Welcoming yourself here to this practice of yoga nidra,
I invite you to let the body and breath sensing of this meditation create a spacious container for sleep.
Wherever you are,
Noticing if there is anything you might offer to yourself for comfort or warmth,
Perhaps creating a nest or cocoon for yourself,
Making any adjustments that feel nourishing.
And as you settle here,
Feel the embrace of the room,
The space around you,
And welcoming the surface you're resting on,
Sensing all the parts of you that are touching down,
Allowing yourself to rest more and more deeply into that support,
Feeling into a sense of steadiness,
A sense of ground,
Even into a connection with the belly of the earth,
Letting yourself be held.
With the eyes soft or closed,
You might notice how the other senses gently move into the foreground,
Feeling how the body makes this effortless recalibration,
Beginning to see more and more with the inner eyes and the eyes of the heart,
Ears open to sounds around you,
Letting sound come and go as vibration,
Hearing perhaps even the space between the sounds,
Sensing the subtlety of tastes or smells,
Maybe simply the neutrality of scent.
And notice the feeling of gravity,
Letting it ever so gently draw you inward,
Landing more and more in your internal landscape,
And feeling a sense of aliveness that's here,
The movement of breath,
A pulsation,
Or some underlying hum or sparkle of life that's animating the body,
Just this feeling of resting here,
A simple ease of being,
Life living you.
And take a moment to acknowledge your intention for practice.
What brings you here?
What would you love to support or to release?
And perhaps you can sense how this intention arises from a deeper heartfelt longing,
Pointing to what is most important to you,
More important than anything else,
Noticing how this desire of the heart might be revealing itself through your intention.
And then you might bring to mind an image from your memory or your imagination where you feel deeply at ease,
Rested,
And well-resourced,
A sense of being settled in your body,
Welcoming images and feelings of comfort and peace.
Notice how the body responds,
A deep exhale,
Release of pressure,
Meeting whatever feelings of well-being and restfulness arise as sensation.
There might be a softening,
A letting go,
A warmth,
Just noting how this sense of ease lights up in the body.
What does it feel like?
Nourishing feelings of inner ease or simply a sense of okayness or neutrality.
And know that this can take time to practice and to access,
Simply meeting what's here with kindness and curiosity.
Staying here with what's most alive for you or join me as we welcome sensations of the physical body,
Exploring its innate spaciousness,
Bringing curiosity to sensations of the feet,
Soles of both feet,
The toes,
And space between the toes,
Letting attention move up into the ankles,
The long bones of the legs,
Left and right,
Sensations of the hips and the bowl of the pelvis,
Sensing its spacious volume,
The seat of creativity,
Noticing sensations in the low belly,
Low back,
Exploring the whole torso,
Feeling its volume from the inside,
Front and back,
Left and right,
The expansiveness of the chest,
How the ribs encircle the lungs and the heart.
Simply meeting your experience moment to moment,
Feeling your way.
You might weave in that feeling of inner ease,
Of well-being and restfulness,
Attention streaming down the length of both arms and down into the hands,
Pooling in the palms,
Fingers,
And space between the fingers,
Welcoming the inherent spaciousness of the shoulders,
Feeling the distance,
The space between left and right,
The neck and throat,
The mouth,
Insides of the cheeks and the tongue,
Feel the volume of space around the tongue,
And tracing a line of sensation from the mouth into the ear canals,
Left and right,
The soft folds of the outer ears,
Full of space,
The nose and nostrils open to receiving,
And feeling back behind the nose into the sinuses and the eyes resting deep inside the head,
Feeling all around and back behind the eyes,
Center of the head,
Feeling the brain,
Left side and right side,
Sensing the volume of space that the brain rests in,
Simply welcoming your experience as it is,
Feeling the whole head,
Pure sensation,
Neck and shoulders,
Arms and hands,
Torso,
Pelvis and legs,
Feet and toes,
The whole body,
Its central core and its periphery,
Sensing out in all directions how the boundary of the body is permeable and porous,
Body feeling,
Dancing with the space feeling,
Welcoming the body,
Breathing itself,
Feeling the fullness of each inhale,
The release and emptiness of each exhale,
With each in-breath,
How the belly and chest expand,
Receiving breath into the spaciousness of your center,
Each out-breath its own flavor of sensation,
Feeling the subtle release and condensing of the body as the breath empties out,
Surrendering more and more to the weight of gravity,
And noticing the gentle pause at the bottom of each exhale,
Perhaps dropping into that pause as it naturally unfolds,
Feeling that underlying stillness and spaciousness,
Bringing that stillness with you even as the next inhale reveals itself,
Continuing to feel yourself as this underlying stillness and peace,
Breath arising and dissolving,
Abiding in the spaciousness in which the breath is unfolding,
Ebbing and flowing,
Feelings of warmth or coolness,
Heaviness or lightness,
How all of these sensations of body and breath,
How they're coming and going,
Ever-changing,
And how there's something else here too that is unchanging,
Ever-present,
Timeless and unbounded,
Sensing this essence,
This truth that connects us all,
Open,
Spacious,
And still,
The spaciousness that's always here,
Like the space between the stars,
Welcoming everything to be here exactly as it is,
Every part of you welcome,
Every part belongs,
Offering your warm attention to whatever's present,
Resting back into this simple ease of being,
Just this,
And ending this practice with a round of breath together,
Breathing in and breathing out.
