This is Sarah Johnson with a meditation for nurturing and caring for your hardworking hands.
So you can find a comfortable position.
So either seated or lying down.
Support your body in a way that makes it easy to relax your muscles.
And we'll start with several deep full breaths.
So breathing in on your own time,
Expanding the lower middle and upper chest.
And exhaling with long slow exhalations.
Starting to settle down.
So deep full inhalations.
Long slow exhalations.
And just notice your body as a whole.
How are you feeling right now?
Is there any place that is tense or tight that you could relax just a little bit on an exhalation?
So common areas might be the jaw,
The shoulders,
The belly,
The muscles of the face,
Like around the eyes,
Back of the neck.
And some of us even grip or tighten leg muscles or even the toes,
The bottoms of the feet.
Just notice.
And relax what you can.
And as much as possible during this practice,
If you can settle into an attitude of kindness and compassion for yourself,
Sort of a warmth.
Take a break from whatever achieving you've been doing,
Whatever work you've been trying to accomplish.
And let this be a time to be at ease.
So bringing the awareness to the hands.
Start to notice what position are your hands in right now.
Are they tightening?
Are you holding them in a little miniature fist?
Just notice,
Are they warm?
Cold?
How are they feeling today?
So just noticing all this without judging it as good or bad.
Just begin to be aware of your left hand,
The wrist,
The palm of your left hand,
The back of your left hand,
The left thumb,
Index finger,
Middle finger,
Ring finger,
And pinky.
And then the whole hand at once,
All of the amazing structures,
The joints,
Tendons,
The ligaments,
All the connective tissue and the muscles that make this magnificent hand.
And moving your attention to the right hand,
The right wrist,
The palm of the right hand,
The back of the right hand,
And the right thumb,
Index finger,
Middle finger,
Ring finger,
And pinky,
And the whole hand at once with all of those complicated structures.
And now imagining both hands at once.
You can picture your left and right hands at the same time,
Allowing them to be heavy and relaxed.
We're all going through different things with our hands and for some it might be nice to imagine that they're sitting in a cool condition.
So if you've had inflammation in your hands,
If you've had issues with swelling,
Something like that,
You may want to wish for or to imagine a cooling sensation for your hands right now.
If on the other hand you have trouble with cold hands or you feel that due to some condition that you have that bringing up a sense of warmth would be helpful,
Then go ahead and do that now.
So whatever's right for you.
For the next four or five breaths,
Just imagine that your hands are the ideal temperature for you right now.
See if you can bring up a sense of your hands as baby hands,
How they may have looked when you were tiny,
Like little fingers,
Little dimples.
And just picture how these hands have grown through the years,
What you've learned to do,
How you've touched life,
The things that you've created,
The work you've done,
Projects.
Finding some appreciation now to these hands of yours.
And again,
We've all had different experiences.
There's some of us who may have experienced some achiness or some issues with our hands,
With the joints or the tendons.
Imagine that that's like a common human situation for these hands that we use so much.
Just still,
If you can,
With a kind attitude,
Send appreciation.
Thank you,
Hands.
Remembering to breathe here.
Thank you to these amazing hands.
And now bringing your awareness back into your body as a whole.
Feel the arms,
The legs,
The feet,
The back of the body,
Front of the body,
Face,
Head and neck.
And let's take a few more breaths here.
Now some deepening breaths as you begin to complete the practice,
Inhaling,
Filling the lower,
Middle and upper chest.
And then even sawing it out.
Nice long exhalation.
One more like that.
Lower,
Middle,
Upper chest.
And letting it go.
And then wiggling your fingers and toes,
Allowing the eyes to open.
And move on to the next part of your day.
