get engaged with something else and we can bring it back.

As you notice what's happening,

Just keep bringing yourself back towards the stillness.

Mind has that natural tendency to follow movement.

The practice is to train ourselves to resist that urge and to come instead into stillness.

Even if your mind was wandering all over the place,

We still have a few minutes left,

So it's not too late.

Bring your awareness back to something that's anchoring for you.

Could be your body,

The breath,

Sensations in your nose or in your belly.

Notice if you could hold yourself and your experience with kindness.

We have these nervous systems that get alarmed and we have thoughts in the mind and we hold our breath and we do all those things that are kind of alarming.

Then we keep coming back,

No matter what our circumstance.

Sometimes it's very difficult and it's a very intense practice to stay regulated.

Other times it's a little bit easier.

Even for a moment we can experience letting go of some of what's worrying us is very helpful.

Reviews

Very calming, especially with the constant sensation of anxiety in my abdomen. I'll come back to this meditation. Thank You 🙏🏼

Thank you Lynn 🙏🏽my pre op aching body needed this relaxing meditation

Love the pace of this relaxing and mindful meditation. Thank you for helping others learn how to do this ☺️

Asleep within minutes.
Another helpful recording tks.
🙏🙏🙏🙏

Beautiful guidance. I found my stillness. Thank you 😊 🙏

That was a really nice, relaxing session. Thank you very much.

After a day a travelling half away around the world this was a perfect meditation to help reset my mind and nervous system. Thank you. I am ready for my day with clear intentions.

Absolutely resting my mind and body. I was so keyed up I needed to readjust my thoughts, emotions and rigid body.

Gently and beautifully soothing. Thank you For this and for the wide range of materials and live events that you make available. I really appreciate that🙏🏻💕

This was very helpful practice for calming my nervous system. Found this meditation weeks ago and saved it and I’m so glad I did! Thank you!🥰💖🙏🏽

Wow. That was really powerful for me . Very grateful to you . 🙏❤️

Really wonderful process. I especially appreciated at the end when you spoke of the mind wandering and pointed out that there was still time to bring it back. Was a good reminder to not just throw away those last two minutes but to use them more consciously.

Very intense as I tried to release some of the pain throughout my whole body. Trauma pain is so strong and pervasive at times.
Edit: have since tried this for releasing residual pain after 3 consecutive days of intense bouts of painful anxiety. It helped a lot. I’m trying to find different practices for different stages of my crises. I wish I could find some resources specifically for releasing trauma for those of us who have ASD (or others who are ND) on Insight Timer. Recent research suggests the effects of cortisol last about 4 times longer for NDs than for NTs and that our pain is much more intense. I’m so grateful for Lynne’s resources though.