Before we begin practice,
I want to bring your internal awareness to the never-ending spirit and soul that you are.
As you settle in to make your shape for Shavasana,
To rest inside of the practice of Yoga Nidra,
Acknowledging that there is an ocean inside of you,
And that this symbolism,
The ocean,
Is much deeper and more profound than even just the breath.
The ocean has depths that we maybe don't even know exist yet,
And all the way down there is the true,
Unending,
Natural essence,
True essence of you.
This can be where we stir up our sankalpa from.
We create all kinds of surface tension,
Wave after wave,
And the waves represent the emotions,
Experiences,
Challenges,
Joys,
Happiness,
All of what life brings us on the surface in the day to day.
They can even be indicative of personality,
Of aspects of what you believe,
What you value,
What's important to you.
But these waves,
They are something that changes the landscape that we can see.
But what doesn't change is the depth of the ocean,
What is already there,
What is unchanged.
And so in this practice,
Before we even begin,
I want you to start to really sit in and sink into what is within me that is unchanged.
No matter what personality I adopt or what belief system I'm currently working through,
What is here that is already perfect,
And what is here that is always with me.
We'll now begin the practice of yoga nidra.
You can take a soft landing place that supports your whole body.
Laying down is often encouraged inside the yoga nidra practice so that the brain can relax.
It doesn't have to worry about supporting the body or holding it up.
It can just completely let go and be free from the cage of I need to be doing.
So if you take a moment to set up your shape in a way that is going to support the mind to not wander,
To support the mind to relax into your breath.
This could look like a thin pillow behind the back of the head,
Maybe supporting the back of the neck.
A blanket to cover your full body so that the temperature remains neutral without change through the entire practice.
And even maybe taking a pillow or two and placing it through the back of the thighs if your low back tends to ache after a practice.
And as you drop your weight of your body into whatever support you've created,
Take a long breath in,
Breathe all the way into the toes.
As though you're flushing away any heaviness,
Any worry,
Any mental fluctuation that you've brought into the practice.
And as you exhale,
Really feeling the weight and the support of gravity as it pulls you down into the earth.
Just move with a few deeper breaths,
Breaths that catch the mind's attention.
The mind is so apt to wander,
To hang on to any objects or thoughts that come by to take us out of what we're experiencing right here,
Right now.
If you could just slowly start to drop deeper and deeper into your body,
Feeling the skeletal system,
The heaviness of your bones,
And even the flexibility and softness of your muscles.
And with that softness,
There is an outer edge of strength,
Of flexibility,
Of stability.
And the muscle body is such duality as it exists within us.
And this duality leads us into many other dualities that we live within.
Some that conflict with who we believe we are,
And some that support what we value,
What we hold dear.
And some things that we need to be expanded into,
To know about.
And each breath in is like a flash of life moving into the energy body,
The physical body,
Your mental body,
And even touching the internal edges of your emotional body.
And you may start to notice that as the mind fixes itself to the breath,
That the body can move into a more easeful place of relaxation.
Because the breath is present,
The breath is here.
The breath is not trying to be in the future,
Worrying,
Trying to control something that is not to be controlled.
And the breath is not in the past,
Not reminiscing,
Not regretting.
The breath is always here to support you in the now,
To connect you to the here.
And softening,
Softening,
Softening,
All the way down into the subtlest layers of ourself.
Where we feel the energy body expand,
As we expand into it through consciousness.
And maybe even beginning to note how the physical and the energetic bodies interact.
How you may feel energy dancing on your skin.
How you might feel energy move throughout your palms.
And using this as a perfect opportunity to just intentionally place the palms.
And typically in a yoga nidra practice,
We ask that the palms be placed up so that there is less touching to the sensitive areas of the fingertips.
And the interior of the palm.
This would also draw the shoulder blades a little closer to the spine,
Creating a nice bed for the heart and lungs to relax into.
And an indication that you are here to receive.
But that's not always what the body is needing,
What the body is craving or asking for.
If the palms feel more comfortable turned down,
Rooted,
Grounded,
Connected.
Creating a relationship between you and the earth.
Drawing the shoulder blades slightly away from the spine and more towards the heart.
This is a place where you could come to feel safe.
You could come to feel reinforced.
When we breathe in for the next breath,
If you could completely empty.
And then slowly find your next breath,
Breathing in from the heels of your feet all the way up the backside of your body,
Up the spine and into the skull.
And as you exhale,
Imagine the breath swirling through the skull,
Back down the spine,
Backside of the legs and out through the heel.
And each inhale does the full traverse of the body from heel to skull to crown.
From skull to crown to heel.
And if there's any sort of tension that is brought into the body by creating this visual within,
Just relax the visual and come back to a slow and steady breath.
Using each inhalation to find a lightness within the body,
A sense of expansion,
Of breathing beyond the physical self,
Maybe even just touching into the energetic body.
And then the exhale as a sort of beacon to come back home,
To come back to this moment,
This body,
This sacred container of life.
The exhale also welcomes a nice relaxation through muscle,
Body,
Joints,
Ligaments,
Toes,
Fingers,
Letting your whole self relax.
And inside the practice of yoga nidra,
We use this beautiful gift of alpha brain state where the body begins to soften and there is no tension inside the physical layer of self.
This brings us deeply,
Deeply into the layers of the mind.
The ones that we know exist,
We know are there,
We can sometimes see them play out if we see them enough.
But our subconscious mind is the one that drives us to put on our pants,
To tie our shoes,
To do all the things that we do without quite thinking about doing them.
And it's that here at this beautiful,
Slower brain state of alpha where we start to enter the opportunity to change who we are with will and awareness present.
And the sankalpa is,
I guess,
Changing who we are is probably not exactly the word I'm looking for,
But reclaiming who you are.
We've all grown up with stories and experiences that have shaped who we've become.
But we're going back to who we were with our first breath,
Our first chosen breath of life and finding there what we are longing for,
What we remember that we came here with.
And it may even be something as amazingly beautiful as I am loved,
Or something that is more distinct and needed.
I am valued,
Or something that is a deep desire to know I am safe.
Your sankalpa begins with I am.
You are in the present moment because you already are.
You already are your sankalpa.
It's just the remembering of it that we are calling back home.
So here in this space of your softened body,
This neutral landscape,
We welcome in your sankalpa three times,
Softly repeating it and dropping it in.
It's like a rock dropping to the very bottom of the ocean.
Knock,
Knock.
I remember.
I remember.
Here we'll say sankalpa quietly,
Silently three times.
I am.
I am.
I am.
And just as there's no need for you to hold the rock to the bottom of the ocean,
There's no need for us to linger with our sankalpa.
It's safe to let it go.
It's safe to release it and to trust that wherever it is landed is fertile soil,
That it will be planted and tended and watered and it will manifest.
Diving into the physical layer of the practice,
Anamaya Kosha,
We'll move through rotation of consciousness,
Touching on each point of the body.
And as we do,
Awareness and consciousness is present within the mind and the body.
Slow breath in as you land conscious awareness into the palm of your hand and trickle it up into your right hand thumb.
And we'll follow a vein as we move from thumb to finger.
And move through all four fingers,
Tracing a vein,
Mapping the body through the vascular system.
Landing at each fingertip,
Blood feeding each fingernail.
And then moving through the vein down the side of the palm,
Over the wrist,
The translucent skin where you can see the veins.
And into your forearm,
Feeding the joints and tissues that exist in the elbow,
Upper arm.
Into the capsule of the right shoulder.
Just feeling the blood flow through the veins in the right shoulder.
And how they trace over the shoulder and up towards the neck.
And then turn down towards the right side of the rib cage.
Feeding into the lungs where you breathe.
Inviting life into your body,
Oxygen mixed with blood.
Down through the organ body,
The right side of the belly.
And into the right hip.
Down through the right leg.
And special attention to the very back of your knee where the vein comes to surface to be seen.
Down your calf.
And into your foot.
And how the vein disperses and spreads out between the big toe,
Your second toe,
Your third toe.
Fourth toe.
And fifth toe.
Become highly aware of the blood flow through the right side of your body.
You may even feel the right side body begin to pulse.
And then we'll pick up our consciousness and travel over to the left hand side of the body.
Blend it into the palm of your left hand.
And tracing the vein that runs from the palm to your thumb.
To your second finger.
And all the way across your hand,
Each finger,
Each fingernail.
Feeling blood and life being moved through the palm of your hand and all five fingers.
And then watch as you move down the outside of the left palm into the translucent skin of the wrist.
The thinner skin of the wrist.
And the veins are almost touching the surface.
Fragile.
Up and over the forearm.
And feeding into the elbow.
Upper arm.
The left shoulder capsule.
Following the vein as it travels across the top of the shoulder towards the back of the neck.
And then turns down the left side body.
Feeding into the left lung.
Assisting with the breath of life.
And travels into the organ body on the left hand side.
And acknowledging how this is all happening without any conscious awareness from self.
This is the deepest,
Deepest,
Darkest part of the ocean that is operating the organ body.
Down into the left hip.
Elbow.
The top of the left leg.
And traces through the back of the knee.
Lower leg.
Down into your heel.
And up into your big toe.
Second toe.
Third toe.
Fourth toe.
Fifth toe.
The whole left side of your body pulsing and breathing.
Being flooded with blood.
Fed with nutrients.
Weak and alive.
And take this pulsing left body and match it to the right and create a whole body pulsing with awareness.
Back side.
Front side.
Whole of your head.
The veins that cross your eyelids.
Travel through your nose.
Interior of your mouth.
All the way down to your toes.
Whole body pulsing with life.
Whole body pulsing with life.
Whole body pulsing with life.
We'll take this awareness of pulsing into the interior of the chest.
Into the right lung,
Left lung.
And become acutely aware from a relaxed body of how the shape that you have is evolving and changing with each breath.
How the body is intelligent enough to expand and contract to support this breath of life as it rolls into your lungs.
And out of your lung.
Those who have seen the interior of the lungs have compared it to the tree of life.
Just imagining as though this tree of life that represents each lung is being fed the leaves the trunk the roots with every breath.
Pranamaya Kosha.
The energy body.
Subtler layer of self.
Pranamaya Kosha.
Watching the breath.
Takes you into your energy body.
You are less tied to your physical.
Your consciousness becomes subtler and subtler.
This is where we begin to move from I consciousness to universal consciousness.
It is not I who is breathing.
I am being breathed.
Create an internal visual of the leaves of the tree of life within each lung.
Moving.
Increasing the color.
Creating a depth of color.
Imagining as though the tree of life is its own internal life.
Its own internal map.
Its own personal legend.
With each deeper inhale.
Or longer exhale.
The tree becomes more vibrant.
More alive.
You become more aware.
Of life that lives inside you.
Through you.
And around you.
Begin to count backwards from 11.
With every breath in.
And every exhale out.
Counting backwards from 11.
There is no rush to complete.
We are fixing consciousness to one point.
The breath.
Relax the counting of breath.
Begin to go to the very base of the lung.
Where you see the tree of life connect to the earth.
Through a deep root system.
And from the root system we follow the root to water.
Roots will always go towards the water.
Begin to travel down the root system.
Continue to follow the root system.
Seeking water and life.
And we follow the root system until we come out.
Into the body of water.
To the darkest depths of a body of water.
And it is here where everything is.
Incredibly still.
Incredibly dark.
And the root reaches along the very bottom of the ocean.
Uninhibited by the external tension.
The external weather.
Continues to move along the bottom of the ocean.
In absolute and total peace.
There is nothing to change.
Nothing to fix.
There is nothing to do but be.
It is here where you came from.
It is here that you can come back to.
Trace the root towards the light.
Roots will always try to find light to feed the plant.
Let the root go towards the light.
Ascend upward.
And as you ascend upward,
The root begins to sway.
To be pulled here.
To be pushed there.
And all of this is symbolic of life.
Where are you being pulled?
Where are you being put?
Carry on.
Keep climbing.
And as you come up and break the water's surface,
You can see the beauty of all that is around you.
But there is danger here too.
The fear of being exposed.
Up here is where we meet all of the challenges.
At the surface is where all of the challenges exist.
When we forget how to go deep.
When we forget how to go within.
We become detached from the true source of life.
The never-ending essence of who you really are.
We move upward towards individuation.
To see each single wave as separate from the ocean.
To see each single wave as it crashes on the shore.
We move through life pushed,
Pulled,
Rocked around by every wave.
Go deeper.
Go down.
Go within.
What is all the way down there?
As you come back from the surface,
What each wave was bringing you was a fleeting and passing moment that leaves marks on the edges of the landscape that exist around the ocean.
Go deeper.
Go all the way down.
Before the landscape changed.
Before the waves have come.
And after the landscapes changed.
And after the waves have come.
Everything remains the same.
You are unchanged.
The surface level represents our personality and our experiences.
And the depth of the ocean represents who you really are.
And it is here,
At the very bottom of the ocean,
Where we cannot see,
That we leave the Senkelpa three times.
We let go of it.
Create a vibration,
Stronger than any wave,
Three times.
I am.
I am.
I am.
Relax.
Stay soft.
We journey back towards the beta brain state.
Coming up from the depths of the ocean.
We welcome in the sensation of temperature on our skin.
Welcoming in the scent of the room.
Acknowledging our presence inside the space that we sat,
Where we laid.
Acknowledging the shape of our body.
Bring yourself back home into your body.
Feel your breath.
Feel yourself being breathed.
Let yourself be welcomed.
As you arrive from the depth of your inner being.
You are welcomed back home.
You are welcomed back to this moment.
To this place.
And slowly start to open your eyes.
The practice of Yoga Nidra is now complete.
Keriom Tat Sat.
Keriom Tat Sat.
Keriom Tat Sat.
