Hi.
This is a 15 minute body scan practice,
Focusing just on the arms.
So to begin,
Just settling yourself into this practice.
Let's start with your posture.
Finding a posture that for you embodies a sense of wakefulness,
A sense of dignity.
Maybe noticing a change in your posture.
So actually shifting your body position to change your posture.
Whether that means sitting up from the back of the chair or lying down.
Bringing your attention to any sensations of contact with the chair,
With the ground,
Even with your clothes.
Noticing a feeling of weight,
A sense of gravity.
Just noticing how your whole body is in this present moment.
Allowing your eyes to close if that feels comfortable or lightly resting your gaze in front of you.
And throughout this practice,
Feeling free to ignore the guidance if it feels difficult at all and bring your attention back to something that helps you feel grounded once more.
Focusing now on your breath,
This breath,
Just how you find it.
Where it's most vivid in your body,
In the nose,
In the throat,
In the chest,
The abdomen.
Seeing if you can follow the full duration of the in-breath and the full duration of the out-breath as an anchor to this present moment.
Once you've got a sense of your breath,
Now bringing your attention away from the physical sensations of breathing and focusing on your fingertips.
All ten of your fingertips and thumb tips at the same time.
Noticing what this is like.
Whether it feels like one place,
Whether it feels like many places.
If there's a sense of separation or a sense of inclusion.
And maybe having a sense of breathing into the fingertips and breathing out all the way out from the fingertips.
Just doing this as best you can.
If it seems a little weird,
Just kind of going with that as best you can.
Doing what feels right for you.
And as I say,
If it feels difficult at any time,
Just bringing your focus back to something that feels for you quite grounding.
And on an out-breath,
Let's take our attention from the fingertips and now include our fingers.
The whole of the fingers and your thumbs.
Without moving them,
Noticing the finger joints and any urge to move,
To flex,
To extend.
Maybe noticing the spaces between the fingers.
Whether you can get a sense of the place at which one finger ends and another begins.
If you're wearing any jewellery,
Any rings,
Do you have a sense of the contact of the ring on your skin?
And as best you can,
Trying to feel your fingers,
Not see them in your mind's eye,
But really feel what's here.
What sensations are here for you right now?
Maybe breathing into the fingers,
Breathing out from the fingers.
And then on an out-breath,
Including your knuckles.
Ten knuckles.
And starting to include the rest of your hands.
The backs of your hands,
Maybe a sensation of the air caressing the backs of your hands.
Palms of your hands,
Maybe in contact with your thighs or your knees,
Depending on where your hands are resting right now.
Seeing what it's like to include each part of your hands.
Whether they feel separate or connected.
And then breathing into your hands and breathing out from your hands,
Filling both hands left and right with your breath.
And then emptying both hands of your breath.
And then on an out-breath,
Shifting the focus of your attention to include your wrists.
Having a sense of blood flow,
Noticing your pulse.
And your forearms,
Maybe resting on a surface in contact with your body or the floor or the chair.
Noticing also at times that your mind is wandering.
It may have already wandered.
Just noticing that this happens.
Recognising that it's not a mistake,
It's not a problem in any way.
It's just what our minds do.
So as we find that our mind has wandered to thoughts or ideas or plans,
Just gently bringing the focus of attention back to our lower arms once more.
Just whatever we can feel,
Whatever sensations are here.
If it's tightness,
If it's bracing,
If it's pain.
Just staying with what's there and maybe breathing into it.
Maybe breathing out from it.
And then on an out-breath,
Shifting the attention to include our elbows,
Both left and right.
Noting how these joints feel in stillness.
Without flexing and moving at the elbows.
What's an elbow like?
What's the experience of an elbow like?
Noting also any sense of emotional reaction.
Maybe irritation,
Boredom,
Impatience.
Just notice how you're relating to this scanning of the body,
This paying attention to elbows.
How you feel about it.
And as best you can then,
Gently bringing your attention back to your experience of the elbow in this moment once more.
And then perhaps breathing into the elbows.
Breathing out from the elbows.
Just with your breath as it is,
Not changing the breath,
Not forcing the breath,
But having a sense of each breath filling not just lungs,
But hands and forearms and elbows as well.
Then on your next out-breath,
Moving from focus on elbows to also include the upper arms and the muscles of the upper arms,
The biceps,
The triceps.
Sense of the weight of the arms hanging from the shoulders.
Just resting in this moment.
Inactive,
Passive.
Maybe a sense of their potential.
A sense of them being ready to move.
Or any other sensations or thoughts or feelings,
Just whatever's here to be experienced in the upper arms.
Then breathing into the upper arms.
Breathing out from the upper arms.
Noticing what this is like.
If it changes the experience of the arms at all.
If it changes what you notice.
And then on an out-breath,
Let's shift our attention to include the whole of your arms.
From your fingertips,
Fingers and thumbs,
Your hands,
Lower arms,
Elbows,
Upper arms.
And into the whole of your arms.
Seeing what this is like to include all of it.
Not to shine the light of the awareness on individual parts but to include them all at the same time.
Both on the left side and the right side.
And what's here for you?
What are you noticing?
Perhaps now having a sense of breathing into the arms.
All the way in with an in-breath and all the way out with an out-breath.
Softening with an in-breath and letting go with an out-breath.
And then as this practice starts to come to a close,
Just bringing your attention back to sensations of contact of the ground,
The chair,
Your clothes,
Something that feels grounding once more.
Something that brings you back to the whole body.
Until the sound of bells.
