Notice if you want to stretch or get a blanket if you're going to be warm enough.
And if you're feeling quite sleepy,
You might let yourself have a sleep during this practice if you want.
But as much as you can,
Stay present and stay as a witness.
One of the ways that we might do that is to notice the whole of our body,
Head to toes,
Notice your breath,
And then come into like a position of if awareness was behind your head and you were watching thoughts in the mind.
Let's take a few minutes to really work with thought.
So one of the things that usually happens with thought is that we'll have a period of not having thoughts.
And it might be five seconds,
It might be a little bit longer.
But if you were watching thoughts in the area of the brain,
Notice what the content is.
And when we give our mind something to focus on,
It often helps us to not get into a train of thought.
So you might,
For instance,
Focus on softening your forehead,
Eyebrows,
Eyes.
We're really just learning about what's happening in your mind right now,
And what are the patterns.
As thoughts start to come in,
Notice what type of thought it is.
The Vassana meditation notices and labels thoughts,
Thinking,
Pain in my knee,
Whatever that might be.
So you could try that if you want or if you're familiar with it.
Otherwise,
Just notice,
Is it a descriptive thought?
Is it a comment?
Is it a commentary?
Is it a train of thoughts?
And then whenever you notice that your mind has wandered off,
Bring it back into witnessing.
You might notice content or quantity,
The energy of thought.
Sometimes our thoughts are kind of laid back.
Other times there's more compulsion.
What's your experience around that?
You might return to softening your forehead after each time you notice that you've been off on a train of thought.
Keep noticing your breath.
And if something is quite disturbing,
You might open your eyes,
Put it over on the other side of the room.
Notice the image,
Put it in a frame,
Take your eyes around the empty space on the outside a few times in each direction.
But if it's a little bit less intense,
If you can easily bring yourself back to witnessing,
Then you wouldn't have to do that.
Just save that one for the really strong,
Compulsive thoughts.
Otherwise,
Just relax,
Witness.
What's going on in your thoughts stream,
Or in your thoughts right now?
As you're noticing thoughts,
Are they about the past or the future?
Usually descriptive thoughts are just about the present.
I'm noticing my breath,
Or I'm noticing something.
The other types of thoughts tend to be more about either the past or the future.
Notice if your mind is getting bored,
And if it's just starting to wander.
And whatever it is that your mind is doing,
Keep bringing it back to witnessing.
Without any judgment or feeling like my mind is a failure or something,
We're just noticing what is it that happens.
This is the nature of one layer of the mind,
Is to generate thought.
And we're doing a practice of witnessing that.
Notice if there's anything in particular that you need to be paying attention to before we go into yoga nidra.
The part of what we're doing is we're giving our mind an opportunity to bring things forward.
There might be something you need to work with,
Either now or make a note for later.
And maybe to take a moment as well to move your body if you'd like to,
Or to adjust your position,
Take a few deeper breaths.
We're going to go into working with the three of the chakras.
So the ajna chakra,
The eyebrow center,
Is the seat of the waking state.
Throat center is the seat of the dream state.
And the anahata chakra,
The heart,
Is the seat of the deep sleep state.
Let's start with a little bit of a body scan relaxation.
Notice your whole body.
Let the back of your body soften and settle.
Release any tension out of your shoulders,
Upper back,
Back of your arms and legs.
Take a few deeper breaths.
And as you breathe out,
Let your whole back body soften into the support that's here.
And notice your front as well,
Your forehead,
Eyebrows and eyes,
Mouth and jaw,
Your throat.
And then bring your awareness down into the front and sides of the neck,
Into the arms and hands.
Into the muscles of the chest,
Stomach area,
Down through the legs and the feet.
And then awareness of the whole body overall,
Head to toes.
And then bring your awareness into the eyebrow center.
In the same location,
Just behind your forehead,
Just above your physical eyebrows,
But right into the energy center,
The chakra,
The ajna chakra.
And imagine that you're breathing in and out through your eyebrow center.
And let your mind be still,
Only focused on the eyebrow center.
Let go of the thoughts,
The stream of thoughts,
All of the thoughts that might be in your mind.
See if you could allow them to become still and focus your mind on being awake and alert and breathing in and out through the eyebrow center.
When we're working with the chakras,
We're working with an energy wheel.
Chakra is a wheel of energy.
And it's not in the same layer of the mind as the thoughts.
So if we're distracted by thought,
It just means that we've come up to a more surface layer of the mind.
So bring your awareness to the energy,
The ajna chakra in behind the forehead.
Focus your attention there and breathe.
Let your mind be awake and alert.
And then bring your awareness now into your throat center,
Vishuddhi chakra.
Imagine that your breath is moving in and out of the full moon at the throat center.
Let your mind be still,
Awake and alert.
And it might be helpful here to relax your throat,
Neck and shoulders.
Let your physical body be relaxed and let your attention come right into the vishuddhi chakra,
The throat center.
Let your mind rest.
We just keep patiently bringing our attention back if it wanders away.
Let your mind be awake,
Alert.
Let the vrittis,
The thought waves come to stillness.
And now bring your awareness down into your heart center,
The anahata chakra in this space in the middle of the chest.
And we're focusing in on the energy center,
The heart chakra.
And in this wheel of energy,
There are no thoughts.
It's just stillness,
Awareness.
As you're getting grounded into the heart chakra,
You might be aware of the breath.
Noticing the breath as it moves in and out and through the heart center.
And let go of all other thoughts.
Let go of awareness of the other layers of the mind.
Come completely into the energy of the heart chakra,
The anahata chakra.
And gradually let go of the breath.
Let your mind rest in the stillness.
And if your mind is moving to the other layers,
Bring it back.
Let your mind be settled.
Your focus be in your heart chakra.
Continue to notice if your mind is elsewhere.
Bring it right back into your heart center.
Your mind be awake and alert.
And undisturbed by thoughts in the mind.
Let yourself be aware of the stillness.
And then bring back breath awareness into the heart center.
Imagine that you're breathing in and out through your heart chakra.
Let your mind be still.
Introducing this awareness of the breath as though it's flowing in and out of your heart chakra.
And then bring your awareness up to your throat center,
Vishuddhi chakra.
Come right back into that awareness in the energy center.
Notice your breath as though you're breathing in and out through the vishuddhi chakra.
And then bringing your awareness up to the eyebrow center,
The ajna chakra.
And same stillness.
Awake and alert.
Just some awareness of the breath.
And then begin to let your awareness flow from the eyebrow center through the sushumna channel to the base of the nose where the nostrils meet the upper lip.
Follow the flow of your breath.
Let your breath be continuous and smooth.
Continue to observe if there are thoughts in the mind.
And then let go of the breath awareness and bring yourself back to awareness of your whole body.
You might wanna bring a little bit of gentle movement into your fingers and toes,
Into your body.
Notice what your experience was in the practice.
Take two or three minutes to let your body kind of gradually come into a more awake state.
If you're lying down,
You could turn over to your left side.
Focus on the breath in your right nostril for a moment.
Notice your experience in the witnessing of the thoughts at the beginning.
What was your experience in the energy centers,
In the chakras?
Was it a time of a lot of thought or was your mind fairly quiet this time?
Were you awake?
Did you fall asleep?
Notice all of those components of the practice.
