Yoga Nidra: Your Open Heart (EXTENDED VERSION)

A 40-minute Yoga Nidra practice – Your Open Heart - created for deep, mindful and restorative rest, led by a British Female voice.

This practice focuses on the Metta Loving Kindness meditation. Rooted in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, this is a powerful life-affirming meditation which cultivates unconditional loving-kindness to oneself and to others. It originates over 2,500 years ago and has continued to be adapted for use in many different settings and places. Over centuries, it has spread globally as a proven method for promoting emotional well-being, compassion, and universal love.

METTA is the Pali word for ‘Loving Kindness’ which each of us has as our birth-right, and which, in the words of the Tibetan Buddhist, Lama Surya Das..... “is the beginning of all love. It opens the heart and allows us to see the interconnectedness of all beings.”

Transcript

So welcome to your yoga nidra practice.

Find a comfortable place somewhere quiet and warm and lie down on your back and ensure your spine is straight,

Your legs lying out in front of you a little wider than hip distance apart.

Your feet can just fall out naturally and arms can be by your sides a little away from your body,

Turning your palms upwards to receive and your heart to gently open and then close down your eyes and settle into your practice.

And take any blankets you have around you or quilts or covers and maybe a pillow for the back of your neck,

Anything at all that can really help you find the greatest comfort possible.

And take a moment to arrive here into your space,

Into your body,

Into your practice and into this,

This present moment.

Just let everything else go and be here now.

And take a moment to notice how you're feeling today.

Is there any tension or stress in your body that you can feel?

Is there anything you can do to make yourself that little bit more comfortable?

Maybe you can just adjust your body a little bit or maybe just tuck the covers around your body.

That can give a really nice sense of containment in your little nest of rest,

Your Nidra nest.

Just take all the time you need to find the deepest possible comfort.

Be comfortable,

Be warm and be still.

And now just become aware of your breath,

Keeping your mouth closed throughout the practice if possible.

Notice the air moving in and out of your nose.

Just bring your full awareness now to your breath.

Breathing in,

Send your breath deep into your belly and exhale,

Just let everything go.

On your next inhale,

Send your breath to your legs,

Exhale and feel your legs let go.

Inhaling again,

Send your breath to your glutes and exhale,

Feel them let go.

Inhaling to your belly and exhale,

Just let your belly go.

No more holding on.

Inhale to your chest,

Exhale,

Just let it go.

Inhaling to your belly,

Inhaling to your back now,

Exhale,

Let it go and feel yourself sink deeper onto the support beneath you.

Inhaling,

Send your breath to both your arms and exhale,

Let them go.

Let them sink onto the support beneath you.

Inhaling,

Send your breath to your face,

Exhale,

Feel it soften.

Your forehead,

Your eyes,

Your cheeks,

Your jaw and your mouth,

Everything softening,

Everything letting go.

Inhale your breath now to your whole head and exhale,

Just let your head soften and become heavy.

Let it go.

And return to your natural breathing,

Just aware of your breath and aware of your whole body lying here.

And begin to sense the ground beneath you.

Connect with the ground,

This support.

Recognize it and acknowledge it and then let go to it.

Allow your whole body to be in this support.

Allow your whole body to sink onto the support beneath you.

Notice the air around you,

Feel the air around you.

Perhaps on your face,

Feel it like a gentle breeze.

Connect with the air,

Recognize it,

Acknowledge it and then let it go.

Now sense all the sounds around you.

Feel the sound around you.

Each and every one,

Near and far.

Connect to these sounds,

Recognize them,

Acknowledge them and then let them all go.

Go.

Listen to your body in this stillness,

This quiet.

Bring your full awareness and focus inwards and let everything else go.

Today's practice focuses on the Metta or loving kindness meditation.

This is a powerful life affirming meditation which cultivates unconditional loving kindness to oneself and to others.

It originates over two and a half thousand years ago and has continued to be adapted for use in many different settings and places.

Over centuries,

This meditation has spread globally as a proven method for promoting emotional wellbeing,

Compassion and universal love.

This is an active,

Compassionate and unconditional love that reaches far beyond the self.

Metta is the Pali word for loving kindness which each of us has as our birthright and which in the words of the Tibetan Buddhist Lama Surya Das is the beginning of all love.

It opens the heart and allows us to see the interconnectedness of all beings.

And be reminded that genuine happiness isn't dependent on any external circumstance or person.

Genuine happiness comes when we understand that we and we alone are responsible for our own happiness and this comes when we cultivate an internal sense of wellbeing and loving kindness to ourselves beginning with the heart.

In this place that the Buddhist teacher and author Sharon Salzberg calls the divine abode.

So now bring your attention to your heart space and breathe here and breathe into this divine abode.

Prepare for sankalpa,

Call your heart's desire that which you long for,

Which you yearn for to be present in your life for you to come to mind.

And allow some time here in the stillness for this to arise.

Let it form in your heart and then your mind.

Be open to receive,

Be willing to hear.

And once you have a sense of this intention let your mind form a short sentence encapsulating this deep desire.

Start with the words I am,

Make the statement positive and in the present tense and prepare to repeat this silently to yourself three times in the space that now follows.

As Jack Kornfield tells us,

Loving kindness is the seed of joy.

When we cultivate a heart of kindness we bloom into our fullest potential.

So I invite you now to imagine you receiving these seeds of joy from the source of your heart space,

Your divine abode.

And as we move around the body,

Place one of these seeds into each and every body part as you hear it named.

Deeply planting each and every one into your subconscious.

So bring your awareness now to your right hand and your right hand thumb and plant one of your seeds of joy onto the tip of your right hand thumb and then your first finger,

Second finger,

Third finger and little finger.

Plant more seeds into the spaces between your fingers and your thumb.

Then in the palm of your hand and the back of your hand,

Along your right wrist,

Your lower arm and the crease of your elbow,

Your upper arm and shoulder,

Your right armpit and the right hand side of your chest,

Your hip and your thigh,

Your knee and your shin,

Your ankle and the top of your foot,

Your heel and the sole of your foot.

Then plant another of your seeds of joy onto the tip of your right big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe and little toe and in all the spaces between your toes.

Now bring your awareness to your left hand and your left hand thumb.

Plant another of your seeds of joy onto the tip of your left hand thumb,

First finger,

Second finger,

Third finger and little finger.

More seeds now being planted into each and every space between your fingers and your thumb,

The palm of your hand,

The back of your hand,

Along your left wrist,

Your lower arm and the crease of your elbow,

Your upper arm and shoulder,

Your left armpit and more still along the left hand side of your chest to your hip and your thigh,

Your knee and your shin,

Your ankle and the top of your foot,

Your heel and the sole of your foot.

Then plant another of your seeds of joy onto the tip of your left big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe and little toe.

Continue to plant in all the spaces between your toes.

Now bring your awareness to your back body,

Ready to plant more seeds of joy here.

Move your awareness to your heels and to your calves,

Planting little seeds of joy,

The backs of both your knees,

The backs of both your thighs,

Your glutes,

The whole of your back,

Lower,

Middle and upper,

Your shoulder blades right and left,

Your neck and your head,

Your whole head and every strand of hair on your head,

Planting a seed of joy at each and every root and your forehead softening,

Widening,

Your eyebrows right and left and the space between your eyebrows.

Take care here.

Gently plant your seed of joy with joy,

Breathing here to encourage them to take root and grow,

Your right eye and your left eye,

Your right ear and left ear and your temples right and left,

Your nose and all along the bridge of your nose to your nostrils right and left,

Your lips,

Top and bottom,

All along your teeth,

Upper and lower and your tongue lying heavy in the floor of your mouth,

The inside of your right cheek and the inside of your left,

Your jaw and your chin,

All along your throat to your collarbones right and left and to the space between your collarbones,

Breathe here,

The right side of your chest and the left side of your chest,

Your whole chest,

Your navel,

Your belly,

Your lower abdomen and your pelvis,

The whole of your right leg and the whole of your left leg,

Both your legs together,

The whole of your right arm and the whole of your left arm,

Both your arms together,

Your legs,

Your arms,

Your chest,

Your back,

Your head,

All your body now,

Planted with these seeds of joy in your awareness,

Your whole body,

Your whole body,

Your whole body,

Resting now in a sensation of joy,

Be in joy.

This is the very nature of who you are.

As Sharon Salzberg reminds us,

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are and that person is not to be found anywhere.

It starts with you.

It all starts with you.

Staying with this feeling,

This warm,

Soothing feeling of pure joy,

Call to mind a memory you have that symbolizes this feeling,

A feeling that fills you with delight,

With completeness and allow that sensation to be present in your body.

Staying in a state of rest,

Bring to mind now a time when you felt sorrow,

A time when your heart felt heavy with loss or emptiness.

Perhaps you experienced disappointment or maybe a sense of disconnection with something in your life.

Call to mind this feeling,

This sensation and allow it to return just for this time and be with it.

Returning again to your memory of joy,

This can be as simple as a hug or a shared laugh,

An unexpected kindness or the beauty of something in nature that truly moved you.

Whatever connects you to this feeling of joy,

Recall it,

Remember it,

How it lit up your heart,

How it softened your heart and invited into each and every cell of your being.

And once again,

Allow yourself to remember sorrow,

That feeling of loss,

Of longing,

Nostalgia perhaps,

Maybe even a recognition of loss you might feel about your own longings in life.

Just allow it to be present,

Recall and remember all the while staying in complete rest.

Allow both these states of being,

These states of sensation to be present at the same time,

Knowing it is all the same awareness,

Just perceiving itself in different ways.

And then let everything simply be.

Return once again to your heart space and remember the heart is not just an organ,

The heart has a magnetic field that surrounds you,

Like the earth's own magnetic field.

Your heart has a proven field which expands inches outside your physical body.

Breathe into this field,

Expand it.

As you inhale,

Recognize and acknowledge the unconditional loving kindness that resides in your own heart.

Let it strengthen you,

Energize you and exhaling sense your magnetic field now amplify.

Let it widen and enlarge,

Expanding as far as you can imagine and continue in your own time,

Inhaling and receiving,

Exhaling and giving freely without condition.

Call to mind the following things that you hear,

Visualize them,

Allow whatever comes to come to your mind's eye with ease and imagine the sunrise over a calm sea,

The gentle breeze softly touching your skin,

Wild flowers in a meadow,

Complete acceptance,

A warm embrace from someone you love,

A clear river flowing effortlessly,

The sound of soft rain,

The presence of grace,

The morning dew on the grass,

A still lake,

The sound of birds singing,

Unconditional compassion,

A starlit sky,

The first snowfall of the year,

The sound of birds singing,

Divine light,

A winding path guiding you home,

The stillness within,

Your open heart,

Your open heart,

Your open,

Loving and compassionate heart,

Open your heart,

Your divine abode and witness the bountiful radiance within,

Unconditional love,

Loving kindness and receive the loving kindness that lies within your own heart,

Open up and receive,

Connected to all there is.

We return now to Sankalpa and with your heart now wide open,

Repeat your short positive statement again three times now in the space that will follow,

Knowing your open heart welcomes your intention,

Welcomes to make it real.

Breathing a little deeper now,

Feel the support,

The ground beneath you,

The covers over you,

Notice how your body is feeling,

How your mind is feeling and know that you can keep all the benefits of this practice,

Your open heart full of loving kindness with you as you return to your world.

Now with your eyes still closed,

Call to mind the space you've been lying in,

Feel the air on your face,

Become aware of the sounds around you,

Any sense or tastes there may be,

Just notice everything as all your senses reawaken as you return back to your body,

Back to your world and begin to bring a little movement into your body and wriggle your fingers and your toes,

You might like to take a full body stretch or you might just want to curl up and give yourself a big hug,

Whatever feels right for you today,

Coming back into your space,

Bring one hand on your heart and one on your belly and breathe here,

Be grateful for making the time to practice today,

For reconnecting to joy,

For reconnecting to your divine abode,

Be grateful for it all and then once again,

Repeat these words silently to yourself one last time as we come to the end of practice,

Sending yourself true compassion and unconditional love,

May I be safe,

May I be happy,

May I be healthy,

May I live with ease.

The lesson is love,

First to love yourself,

Then to take that love out to everyone you meet.

Loka samastah sukhinu bhavantu,

May all beings in all realms be happy and free,

Slowly now,

Ever so slowly open your eyes and welcome back and may the peace which passes all understanding keep your heart and mind in the knowledge and presence of love,

This practice of yoga nidra is now complete,

Thank you so much for taking the time to practice today,

May you be safe,

May you be happy,

May you be healthy and may you live with ease.

Thank you.

Reviews

Thank you

Thank you very much! This yoga nidra really helps me get back to sleep in the middle of the night.

I love the seeds of joy. And this practice is all about love. Gently led and even a few quiet pauses. Lovely. Thank you. ☮️💖🙏🖖🪷🕉

Absolutely one of the best Nidra sequences for me ever. As a reference my other favorite Nidra teachers are Tias Little and Tanis Fishman. This was a beautiful script with such a reward at the end for staying aware, enhancing the practice. Many thanks. Namaste.