Yoga Nidra For Awareness

This yoga nidra practice cultivates awareness and acceptance. It ends with a brief crystal singing bowl sound bath. The practice intends to calm the nervous system as well as create receptivity in the body, heart, and mind.

Transcript

Let's come into a comfortable position as you're lying down on the mat. And take a moment to notice your breath and your breathing. Noticing the cadence and pace of your breath. And take a few deep breaths here, Inhaling through the nose and out through the nose. Just really filling up the lungs, The belly, The chest. Really allowing the breath to expand and open up these places. And noticing if there's any areas along the torso, The sides of the torso, And maybe even the back where you could send a little bit of breath, A little bit of prana energy as you're breathing, As you're noticing, As you're allowing. Begin to connect the parts of your body that are laying upon the floor. Noticing how that feels in that space between the floor beneath you and the back part of your body. And noticing your ankles as they touch the floor. Noticing the heels and the shins. Noticing the backs of the knees, Backs of the thighs, The glutes, The lower back, The mid back and the back of the ribs, The upper back and the shoulder blades, The back of the head, The arms and the hands. So now noticing the entire back body. Noticing if there are any places of holding in the back body, Any clenching or tightness or stiffness that you can breathe into and allow prana on an exhale to release in these places, Spaces. And taking your awareness to the soles of the feet, The tops of the feet, The front of the ankles, The shins, The knees, Tops of the thighs, The front of the hips and the pelvis, The belly, The diaphragm, The chest, The collar bones, The tops of the shoulders, The front of the throat, The chin, Jaw, The lips, The cheeks, The nose, The space in between the eyebrows, The eyes, The eyelids, The forehead, The top of the head. So noticing your entire face, Front of the torso, The tops of the legs, Noticing your entire front body. Can you invite softness into the entire front body? And the relaxation and release in the entire body, The whole body. Surrendering, Letting go, Allowing gravity to take over, Allowing your whole body to sink into the floor as it relaxes and releases. And taking awareness of the breath to the belly and noticing how the breath shows up and the pace of the breath at the belly. And as we attend to the breath here, We'll start to count each breath from 27 down to number one. 27, The belly rises, 27, The belly falls, 26, The belly rises, And so on. With present moment awareness, Counting the breaths at the belly. And if thoughts enter the space, It's perfectly fine. Thoughts come and go. It's okay to have thoughts without allowing ourselves to get caught in the story. Releasing the count at the belly. Just letting that go and once again bringing your awareness back to the body. Understanding that the body is becoming lighter and lighter. Your head is becoming lighter. Your arms and torso are becoming lighter and weightless. Your hips and legs becoming light and weightless. Your entire body is becoming light and weightless. So light, So weightless that it is lifting off of the floor. Now imagine the body becoming heavy. The head becomes heavy. Arms, Shoulders become heavy. Torso becomes heavy. Hips and legs become heavy. The whole body is heavy. It's so heavy that it's sinking into the floor. And so now I'll mention a few things. So try to get a picture of imagery, Thoughts, Sensations, Smells, Feelings in your mind and heart as each of these things is mentioned. We'll start with an oak tree. A gentle rain. A church on a hilltop. Burning embers from a fire. Snow capped mountains. A leopard. Fluffy white clouds. A waterfall. A cabin in the woods. A giraffe. Hibiscus flowers. An apple orchard. A dense forest. A full moon. A bald eagle. A freshly peeled orange. The field of wildflowers. A thunderstorm. Breaking waves on a beach. Freshly cut grass. A rosebush. A dog barking. A cat stretching. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. The sound of my voice. Bringing our hands together into Anjali Mudra in front of our hearts, Bowing to the heart and the light that resides there. The light in me honors the light in each and every one of you. Namaste.