So the body scan,
A practice of body awareness that also facilitates a sustained practice of attention.
Noticing different parts of the body is in a sensory way,
In an internal way.
I'm working both with the ability of attention and focus to be narrow and specific to a particular part of the body,
And our ability to broaden attention,
To have a broad focus and feel more of the body,
Or the whole body.
And let's start there,
Let's start with the feeling of the whole body,
Lying here on the mat.
What is the actual felt experience of being in the body right now?
We might imagine on breathing in that the whole body very gently inflates like a big balloon.
And on the exhalation the whole body releases a little bit,
Relaxes a little bit.
There's also such a valuable practice for working with this combination of relaxed and present,
Relaxed and alert.
We tend not to associate those two things,
But mindfulness training can support that possibility,
Being relaxed and alert.
And like all the practices in mindfulness,
We can't do it right or wrong,
It's just the doing of it,
The practicing of it that has value.
So whatever our best gentle effort is,
Is exactly the right effort and it will have exactly the result that we need this time.
As we now start to narrow our attention down from the whole body,
Moving the attention down the length of the body,
Down to the toes.
Let's feel the toes and both feet together for this body scan.
What are the sensations that are available in the toes,
The ten toes right now?
Are the toes warm or cool?
A little bit of movement,
Vibration,
Throbbing or stillness.
Well maybe we can't feel much at all right now in the toes and that is perfectly okay.
But we can stay curious and interested,
What can be sensed in the toes right now.
And then we'll continue and start our journey up the length of the body by moving awareness from the toes to the bottoms of the feet.
What's the feeling in the arches or the balls of the toes or the heel right now?
The attention wanders,
Can we bring the attention gently back to the bottoms of our own feet?
And what if we were to rise attention up to the upper portions of those two feet?
What can be felt now?
Can we feel contact on the skin,
Contact with air or our socks?
And from there what can we feel below the skin in the upper feet?
This being with our feet.
And let's bring awareness from the feet up into the two ankles left and right.
Does one ankle exhibit more sensation than the other?
Now we are doing a lying down pose in a dim afternoon,
A full day,
So sleepiness is totally to be expected right?
Natural.
So we can gently work with that like any other aspect of the wanderings of experience and notice sleepiness,
Come back to the body,
Back to the ankles.
We might experiment with cracking the eyelids open to let in a little light.
We might experiment with inviting the breath,
Especially the inhalation,
To be a little more vivid.
But ultimately let's practice acceptance,
Non-judgment.
If we drift off into sleep for a while it's okay,
We'll be back.
So playing that edge between.
Following through with our intention to be in the body,
Doing our best in a gentle sustained way and allowing for whatever the result is to be what it is.
So maybe we'll sleep a little bit.
And now let's continue our journey,
Ways to go as we enter the lower legs.
Do our best to gently hold the tension on the sensations there in the lower legs.
And then let's bring our attention from the lower legs up into our own knees.
What can be felt in the two knees right now?
Maybe there's sensation under the kneecap,
On the backs or the sides of the knees.
Maybe one knee is a little more active than the other.
Or maybe there's not much of a sense of knees at all,
Just kind of a knowing that there probably are knees there.
We make the effort,
We direct the attention,
We listen for sensation without attachment to any outcome.
What happens,
Happens.
And then let's bring our awareness from the knees up into the upper legs and thighs.
Maybe we can feel something in the fleshiness of the thigh pressing against the mat.
Maybe that contact gives us a little entry into sensory,
Felt sensation in the body.
Maybe from there we can feel more of the upper legs from above the knees all the way up into the hip sockets.
And then let's bring our awareness from the upper legs and sort of like flow that awareness like a liquid or something up into the pelvis.
Feeling the buttocks against the mat,
You can feel the width and space of the pelvis.
And then what can be experienced,
What are the feelings in the groin in the whole area of the pelvic girdle.
And then let's bring our attention from the pelvis up into the lower back.
How does the lower back feel right now,
What can you notice and experience directly in the lower back?
And let's bring our awareness from the lower back straight up into the belly.
Here the influence of breath can probably be felt but maybe not.
What changes in sensation as the breath comes in and out,
Belly rises and falls?
What happens around the stomach for instance?
What can be felt in the belly right now as we breathe and relax and are just present,
Present for our own body?
And then let's flow the attention from the belly up into the middle of the chest.
Maybe sort of above the belly button to somewhere around the base of the rib cage.
What are the sensations that are available there in the center chest?
What happens there as the breath comes and goes?
And if the attention is just so drifty,
So woozy,
So sleepy,
Can we accept that that's our experience?
Just make that gentle effort to return to the chest.
And lowering attention straight down towards the mat to feel the middle of the back.
How is the middle back positioned?
How does it feel?
Are there changes there as well as we breathe in and out?
Might it be that every breath is kind of a little internal massage if we allow it,
That freedom to move?
And from the middle back let's bring awareness right up into the rib cage and into the lungs.
What can we feel of the expansion and relaxation of the lungs as the diaphragm pulls and releases again?
Is it possible to feel that diaphragm muscle moving up and down across the bottom of the ribs?
Creating that vacuum that allows the lungs to inhale.
And that release that allows the exhalation to happen,
Can we actually feel that?
Or feel the mirror of that in the lungs?
And then let's rise attention up a little bit from the lungs and the rib cage,
Up into the upper chest where the heart is.
Maybe it's possible to feel some sense of the heart or the beating of the heart.
And for sure we can probably feel the rising and falling of the chest as we breathe in and breathe out.
The mind gets grabbed by something else,
That's how it goes,
Back to the chest.
And then let's divide attention laterally both directions and feel into the shoulders.
How are those shoulders?
Sometimes we have tension in the shoulders but do we tune into what that really is?
What is the actual feeling in the shoulders?
Are there tight areas,
Soft areas?
With this increase in awareness,
The shoulders naturally allow themselves to roll apart a little more,
Soften a little bit.
Can we feel the whole of the shoulder assembly,
Feeling the scapula roll,
Rotated up into the upper back alongside the spine?
Alongside the shoulders.
And then from the shoulders let's check out our own arms,
These arms that do all this work,
Always in motion,
Now at rest.
What can be felt of the upper arms?
What can be known in our own elbows,
What can be felt directly in the elbows?
And feeling into the forearms,
The lower arms from our point of view.
Forearms relaxed,
Soft,
A little bit on alert,
Ready for action.
What can be felt in the lower arms?
And feeling the feeling from the lower arms down into the wrists.
What can we know right now of our own two wrists?
And then let's just draw attention into the hands,
Feeling the palms,
Feeling the fingers.
So many joints and ligaments there,
What's the feeling in our own fingers?
And then let's bring our attention to a really interesting place,
The very fingertips.
These fingertips that we use to tentatively touch something to see if it's okay to touch.
These fingertips we use to touch our loved ones,
What can they feel right now?
And then from the fingertips let's invite the awareness to move up along the backs of the hands.
So close to the palms but a different feeling.
And up into our wrists,
Up into our forearms again,
Our elbows,
Our upper arms.
And now we can return once again to the shoulders.
Breathing with the shoulders,
And that's another thing that can help with sleepiness actually too,
Is imagining the breath coming in and out through the area in the body we're looking at,
As if we can breathe in and out through our shoulders.
What does that feel like?
And then from the shoulders let's start rising up,
We're moving towards the head,
But let's examine first the neck.
How does the back of the neck feel right now?
What is the feeling in the center of the neck?
Can we feel the air moving up and down,
In and out of the esophagus?
What else can we know directly in the center of the neck?
And then let's bring our attention to the front of the neck and throat.
And then a sense of the whole neck,
Stitching it all back together,
Because of course it is one whole,
It's also made of parts.
And then from this neck let's rise up,
Rise up towards the head and inhabit our own jaw.
Feeling the way the lower jaw joins with the upper jaw joint,
Far down alongside the head.
And maybe we can allow the lower jaw to just drop into that joint a little more,
Maybe the mouth opens a little bit.
As we soften the lower jaw and feel what it can feel,
Know what it can know.
So not really trying to change anything in the body,
But employing the power of awareness to invite tension to just drop away when we can.
And feeling the whole of the jaw,
The upper mandible and the lower mandible,
What's the feeling of that part of the body,
That structure?
And from that structure around the mouth,
Let's drop into the mouth.
What can we feel right now,
Directly in our own mouth?
Moist areas,
Certainly in the mouth.
Dry areas,
Hard areas,
Soft areas.
What can we know of our own tongue and the throat?
And then let's rise our attention from the mouth up onto the face and investigate the feeling in our cheeks.
How are the cheeks held?
Can we allow the cheeks to soften,
Separate,
Drop?
We don't need to hold our cheeks in any particular way right now.
And from the cheeks,
Is it possible to feel the sinuses,
The movement of air in the sinuses?
And then from the sinuses,
Why don't we just float right up into our own eyes?
What can we feel right now in the orbitals in the eye sockets?
Can we feel the eyeballs themselves or can we just allow those eyeballs to rest and feel around the edges of them?
To the ligaments that attach and move.
And then from the eyes,
Why don't we invite our awareness up into our own nose?
What can we feel of the nose?
Can we feel the movement of air in and out of the sinuses?
How does that air feel?
Does it feel different coming in than it does going back out again?
And can we feel anything of the rest of the nose?
What is the structure that surrounds the sinuses and the nostrils?
The nostrils where the air is moving.
Of course we're kind of using imagination,
We're imagining our nose as a way to guide our attention,
But then can we feel our own nose?
And then let's invite our awareness from the nose up into the forehead.
Feeling,
Exploring,
Knowing our own forehead.
A little pinched,
A little more broad.
The place we express worry.
What does it feel like right now,
This forehead of ours?
And then let's invite our awareness to the very top of the head.
We've arrived at the top of our head.
The crown.
What can we felt there?
And then let's ease that awareness from the top of the head along the back of the skull to the back of the head.
Maybe here the contact between the back of the head and the mat is helpful.
And let's start to grow our body back towards wholeness,
Broadening our attention little by little.
Can we feel the back of the head and also feel the sides of the head,
The areas around the ears?
Can we feel the back and the sides and also the crown,
The top of the head?
Can we feel the whole skull?
And let's include the face as well,
Feeling the whole head.
And allowing the whole head to be present as we breathe in and breathe out.
And returning to awareness of what our attention is right now.
And of course,
Stuff happens when we get distracted that's included.
Does the skull change ever so slightly as we breathe in,
As the sinuses and air passages fill with air?
Does it change ever so slightly as that all relaxes back out again?
And can we include the neck?
So now a sense of the neck and the head being this circle of awareness,
Being all that we're sensing,
All that we're inhabiting.
And then broadening awareness still further to include the upper chest and the upper back,
Along with the neck and the head,
Breathing in and out,
Aware of the existence of this body as it grows in our awareness.
As we now include as well the arms down to the fingertips,
As we feel and include the belly,
Chest,
The back,
The whole of the spine,
Breathing this whole torso into existence,
Allowing this whole torso to exhale into stillness.
And including as well the pelvic area,
The buttocks,
The groin,
Breathing with them and with the torso,
The head,
The arms,
All of it.
And little by little more and more the upper legs are here,
The knees are included,
The lower legs,
The ankles and finally the feet down to the toes so that now we've kind of come full circle,
Full body circle.
But of course the feeling is different,
It's a different moment,
Just gone through a different experience than before.
But can we invite forward again the sense of presence,
The sense of curiosity,
Of interest,
What does it actually feel like to be in the body right now,
To be a body?
Because of course we are a body,
Not going to be anything else.
This whole body breathing,
This whole body here,
This whole body exhibiting the many sensations that it exhibits to us,
Embracing it all,
Accepting it all,
Knowing it all.
And when we hear the bells,
When we begin a slow transition on our own pace,
We can gradually introduce some movement.
We can roll to our sides,
Eventually sitting back up,
But using through that process with awareness,
Maintaining in some way our habitation of our own body.
Thank you.
