Hello and welcome.
My name is Alex Fisher and I'm so grateful you're here today.
In today's meditation,
We're going to practice connecting more deeply with ourselves by scanning the body.
We regularly disconnect ourselves from our body in order to survive the daily grind.
The busyness of our lives leaves our bodies feeling weary and in need of deep rest.
Yet the societal systems in place today dictate we must keep going in order to pay our bills,
Provide for our families,
And be deemed successful.
But spaces of rest are crucial for our physical,
Mental,
And spiritual healing.
And none of these spaces are earned.
You can access them at any time.
They are your birthright.
In today's practice,
We will connect with our breath,
Then complete a full body scan to reacquaint ourselves with our physical existence so that we may begin to heal our connection to self.
We'll start by finding a position that feels comfortable for your body,
Either lying down or seated in a chair or on the floor.
And just settle in here with eyes closed or in a soft downward gaze,
Making any adjustments that your body feels called to make.
And begin by taking three deep cycles of breath.
Inhale,
Full body breath deep into your belly,
And slowly release,
Exhaling through the mouth,
Making an audible sigh.
Do this two more times.
Deep breath in,
Expanding fully,
And a full breath sighing out.
Last one.
Breathe in deep into the belly.
And fully,
And breathe out,
Releasing.
Find your natural breathing rhythm from here,
And we'll begin to slowly scan the body.
Start at the top of the head,
Down through the face muscles,
Forehead,
Brow,
Eyes,
Cheeks,
Jaw muscles,
Breathing into any tension you may notice.
We'll continue across the head and back of the neck,
Down through the back body,
Your shoulder blades,
The muscles around your spinal column,
Low back and sits bones.
Breathing deeply here as we travel back across the shoulders and over the chest,
Across your right bicep,
Right forearm,
Wrist,
Right hand and fingers,
And then across to your left bicep,
Left forearm,
Wrist,
Left hand and fingers,
And down the front body now,
Noticing your collarbone,
Chest,
Ribcage,
Abdomen,
Hips,
Pelvis,
Breathing down through each leg,
Scanning the thighs and hamstrings,
The muscles around each knee,
Your shins and calves,
Around the curvature of your ankles and heels,
Breathing all the way through each tiny muscle in your feet and toes.
Continue breathing into any spaces of the body that feel tight or tense and see if you can let go a little bit more there.
No need to judge why the tightness is present.
Simply breathe.
Now find a place of tension in the body that feels prominent.
We're going to deepen our breathing here and focus each inhale as a glowing warm light over the area of tension and each exhale,
Breathing our awareness and acknowledgement to the tension,
Seeing if we can find a bit of more ease in this space.
Take some time offering each space of tension in your body a few rounds of full body inhales and exhales as you release and allow your body to more fully relax into the breath.
I'll return here in a few moments.
I'll wait for Dr.
You At the bottom of your next exhale,
Slowly return to your body's next breath.
This natural breath cycle and connect back with the rest of your body,
Remembering your presence,
Reintroducing some small movements to your fingers and toes,
Maybe turning the head from side to side.
And gradually bring your awareness back into the room,
Connecting with any sounds,
Smells,
Or tactile sensations that help to ground you in this space.
Slowly blink the eyes open if you haven't already and find yourself here.
I hope you enjoyed this practice with me today.
I'm grateful you're here.
I like to end each session with a practice of gratitude,
Love,
And acknowledgement of this strange life journey we all find ourselves on by closing with the phrase,
Thank you,
I love you,
Keep going.
Until next time.
