Gentle Healing Yoga Nidra

Yoga nidra, also known as dynamic sleep, prompts the body to relax deeply while the mind remains inwardly alert. Yoga nidra works by gently guiding you through four main stages of brainwave activity and is among the deepest possible states of relaxation while still maintaining full consciousness. This yoga nidra practice will:

* activate the vagal nerve and relaxation response
* reduce blood pressure
* optimize respiratory/ breathing function
* release endorphins (happy hormones)
* help you sleep well

Transcript

Welcome to your practice of Yoga Nidra.

There is nothing you need to know or to do to experience the benefits of this beautiful ancient practice.

This is your time for deep healing and restoration.

Allow yourself to find a little more comfort.

Take a moment to gather any pillows or blankets or any other support that may help you to feel more comfortable and at ease.

Allow the body to feel completely supported.

Now take a moment to recall what you've been doing,

Talking about or thinking.

Anything that might have come into the practice with you.

And then set it aside with deep kindness,

Knowing that you can always come back to it later if it continues to be relevant.

Inhale deeply and exhale completely.

And notice how your body feels as you do this.

Perhaps you can feel the body sink and drop a little bit more when you join with the exhale.

Open your senses completely now.

Feel your body supported by the surface beneath you.

Give yourself permission to let go of doing.

Really just let yourself be held.

Feel the cascade of sensations in your body as it begins to find ease and comfort in the surface.

Allow yourself to settle and deeply drop into your body so that all the mental and physical energy that holds your muscles and tissues can soften.

And as your muscles soften,

Gravity can better take hold and your physical body can descend and drop.

Allow your senses to open a little wider now.

Bring attention to your mouth and to the sense of taste,

To your ears and hearing.

And now guide awareness to your nose and to the rhythm of breath as it travels in and out,

In and out,

Bringing the rhythm of life alive within you.

Feel now your eyes and any images the mind is projecting.

Feel also the mind and any thoughts that are present.

And now allow yourself to feel completely the surface that supports your body.

Notice any areas of tension that are keeping you back from releasing fully.

And very kindly,

Very gently,

Attend to these areas for a moment,

Bringing them into a field of loving attention and acceptance.

Welcome now your sankalpa and your inner resource.

Your inner resource is a place in your body where you experience feelings of being secure,

Calm,

Nourished and supported.

A feeling of being at ease,

A feeling of tranquility.

You might find it helpful to recall or imagine a place,

A person who you love or who loves you,

A wisdom figure from your religious beliefs or spiritual tradition or any experience,

Real or imaginary that supports you in feeling secure and completely at ease.

Feel this feeling as sensations in your whole body,

Noticing how your body feels when this feeling is completely alive in it.

Feel the peace at the center of your being as the deep ground of unchanging safety and comfort that holds you always.

Know that if disturbing thoughts or physical or even emotional pain arise in the course of the nitra practice,

You can always go back to your inner resource to reground yourself.

Your inner resource is a powerful tool that puts you in charge of your experience.

Listen now to your heart for a moment.

Tune into its unique rhythm.

Now allow for a spontaneous arising of a heartfelt desire to appear in your awareness.

What is it that will bring your heart into harmony right now?

Really ask yourself this question.

What is my heart's deepest desire?

What is it that I want in life more than anything else?

Notice whatever spontaneously arises and welcome it into your awareness.

Whatever intention arises,

Place it in the present tense as though it is already true.

For instance,

I am healthy,

Whole and complete just as I am.

Or perhaps,

I can easily accomplish everything life is asking of me with grace and strength.

Your intention,

Your sankalpa can also be something more specific related to your life.

Honor whatever arises,

Knowing that a sankalpa is a seed sown deep into the subconscious mind and it is only a matter of time before it manifests in reality.

And now free the thinking mind to be here.

Be here now and put yourself into just the felt sense of the body.

Become your body as a feeling instrument,

Just the feeling of the body.

Gently draw your awareness to your lips,

To the invisible line where the two lips gently meet.

Now take awareness within your mouth,

Noticing if there is a sense of moistness or dryness in the mouth.

Feel the tongue floating softly in the mouth.

Notice also if any taste is present in the mouth,

Just noticing whatever is present.

Feel into your jaws now,

Feel their density,

Their weight,

Feel the teeth in the mouth.

Observe if any tension is present in the jaw and if it is,

Go straight into it.

See if you can find the origin of the tension,

The epicenter where tension rests.

Is it there when you go to look for it?

Or does it disappear or lighten when you get close?

Softly begin to feel around the epicenter of tension,

Continuing to feel a little further,

A little further away from it until you can find a place where tension ends and a sense of spaciousness begins.

Bring awareness to your ears now and to hearing.

See if you can feel the unique architecture of your ears and have a momentary,

Alive experience of sound.

Before the mind begins to interpret sound,

There is only hearing.

Feel as sound makes contact with your ear and is funneled deep into your ear canal.

Feel sound as pure vibration.

And now softly,

Feel into your ear canals,

Sensing the muscle and how accumulated tension lets go,

Relaxing the auditory nerve and how the weight is still the mind.

Move awareness to your nostrils now.

See if you can become aware of that moment when the breath of life makes contact with the outside edges of your nostril.

Feel breath travel inside,

Feel it in the inner walls of your nose.

Notice also if any sense of odour is present,

Feeling sensations in your nose in this moment.

And now gently come to rest inside your eyes.

Notice how your eyes feel right now.

Notice if perhaps the mind is projecting images or if there is any light filtering in through the eyelids.

Feel the eyelids like a warm blanket,

Heavy and comforting,

Bringing deep rest to your eyes.

And now begin to feel your forehead,

The space between the eyebrows and the entire forehead,

Vast,

Wide,

Calm and cool.

And feel this calm coolness penetrate through your forehead and deep down into your brain so that the whole brain is like a still pool of water and you can see very clearly down to the very bottom.

Bringing awareness now to that space where the forehead merges into the scalp.

Feel the gentle tug of the hair follicles into your scalp.

Rest awareness through your entire scalp and then let it cascade down your neck and feeling sensations inside of your throat.

Now allow awareness to settle on your shoulders,

Feeling both shoulders.

Notice if any tension is present in your shoulders.

If tension is present,

Explore it with openness and curiosity.

Feel like you are a scientist studying the tension in your shoulders.

Feel the difference between tension and spaciousness.

See if you can welcome even the tension.

Your body is speaking to you.

Just listening.

Just listening to it as it is.

And now observe sensation as it cascades down the left arm like a giant waterfall.

Feeling sensations in the upper arm and elbow,

Forearm,

Wrist,

Hand and each finger of your left hand.

Feeling the palm,

Back of the hand,

The whole left hand.

And now move attention to your right arm.

Sensation cascades down your right arm,

Feeling your upper arm and elbow,

Forearm and wrist,

Back of the hand,

Palm of the hand,

Whole five fingers of the right hand.

And now feel your left arm again.

Notice its weight.

Feel its length,

Its pulsation and the vibrancy of prana flowing through it.

And now feel into your right arm.

Become the awareness,

The experience of its weight,

Length,

Pulsation and vibrancy.

Feeling both arms at the same time,

Simultaneous experience of both your arms.

And now come to feel your chest.

Can you tune in?

Can you truly listen to your heart?

This rhythm that you've known since before the beginning.

Listen and feel your heart beating.

And now expand your awareness to feel your lungs and breathing.

Feel the ebb and flow of breath,

Feeling the lungs expand and embrace the ribs on the in-breath.

Feeling them softly retreat on the out-breath.

Feeling both the breath and the heartbeat at the same time.

And now bring awareness to the belly,

Noticing if perhaps there's a tinge of hunger or a sense of fullness in the belly.

Feel into the pelvic cavity,

Noticing what sensations are present there.

And now bring awareness to the back of your body,

Feel your upper back,

Middle back,

Lower back and sacrum.

Come aware of your spinal cord,

The whole spine,

Fluid and alive.

The whole spinal cord from the tip of the tailbone flowing up to the crown of the head.

And then bring it all together and sense the whole torso together as one.

Welcome in whatever is in your awareness.

Give thanks for your body just as it is.

And now feel your left hip and thigh,

Knee,

Foreleg and calf,

Ankle and foot.

Welcome the entire left leg and foot into your awareness.

Its weight,

Length,

Pulsation and vibrancy.

Give it up completely to the surface that it's resting upon.

And now gather and regather your attention to your right hip.

The entire right hip,

The entire right leg and foot.

And now bring awareness to your right hip,

Knee,

Foreleg,

Calf,

Ankle and the sole of the right foot.

Welcome the entire right leg and foot into your awareness.

Simply feel its weight,

Its length,

Its pulsation and vibrancy.

Feel how the whole body is so very still.

But at the same time it is fully and completely alive.

The heart is beating,

The lungs are pumping,

Billions and trillions of cells are performing their functions.

The body is still and yet it is completely alive.

And now bring it all together feeling the whole body.

All the sensations in the body come together as one global all-inclusive sensation.

See if you can begin to feel the thromb,

The natural pulse of the body.

The whole body.

The whole body.

The whole body.

Now feel how all of these sensations in the body arise,

Unfold and dissolve on a background of unchanging awareness.

To still or to quiet the mind even further and even more gently we remember the breath.

The body breathing itself.

Life breathing breath into the body.

The flow of air through the body.

You are not controlling it.

Rather you as the witness,

The perfect observer of the breath.

Just watching breath move in its own time.

Allowing the breath to be the new center of your attention.

As you inhale notice how you take in energy in the form of oxygen and even more subtle forms of prana.

As you exhale body relaxes even deeper.

Your muscles are melting.

Letting go.

Even the internal organs let go of their tension.

Notice breath as it passes through the nostrils.

Notice the difference between the inhalation and the exhalation.

One feels a little bit cooler.

The other a little warmer.

One a little stronger.

The other a little softer.

Feel breath as it passes across the back of the throat.

Feel the chest rise and fall with each breath.

Feel the abdomen rise and fall.

And now feel the whole body breathing.

Feel the subtle expansion that occurs with each inhale.

And the release that occurs with each exhale.

Feel that breath is coming in from this vast endless ocean of breath.

Coming in to nourish you.

And as you exhale breath goes back into this vast endless ocean of breath.

Feel this constant connection with life.

This constant connection with your surrounding.

This constant connection with every living being.

Now allow your breath to expand your attention feeling the whole body simultaneously.

Allowing the breath to return to its natural rhythm.

The entire body is a field of vibrant sensation.

The body feels more alive.

A deeper intuitive sense of the body.

And the radiance,

The theges of the body begins to pervade as you become aware of all directions simultaneously,

Right and left,

Above and below,

Inside and outside.

And the sense of center and periphery begin to dissolve.

How does your body feel right now?

Maybe it doesn't feel so solid anymore.

Maybe it feels like a field of energy,

Pulsation and vibrancy.

Currents of energy moving through the body.

Feeling of expansiveness heightens.

Welcome it all into your awareness.

It's all the flavors of feelings,

Emotions,

Thoughts and beliefs that might now be arising in your even quieter mind.

Notice where these feelings arise.

You might feel them in your body,

In your belly,

Your throat,

Your heart or somewhere else.

You now feel the whole body start to become very heavy.

Experience heaviness,

Weight and density.

Notice in the whole body,

Heavy body,

Heavy body,

The body's weight against the floor.

Body feeling balanced and grounded,

Supported and nourished.

And you might notice this sudden and spontaneous natural feeling of lightness arise.

With curiosity,

Feel lightness like you've never felt it before.

Lightness like air or even lighter than air,

Very,

Very light.

Feel the sense of expansion,

Of freedom,

Of liberation.

And the whole body feels so weightless.

Body's barely touching the floor.

Awaken this feeling of lightness and be with it now.

Come back now to heaviness,

Noticing how it feels as it changed or altered.

And now feel lightness again.

And now allow your awareness to toggle between lightness and heaviness,

Holding one and then the other,

Back and forth.

Now hold heaviness and lightness in your body at the same time.

You can't do it with the mind,

But you can feel it in your body by just opening up to pure sensation.

Feel yourself as the witness who is observing heaviness and lightness.

Feel yourself dissolve into pure awareness in which heaviness and lightness are coming and going.

And now you might notice the spontaneous arising of emotions or beliefs,

Thoughts you have about yourself that enter into your awareness.

Just be with these new unfoldings in the mind and free them to be here.

Everything just as it is.

Notice what is calling your attention the most.

And if it feels interesting to you,

And if it feels interesting to you,

Let your attention localize,

Concentrate on a specific sensation in your body.

And allow yourself to open a little bit more and to feel yourself noticing the sensation.

Your body is experiencing a sensation that you can feel.

And at the same time,

You are noticing the sensation as a witness.

And now finally allow yourself to be taken into being,

Into witnessing.

Body is feeling a sensation.

You are feeling the sensation.

You are witnessing the sensation.

And then who or what is the awareness that is aware of you witnessing the sensation in the body?

Sensation,

Witness and witnessing.

Dissolve completely into the field of being where everything is arising.

Everything is just coming and going.

Thoughts have settled way,

Way down.

Yet every once in a while a straight thought may intrude.

Feel only into the awareness of all these comings and goings.

You are the witness.

Unborn,

Unchanged,

Just watching.

And now bring attention to feelings of well-being and contentment that may be arising in your body.

Maybe recall a memory of a particular situation in your life or someone you love or someone who loves you deeply.

Any memory that invites joy and well-being into your body.

The sense of a luminous inner smile,

Joy,

Ananda flowing through your whole body.

Let go of thinking.

Feel the whole body as a field of warmth and well-being.

Filling you up completely,

Uncontainable and radiating out in all directions.

I am lying here resting in myself,

Feeling happiness,

Uncontainment.

Sat-shidananda.

I am existence,

Knowledge,

And bliss,

Absolute.

Sat-shidananda.

Now set aside thinking and dissolve completely into being.

Give yourself this space to just be.

Nothing to say,

Nowhere to go.

Nothing to do.

Being aware,

Letting go.

I have this body as gift,

But I am more than this body.

Life gives me this breath,

But I am more than this breath.

I notice these feelings,

Emotions,

Thoughts and beliefs,

But I am more than all of these.

I am the witnessing awareness.

Sakshi.

At peace and at ease.

I am exactly as I am.

When you are just being,

Where is your center?

Where is your outmost boundary?

Sense how you are everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Formless yet undeniably present.

If a thought or image comes up,

Welcome it in,

But then say,

Not now,

Maybe later.

Just come back to being.

Just feel.

Just feel.

Feeling openness itself.

A sense of time falls away.

Everything just as it is.

With a deep love for yourself,

Give yourself permission to just rest here.

To abide here.

This is the realization of yoga nidra.

Your true nature is unchanging awareness that is always full of peace and grace,

Equanimity,

Self-kindness and love in the midst of all situations.

Remain with this feeling of being and reflect on the journey you've just taken.

Experiencing the body as a field of sensation of radiance.

All of it appearing in awareness,

Sensations of the body and the breath,

Feelings,

Emotions,

Well-being.

You is the witness to all that you observe.

And a witness that dissolves into witnessing,

That dissolves into being.

Tap in again at your intention that moves your life and gives rise to how you engage life,

Your heartfelt desire,

Your sankalpa as we softly begin to drift out of the practice of yoga nidra.

Remember that there is no end or no beginning to yoga nidra.

It is a continuous,

Complete practice.

We are only moving from the still contemplation to awareness in waking life.

Make heartfelt desire to carry a feeling of peace with you throughout your day so that all of your intentions,

Your thoughts,

Your words,

Every deed arises as a reflection of this deep stillness that is your true nature.

Begin to feel your body now.

Open the senses wide,

Deepen the breath.

Feel how deep breathing brings a sense of movement back to the body.

Become aware of the room and your place in it.

Listen again for sounds.

Imagine going through your everyday life,

Awake and aware as awareness.

Inhale deeply and exhale completely.

Continuing to deep breathe,

Signal to your body that it is getting ready to move.

Take your time to gently transition back to your waking state and allow some gentle movements to arise organically.

As you are coming back to waking,

Listen to these final words.

Practicing yoga nidra and deep relaxation is a way of nurturing and caring for myself.

The process of yoga nidra helps guide me to a deep experience and understanding that I am whole and complete just as I am.

I am whole and complete just as I am.

Reviews

Thank you for an absolutely beautiful journey into deep relaxation. A wonderful practice that I will return to time and again.

A profoundly blissful and extremely restful nidra. Thank you so much for a beautiful practice 🪷🙏🪷

This was incredibly relaxing. I will definitely return, thank you! 🙏🏻

Relaxing totally insightful yoga nidra but too fast paced. For me . Maybe because there were no pauses , or is this done on purpose to keep you in-between ? 🙏🏻

An absolutely life changing session. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Very soothing

I loved this deeply spiritual yoga nidra. My favourite so far. Thank you

This is so great, it touched my heart deeply. Thank you.

That was absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful practice 🙏❤️

Very sweet soothing voice is lovely for relaxing deeply.

Thank you 🙏

Wonderful! The voice is healing and so perfect for this practice!

I am whole and complete just as I am ! Thank you 😊

A beautiful yoga nidra ~ I love your voice and choice of words. Thank you. Namaste
🌺🙏🌺

🙏 This was so powerful and enlightning; exactly what I needed today. Thank you very much 🙏💞

This is such a beautiful recording. I have never gone this deeply into yoga nidra before and your guidance was soft and divinely felt throughout my entire body. Thank you.

Great

So very nice

Mirabelle, your voice is magical as fairy bells! You draw me into the hypnagogic state and I rest the night like a bumblebee in a cowslip flower, and waken as refreshed as a fairy sipping dew. 💫🧚🏽‍♂️ 💫

Bright shining voice and guidance to supreme relaxation and calm vital stillness/foundation.
Namaste 🙏