Heart Centered Body Scan

The intention of this meditation is to help cultivate Love within our bodies and acceptance of wherever our body is right now. Take these few moments to create a sense of acceptance for whatever your situation is right now.

Hopefully, my Irish accent can help you to relax into a Moment for you.

Transcript

Today we're going to do a body scan and we're also going to be sending some love and kindness throughout this body scan to ourselves so if you're happy to stay in the position you're in at the moment by all means stay there or if you'd rather lie down just take these few moments just to adjust whatever position or posture you have. As always with the body scan we want to bring a sense of acceptance to wherever we are right now and acceptance to whatever feelings we have but if you're uncomfortable and you feel you need to move I'd ask you to try and sit with the uncomfortable but also don't be unkind to yourself if you need to move move as we transition into our body scan so as we start with all practices we'd set an intention today's intention is to just bring acceptance and awareness into whatever is going on right now just accept in this moment and with our intention we also bring a motivation why are you here why do we choose to practice mindfulness that motivation might be to bring a sense of calm a sense of ease to our thoughts but a motivation might be personal to you you might have your own reasons to practice not just for yourself but for all those people around you so as we let those intentions and motivations just float to the back of our mind we're just going to concentrate on our breath not trying to change it but just accepting our breath where it is right now as it comes in to our nose down to our body is it short or is it a long slow breath can we feel the gentle rise and fall of the belly as it comes in and out wherever that breath is right now we're just gonna try and settle like you might settle a newborn baby by rocking in your arms we're just gonna settle our breath by making our in breath and our out breath even let's use a little count for in two three four and out two three four and just repeating that counts just in your mind as we lengthen our breath ever so slightly in two three four and out two three four just keep repeating that phrase as we feel our breath just harmonizing sense of calm if the counting is uncomfortable as all we could bring a phrase in I know I am breathing in I know I'm breathing out I just feel that rhythm of your breath that natural rhythm as it comes in and out as we just let go of that counting or a phrase and we'll just feel that natural rhythm of our breath inside our body as we bring awareness right down to our body down down into our toes an awareness and acceptance of our toes of our big toe you might feel the feel of a sock you might feel the nail just an awareness of this furthest part of our body as you bring our awareness just across to all of our toes and if your mind is wondered already just with gentleness and kindness just bring your your mind back to your breathing to my voice as we fall awake and bring awareness to the bottom of our foot our soul and down into our heels across to the top of our foot and on our next breath we're just gonna take that breath right down down deep to our feet sending love and acceptance to wherever our feet are right now if there is an uncomfortableness or a strain give that a name is it a niche is it a sharp pain just bringing curiosity to whatever you feel right now they bring our awareness up into our ankles up into our calves and our shins all the time bringing awareness and love right down deep in our breath and on the out breath just melting ever so slightly into your seat or your bed just relaxing the body ever so slightly more on every out breath feeling that release bringing our awareness on up to our knees our knees that support us throughout the day the curve of the knee the back of the knee non up into our thighs their hamstring and now we have a sense of the whole of the leg our two legs to be taken a breath and just send it straight down through our body and just imagine it going down deep into our legs sense of awareness and acceptance of whatever is going on right now for us they bring our awareness up into our hips and then into our back the small of our back again just just sitting with whatever we feel right now it doesn't have to be any way it doesn't have to be perfect it doesn't have to be right it just is what it is sense of acceptance in this moment as we go on up to our back to the middle of our back and up towards our shoulder blades as we bring our love and acceptance into our shoulder blades we just feel them melting ever so slightly just down our back just melting and dropping ever so slightly as you bring your awareness just around to our abdomen to our solar plexus up into our chest into our heart center as we're gonna spend a few moments just sending love into our heart to our heart center this beautiful organ that sends love and life throughout our body just feeling the power the power of our heart as it beats as it sends life throughout our body as we bring breath into our heart center a love and acceptance of our heart the energy that flows from here a gratitude for everything it does as we continue on our journey of acceptance awareness up into our shoulders and again you can just feel those shoulders just dropping ever so slightly more and down into our arms into our forearm our elbows and then into our hands now our fingers each finger from the tongue to the little finger and around to the palms of our hands you might feel a tingle in your hand or you might not just accepting wherever we are right now today and on our next breath we're just gonna send love and acceptance just down deep deep into our hands as love flows from our hands wherever we go today as you bring your awareness just the whole of the body from the neck down right the way down to the bottom of our feet and awareness of this beautiful breathing body on our breath it just drops ever so slightly more relaxing calmness you may have fallen asleep or you may have fallen awake just accepting wherever you are right now as we go on up to our neck and to our throat just releasing and accepting anything in our throat up into our jaws as we bring our awareness for a jaw we also feel it just relaxing just soothing a sense of ease up into our cheekbones and our eyes bringing a softness into the back of our eye letting go of any tension that might be there right now as we continue on up into our forehead easing that forehead down slightly a sense of softness and on up into our crown chakra it's the very top of our head as we now have a sense and an awareness of our whole body so now we're gonna bring our awareness just down into the left side of our body just the left side a sense and awareness of whatever that body is right now and then to the right of our body and then to the whole of the front of our body just a sense of awareness acceptance and love to the back of our body from our heels to the back of our head just a sense of acceptance of wherever it is right now and in our imagination we're just gonna imagine our next breath not coming into our nose but just imagine it comes up to your feet a sense of that breath coming up to the soles of your feet up to your legs your knees your hips your torso your neck and out your top of your head for some this may be difficult to imagine but that's okay just imagine your breath coming into your body whichever way you feel comfortable with as our body breathes here as a whole next deep breath up to her feet up to her body and out to her top of her head as we imagine it just reversing as we take our next breath down to the top of her head down to her throat or torso or to her legs and out to her feet as a sense of her whole body just breathing as one as we just let go of that sense of breathing and we just lie here or sit here just for a sense of rest a sense of ease that we've we've nowhere to go we've nothing to do we just have to be in this moment breathing aware accepting you as I'm gonna leave you for just a couple of moments just in silence your mind might wonder but just try bring it back to your breath as it settles back in your body each time it wonders just accept it let go those thoughts and bring it back to your body as we go into silence and if your mind wonder it's just bringing curiosity where did it wonder to did it wonder to my past or it wonder to my future just bring it back to this moment to where you are right now on this bed or in this seat or on this floor fallen awake in this moment you as we lie here I'm just gonna ask you to bring your mind back to a moment that was happy a moment that you had pure joy in your life how did you feel what did you smell what did you hear bringing all those thoughts sounds and smells just back into this moment and as we worked on our heart just bring them into your heart into this moment bring that sense of joy happiness and acceptance just remember that those memories and those moments of joy of happiness of love they're inside you you can bring them into your thoughts cape into your awareness anytime you can't you want just lock that in your heart right now as we're going to bring our practice to an end in a few moments we're gonna just dedicate this practice we often dedicate the practice to the people around us to people in our circles but today I'm going to ask you to dedicate this practice to you dedicated to all the effort you make all the love all the acceptance of what a great person you are but also the effect that has the rippling effect that has on the people around you I'm gonna ring the bell in a few moments to come back into the room just to bring an awareness and take your time to come back at it whatever pace you want to so just wiggling your fingers and your toes as you come back into the room you may have fallen asleep so just giving yourself permission to just come back into the room gently and with that sense of love and kindness for yourself and for your practice you might want to stretch you might take a deep long stretch overhead wiggling the fingers bring yourself into back into the room