Welcome to this Yoga Nidra for Deep Listening.
Settle your body in preparation to rest.
Choose a position that is of utmost comfort.
Let your breath be a resource and support in your process of settling.
I invite you to make the sound of a sigh where you are.
Use your next three exhales to feel the subtle vibration of that sound around the area of your jaw and in your face and throat.
Let the breath be natural.
Declare with your inner voice,
I am awake and aware of my experience of Yoga Nidra.
Feel the shape of your whole body,
Support it.
Feel the space that your body occupies.
Feel the shape of the space that surrounds your body.
Take attention to the space of the heart.
Listen to the inside space of your heart.
Just listen.
Create or connect with your Sankalpa.
Intention Statement.
A positive,
True statement honoring a wish from within your heart.
I invite you to use the following Sankalpa and pause afterwards to listen to what the voice of the heart would like to finish that statement with.
Deep listening offers me.
Say that statement three times slowly with your inner voice when it's clear to you.
Let the listening be as important as saying the words.
Let those words settle inside the body and come to rest just where they need to be.
Our sense of hearing is connected to our sense of touch.
We feel sounds inside the ear as they touch the membrane of the eardrum.
We also feel sounds with our whole being.
Listen to the guidance of the following body scan.
Focus on listening by sensing from that place in your body.
Take your attention to what you hear.
Listen to the sounds around you.
Listen to the sounds in the room that you are in.
Take listening beyond the room,
Beyond the space close to your body.
What can you hear?
Listen to the layers of sounds.
Let those sounds come to you.
Rather than striving to hear,
Let those sounds touch your ears as vibration and sensation.
Take your attention closer to the body.
Let your attention settle onto the surface of your skin.
Feel your skin.
Feel the air touching your skin.
Feel the temperature of the air on your skin.
Feel clothing touching you.
Then feel the sense of what else is touching your body.
Listen to sensation on the skin.
Very slowly,
Let your attention pass through the skin and come to the inside of your body.
Feel attention passing through the barrier of your skin.
Listen to sensation just below the skin.
Listen to the sensation of the face.
Listening to vibrations or pulsations within and upon the face.
Take attention to the shoulders and arms.
Listening.
Listen to your hands.
Hands vibrant with sensation.
Listen.
Let the palms of your hands be your ears.
Listen from the hands.
Listen to your torso.
Take your listening presence to your upper chest and back.
Listen to your lungs and the rhythm of your breath.
Listen to your organs.
Each organ in its place.
Listen to your belly and to your lower back.
Life vibrating,
Pulsing within you.
Listening.
Take attention to your hips and your legs.
Listening.
Listen to your feet by feeling.
Let the soles of your feet be ears.
Listen from the soles of the feet.
Listen to the shape of your whole body.
Listen to your energy.
Listen to your aliveness.
Relax into listening.
And listen as you declare with your inner voice,
I am awake and aware of my experience of Yoga Nidra.
Take attention to your breath.
Listen to the breath.
Listening to the grounding of the back of the body as you breathe.
And listen to the freedom to lift and expand on the front of the body.
Listen to the space between where the front body and the back body meet.
Listen to what is happening there as you breathe.
Take your listening presence to the space after the exhale.
Rest your attention in that space at the end of the exhale,
Again and again,
Breath by breath.
If your attention drifts or if thoughts arise,
Come back to listening within the space at the end of the exhale,
Before inhale begins.
Listen to the qualities of that space.
Be patient in your listening.
Gently let that go.
Notice how you feel.
Declare,
I'm awake and aware of my experience of Yoga Nidra.
Bring to mind a person who you may be struggling to connect with,
A person with whom you feel tension,
Or where you feel your communication together with them is not in sync.
This can be from your day,
From the recent past,
Or from years ago.
Notice what emotions are arising within you as you think about them.
If you don't feel emotions,
Well that is still something.
Name one of those emotions,
Or the non-emotion.
Say its name on the inside and listen to it as you say it.
Listen to that emotion on the inside of your body,
In your inner experience,
A full listening presence for that emotion.
Name what the opposite of that emotion or non-emotion is,
And name that with your inner voice and listen as you do that.
Listen to that opposite emotion on the inside of the body,
A full listening presence for that emotion.
Without thinking,
Listen to both emotions simultaneously on the inside.
Both welcome within your own inner listening presence.
Gently let that go and notice what you feel.
Declare with your inner voice,
I am awake and aware of my experience of Yoga Nidra.
Awaken your imagination,
The imagination of your sense of hearing.
Listen to the following descriptions and focus on what you can hear in your inner experience,
With your imagination.
Listen to each description.
Focus your attention on your sense of inner hearing,
A sense of hearing with all the layers of your being.
The ocean,
A spoon,
Stirring a cup of coffee,
A flock of gulls,
Footsteps down a corridor,
An evening fire,
An iceberg melting,
A small seed opening within the darkness of the earth,
Wind in a giant oak tree,
A cell dividing the space between molecules,
Deep outer space,
The hum of the earth.
Become aware that you are listening.
Listen to your listening.
Let go of listening.
Let go of using your imagination.
Know that you are safe and just let go.
And declare with your inner voice,
I am awake and aware of my experience of Yoga Nidra.
Allow yourself to drop deeper into your being,
To a depth where you find a quiet and still place within you,
Below the surface.
Listen to the sound of your own aliveness.
Be aware of simply being within the quiet,
Subtle pulse of life.
Let your listening joyfully open into beingness,
And simply be.
Gently come back to your body.
Take a deep inhale.
Listen to the whole body breathing.
Listen as you let go of the exhale slowly,
The whole body letting go.
And come back to your heart space.
Remember your sankalpa,
Your intention statement.
Listen with a new sense of inner quiet,
As you say these words again,
One to three times,
Slowly.
Listen to both the sound of the words and the silent space between the words.
Let those words come to settle and rest inside the body,
Just where they need to be.
Allow your body to guide you in some tiny movement.
Trust in the wisdom of your body.
Notice how this feels,
Moving very slowly.
Follow the guidance of your body in a slow process of awakening.
Allow this process to be very slow.
Take eight to eleven breaths to come back to a seated position,
Pausing halfway on the side of the body.
I thank you for your practice today.
