Yoga Nidra: Full Moon Wishes

The moon is full, the evening quiet. This yoga nidra will guide you into the energies of the full moon, giving you an opportunity to explore its wisdom and gifts. Use this illumination to listen to your heart and make a wish.

Transcript

Please find your comfortable position if you're not already there.

Lying down on your back if that's comfortable for you.

Maybe having a blanket over the body or one nearby as the body temperature can tend to drop a little bit when we're still.

Also if you wear glasses you can just set them to the side and make yourself as comfortable as possible here.

Allow yourself to settle into this space.

It's very common for thoughts and feelings from our day,

A week,

Or month,

Year to linger and still be very active when we first come to a meditation.

And that's perfectly okay.

We're not trying to stop that in any way but we can direct our attention in another fashion.

So perhaps it might be helpful if there are some thoughts you don't want to focus on right now,

Some feelings.

Imagine it like luggage or baggage and it's wrapped up inside this package,

This bag,

And you can just leave it at your doorstep for now.

You can always go back to it and put it away later.

But for now maybe just imagine taking those thoughts and setting them aside.

Both you and those ideas will be okay if you focus on something a little different for a while.

So instead start to notice your body.

Feel your legs and your feet and toes,

Your torso.

Feel the shoulders,

The arms and the hands.

Feel your neck and throat,

The face,

The scalp and the head.

And notice the points of connection between the back of your body and the floor beneath you.

Notice the points of contact between the body and the supports beneath you.

And see if you can allow yourself to melt into that support.

Let the back body or anywhere else you touch the supports just melt towards them,

Letting go of any resistance,

Holding yourself up.

Give way to gravity here.

Yoga Nidra is the act of hearing and the act of feeling.

And these are the two important factors.

Here you function on the level of awareness and the level of listening.

It's not really something you do,

But more something you experience.

Yoga Nidra means yogic sleep and we often might drift in and out of sleep during the practice.

It's perfectly okay if you do drift off.

But you will hear me say some cues to check to see if you're asleep or awake.

We also try to maintain stillness during the meditation.

Again,

So we have fewer external influences and can experience more what comes directly from us.

So say to yourself mentally,

I am practicing Yoga Nidra.

Say to yourself mentally,

I will remain still for Yoga Nidra.

Say to yourself mentally,

I will stay awake for Yoga Nidra.

And now begin to listen for sounds.

Listen to all the sounds that are around you.

Letting your awareness go from sound to sound to sound.

Maybe investigating a few sounds a little longer than others.

And notice the sounds that you hear that are outside the room.

See what kind of sounds you can hear that are inside the room.

Notice if there are sounds very close to you.

And then notice the sounds of the body.

There could be sounds of digestion,

Which is very common when we're resting.

Sound of the breath,

The sound of the heartbeat.

Perhaps you can feel the heartbeat as a pulsation.

And then draw awareness to your heart space.

Not just the heart itself,

But this space around our hearts,

Where we feel a deep compassion or love and feel within your heart,

Your heart's desire.

Here in Yoga Nidra,

Known as the Sankalpa.

The Sankalpa is an intention or affirmation we make for ourselves.

It's this heart's desire that we'd really like to be true in our lives.

We like to phrase this heart's desire in the present tense,

As if it's already happening,

Such as I am loved,

Or I am happy in all I do.

Whatever that Sankalpa is for you,

Feel it in that heart space now.

Feel yourself being the Sankalpa and then repeat your intention three times mentally with the same wording and the confidence that it will manifest in your life.

Moving on now to the rotation of consciousness in the body.

Body remains still,

But our consciousness,

Our awareness,

Travels through it,

Experiencing the sensations that come along with it.

As each body part is named,

You simply need to bring your awareness to it.

It might help to also mentally repeat the name of the body part or visualize it.

Tonight,

I offer the visualization of moonlight touching each body part as it's named.

So you're welcome to just experience the body parts with simple awareness or imagine moonlight touching each as it's named.

We begin as always with the right hand thumb.

So bring your awareness now to the right hand thumb,

Second finger,

Third finger,

Fourth finger,

Fifth finger,

Palm of the hand,

Back of the hand,

Wrist,

Forearm,

Elbow,

Upper arm,

Shoulder,

Armpit,

Right side of the waist,

Thigh,

Hamstring,

Knee,

Back of the knee,

Shin,

Calf muscle,

Ankle,

Heel,

Sole of the foot,

Arch of the foot,

Top of the foot,

Right big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

Fifth toe.

Stay awake and aware.

Awareness to the left hand thumb,

Second finger,

Third finger,

Fourth finger,

Fifth finger,

Palm of the hand,

Back of the hand,

Wrist,

Lower arm,

Elbow,

Upper arm,

Shoulder,

Armpit,

Left side of the waist,

Thigh,

Hamstring,

Knee,

Back of the knee,

Shin,

Calf muscle,

Ankle,

Heel,

Sole of the foot,

Arch of the foot,

Top of the foot,

Left big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

Fifth toe.

Stay awake and aware.

And bring awareness to the lower back,

Middle back,

Upper back,

The whole spinal column,

Right shoulder blade,

Left shoulder blade,

Back of the neck,

Back of the head,

Top of the head,

Right temple,

Left temple,

Forehead,

Right eyebrow,

Left eyebrow,

The eyebrow center,

Right eyelashes,

Left eyelashes,

Right eyelid,

Left eyelid,

The whole right eye,

The whole left eye,

Right cheek,

Left cheek,

Right ear,

Left ear,

Bridge of the nose,

Tip of the nose,

The whole nose,

The space between the nose and the lips,

Upper lip,

Lower lip,

Both lips together,

Teeth,

Tongue,

Gums,

The whole mouth together,

Chin,

Jawbone,

Right collarbone,

Left collarbone,

The hollow between the collarbones,

Right chest,

Left chest,

Center of chest,

Upper abdomen,

Navel,

Lower abdomen,

The whole right leg,

The whole left leg,

Both legs together,

The whole right arm,

The whole left arm,

Both arms together,

The whole right side of the body,

The whole left side of the body,

The whole back of the body,

The whole front of the body,

Awareness of the whole body together,

The whole body together,

The whole body together.

Now bring your awareness to your breath,

Awareness to your natural breathing here,

Noticing if you're awake or asleep,

Noticing your breath.

Let the inhales and exhales breathe you.

Make this completely effortless.

Let yourself experience being breathed.

Now feel the breath at the lower belly.

Feel the expansion of the belly with each inhale and the relaxation with each exhale.

Like a balloon,

The belly expands in all directions with the inhale and collapses with the exhale.

Feel the belly rising and falling with the inhale and exhale breaths.

And now as you inhale and exhale,

With focusing on the breath at the belly,

Begin to count the breaths backwards like so.

Inhaling 18,

Exhaling 18,

Inhaling 17,

Exhaling 17,

And so on,

Counting the breath backwards with awareness of breathing at the belly from 18 to 0.

If you lose your focus in the count,

Simply start again at the number 18,

Completely focusing on breathing and counting,

Counting and breathing at the belly.

Now release the count and awareness of breath at the belly and feel heavy.

Feel heaviness in the body.

The body is completely giving way to the gravitational force here.

Your body is sinking and sinking towards the floor beneath you.

There is absolutely no resistance in the body to melting towards the earth.

Your bones feel heavy like stone or lead.

Completely heavy.

Heaviness in the body.

Now release heaviness and feel lightness.

The body is now completely light.

Completely light in the body.

Like the body is made of air.

Like the body is a feather.

So light,

The body rises up from the ground.

Lightness everywhere in the body,

From head to toe.

Lightness in the bones,

In the brain,

In the spine.

Lightness in every part of the body.

Now let go of lightness and manifest a sensation of heat.

Let yourself feel hot.

Maybe there's a part of the body that already feels hot.

See if you can transfer this sensation to the entire self.

Or maybe remember a time when you were very,

Very hot.

Feel so hot now that you are perspiring.

Feel heat in the body.

Now release heat and feel cool.

Feel coolness in the body.

Maybe there's a part of you now that feels cool.

Can you transfer that feeling to your entire person?

Or remembering perhaps a cool day with a cool breeze and how it felt.

Perhaps a cool pool of water.

See if you can create coolness in the body.

Now let go of coolness and come back to your breath.

Feel your breath.

Feel your body.

And then draw your attention to the third eye space.

Bring your focus to behind the closed eyes and the space between the brows.

And imagine there in that space a full moon,

A full moon resting between the brows.

See the light of the full moon shining.

Feel it illuminating your mind,

Illuminating your face,

The entire body.

Bring the focus back to the moon between the brows and see yourself floating on water.

Looking up at this moon in the sky.

You begin to sink into the water,

Feeling perfectly safe as you do.

And the moonlight gets dimmer and dimmer as you sink further and further.

Let yourself be in complete darkness in the water.

Notice the kind of sounds you hear,

What thoughts or sensations are arising.

Now you start to swim up back to the surface,

The cool moonlight illuminating the way,

The water getting brighter and brighter until you emerge back on the surface and you swim your way to shore.

You come upon a sandy beach and you can see the remnants of a fire nearby,

A small campfire.

And there is nearby kindling and wood for you to add and feed the flames.

Fire begins to get larger.

The wood is snapping and crackling.

The embers are glowing in a mesmerizing fashion.

The fire and the breeze are drying you off.

And you watch the smoke swirl towards the sky,

Towards the full moon above.

It's as if the smoke is making shapes.

And you can see patterns and stories,

Maybe even words within the smoke.

The evening has a friendly feel about it.

As the moonlight illuminates everything around you,

The waves on the water seem to sparkle,

The sand along with it.

And you can hear crickets chirping,

Animals scurrying about in the nearby woods.

The night is incredibly tranquil and peaceful.

And then you notice next to you,

By the log you're sitting on,

A small notebook.

You find your name written upon the cover.

And there is a small pencil there for you to write with.

You decide to use this moonlit evening and the flames of your fire to make wishes or release things you don't need in your life.

And so you write these things down on the paper,

Perhaps a wish for yourself,

Or things you want to let go of.

The fire will transform them into a new energy.

So one by one,

For your wishes and intentions,

Place them into the fire.

And watch the smoke swirl towards the sky,

Letting go of whatever you don't need,

Sending your intentions out to the universe.

Now come back to the third eye space.

Watch behind your closed eyes,

Like you're watching the movie of your mind.

And notice what appears here now,

Simply observing and experiencing,

Making no effort to stop any thoughts or images that might occur.

And then feel your body again.

Notice how relaxed you are,

If the rhythm of the breath has slowed since you began Yoga Nidra.

Feel again in the heart space.

And remember your sankalpa,

The affirmation you made at the beginning of the practice.

Repeat it again three times mentally,

Knowing that it will come true for you in your life.

And now begin to deepen your breath.

Be active with your breath now.

And see if you can make the inhales a little deeper,

The exhales a little fuller.

See if you can feel the breath from head to toe,

Through the arms and the fingers.

And begin to become aware of the space around you.

Notice the sounds that you hear,

The sounds close by,

The sounds outside your room.

And behind closed eyes,

Try to remember the room,

The colors of the walls,

The material of the floor,

What the ceiling looks like.

Recall the many objects you share your space with,

And see them as best you can.

See yourself completely at ease.

And then begin to make little movements to reawaken.

Wiggling the fingers and the toes,

Circling the wrist and the ankles,

And circling them the opposite way.

Maybe gently moving the head side to side,

And taking a big stretch,

Taking your time to sit back up in a comfortable position once more.

And when you're there,

Bringing the hands together and giving them a vigorous rub to help signal to the body and yourself that it's time to reenter the world.

You can then place the hands in prayer at the heart center,

Taking a moment to thank yourself for your practice today,

And taking time to reconnect with you.

I thank you all so very much as well.

Namaste.

Reviews

Beautiful, thank you ❤️🦋🤙🏾

Lovely nidra. Helped me fall back to sleep. Thank you and Blessings 🕊️🌕

Lara, thank you so very much for this gift to help connect to this full moon. Your pacing, scan and visualizations are wonderful.