Welcome,
This yoga nidra practice is to offer you some somatic healing and help you along your journey of nervous system regulation.
What I love about the practice of yoga nidra is it guides you into your body and it's in the body where the somatic healing and nervous system regulation all starts.
Where the practice of yoga nidra and somatic healing actually very closely align is in both practices we move back and forth,
Pendulating from an uncomfortable feeling to a comfortable feeling.
And so in this practice we're going to be working with a few different feelings and emotions.
We'll be moving back and forth from fear and where it lives within us into a feeling of exploration and curiosity as well as acceptance and into resistance.
So you can think of this like a rhythmic gentle pendulum where we move from acceptance into resistance and this practice will help to widen our window to tolerate uncomfortable feelings and in turn strengthen our nervous system and give us an overall feeling of feeling like we are more resilient.
And so we'll take a few moments now to settle in let yourself settle into a place of stillness and rest and allow your body to really sink into the support beneath you take a slow breath filling your body and releasing the breath slowly we'll tune into a heart's intention also known as a sankalpa to help us cultivate the safety within ourselves and so you can repeat to yourself I cultivate safety in my body or you may say something similar like I relax my nervous system or I cultivate resilience and strength within myself to face the challenges allow your own words to form I'm beginning to feel these words in your body what would it feel like if this was true in this moment?
Keeping your intention close to your heart begin to imagine a red glowing warm ember within your body and begin to breathe life into this ember it starts to grow brighter and eventually turns into a flame growing stronger and brighter within you let your intention just like this small ember let it grow stronger within you as you move through this practice we'll begin to move through a slow and steady body scan to bring your attention into each part of your body and knowing that you can pause at any time if need be and we'll begin at the top of the head down the back of your head slowly down to your shoulder blades the center of your back the space around your sacrum down the backs of your legs on the backs of your knees ankles the soles of both feet sensing into all of your toes up through the tops of your feet and back up through your ankles fronts of the knees the space around your pelvis and the sides of your waist the space around and inside of your ribcage the front of your chest both shoulders upper arms elbows the palms of both hands backs of your hands elbows upper arms shoulders sides of your neck the front of your throat top of the head beginning to sense just the right side of your body allow your attention to spread through all parts of the right side of your body let your attention spread throughout the entire left side of your body sensing the whole left side of your body sense your whole body and sense the natural rhythm of your breath and this gentle natural rhythm bringing in breath and letting it out allow your attention to equally notice inhales,
Exhales and we'll begin to tune into the energy centers of the body beginning at the root energy center and the space around your tailbone pubic bone sense into this space and you may also visualize its represented color a warm deep red and coming up to the space around your sacrum and pelvis the sacral energy center sense and breathe into this space and you may imagine a warm orange shift up to the space around your ribcage,
Your diaphragm where the breath moves your solar plexus energy center you may imagine a golden yellow and coming up to the heart the center of the chest sensing your heart energy and the color green up to the center of your throat and the color of a blue ocean breathing life into this space and gently move up to the third eye center and imagining the color of a deep indigo or a deep dark purple and now come up to the point at the top of your head and the crown energy center and the color violet and from your root up to the crown of your head you can sense into these energy centers sensing into this rainbow of colors and imagining these spaces of energy within you flowing openly with each breath tune into this sense of safety you began to cultivate at the beginning of the practice inviting in this feeling to hold you throughout this experience and can you invite in a feeling of acceptance acceptance for yourself for this moment and imagining where that may live in your body and how it feels in this moment now invite in the feeling of resistance the feeling of resistance and where that lives within you sense into any resistance now let yourself come back into acceptance allowing yourself to hold and focus on acceptance at the same time invite in a sense of exploration and curiosity noticing what kind of feelings these words bring to you exploration curiosity acceptance allow yourself now to move into fear sensing into where fear lives within you perhaps noticing fear and resistance together continuing to hold fear and resistance within you now invite in acceptance exploration and curiosity and can you hold all of these experiences together and creating a space within you where they can work together and support one another using your imagination begin to visualize a thunderstorm where you are in a safe and dry place perhaps you are watching through a window or somewhere far away watch the thick clouds and the rain falling hear the sounds of thunder see the flashes of lightning and the movement of the clouds in the fierce wind watch the storm like a big dark cloud passing by and you stay safe and warm calm knowing that this will change this storm will pass the clouds pass slowly revealing the sky and a bright rainbow a bright rainbow red indigo sensing into this calm after the storm feel a sense of inner strength and resilience and not only did you make it through the storm but you found a place of safety within your consciousness where you were able to watch it with a sense of curiosity acceptance and exploration and we'll take a little bit more time to allow the images to fade allow this practice to integrate and settle and let yourself connect to a sense of the inner peace that lives within you taking some time to rest
